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Despite years of development interventions, agricultural productivity in Africa south of the Sahara still trails far behind all other continents, leaving many rural populations in dire poverty. This suggests that our understanding of the impacts of agricultural development projects is still imperfect; perfecting it is likely to be a crucial step in achieving development. Projects that raise agricultural productivity, in addition to directly affecting farmers, can have an impact on local prices, wages, and rents, especially in rural areas of Africa, which tend to be less-than-perfectly integrated with outside markets. Price changes, in turn, transmit project impacts to others within the local...
THE FREQUENCY AND INTENSITY OF TROPICAL CYCLONES IN THE PHILIPPINES HAVE INCREASED IN RECENT years, with detrimental effects for the economy, socioeconomic welfare, and food security. An archipelago known for its climatic and ecological diversity, the Philippines is strongly affected by the adverse impacts of climate change, especially in the agricultural sector. Yet, apart from extreme events, it remains to be seen whether the climate impact will be unequivocally negative, or whether, on balance, some parts of the country may experience gains. An enhanced understanding of how these dynamics will affect the country’s major crops—rice, maize, sugarcane, coconuts, and bananas—is intended to assist Philippine communities in preparing for and adapting to these changes effectively and to assist donors and policy makers in helping them.
This study assesses the future growth prospects of Rwanda. The report first focuses on broad economic growth using a rather aggregated 18-sector dynamic general equilibrium model to display the trade-off between rapid growth and structural change. The analysis shows that with the current investment pattern, rapid growth is possible but structural transformation is slow. With an overvalued exchange rate, growth in the tradable sector slows down and its share in the economy stays small. The importance of agriculture thus should be considered in the broad development strategy, for its role not only in poverty reduction but also in economic growth.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in severe income losses, but little is known about its impacts on diets and nutritional adequacy, or the effectiveness of social protection interventions in mitigating dietary and nutritional impacts. We first assess the likely impacts of COVID-19 shocks in Bangladesh and Myanmar on poverty and food and nutrient consumption gaps. We then analyze the estimated mitigating effects of five hypothetical social protection interventions of a typical monetary value: (1) cash transfers; (2) in-kind transfers of common rice; (3) in-kind transfers of fortified rice enriched with multiple essential micronutrients; (4) vouchers for a diversified basket of rice and non-staple foods; and (5) food vouchers with fortified rice instead of common rice. The simulation results suggest modest effectiveness of the cash transfers for mitigating poverty increases and little effectiveness of all five transfers for preventing increasing food and nutrient consumption gaps among the poorest 40%. Rice fortification is, however, effective at closing key micronutrient consumption gaps and could be a suitable policy instrument for averting ‘hidden hunger’ during economic crises.
Although the economy of Papua New Guinea is heavily influenced by the oil and natural gas sector, which accounts for 30 percent of GDP and most of the country’s foreign exchange earnings, small-scale agriculture continues to be the major source of livelihoods for most of the population. Much of the food crop production (particularly starchy staples such as sweet potatoes, cassava, yams and sago) is not traded internationally; however, oil palm, coffee and cocoa are major exports. A large share of agricultural production undergoes little value-added through processing and much of it is consumed by farm households themselves. Thus, there would appear to be substantial scope for increases in ...
Bangladesh has successfully improved national food security over the last two decades, primarily by increasing rice production and consumption. However, the country’s food system remains vulnerable to periodic floods and droughts that seriously affect agricultural production and prices. While food imports can cushion the effects of these short-term climate shocks, there is always uncertainty about whether shortages in global commodity markets will coincide with domestic production shortfalls, leading to particularly adverse outcomes, especially for poor farmers and net consumers. This is one of the reasons why Bangladesh’s government has maintained a long-standing public grain procurement and storage system, as well as a large social protection program that distributes subsidized rice and wheat to poor households. These programs, together with investments in farm productivity, have enhanced the resilience of Bangladesh’s food system to climate and world market shocks. Heightened climate variability in recent years has also led the government to increase stocks and make substantial new investments to expand public grain storage capacity.
The purpose of this document is to provide Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) database for Indian Economy for the year 2017-18. This SAM accounts 112 sectors of Indian economy of which 39 sectors are accounted for agriculture and allied activities, 18 sectors are related to agriculture based processing activities, 4 mining sectors, 24 manufacturing sectors other than agro-processing, 3 sectors related to utilities, 1 construction sector and 23 service sectors including transport and trade. The primary factor input has been classified into 8 types of labor, 4 types of capital and one category of land. The categorization of labor is based on the level of education of the workers and geographical location i.e. rural and urban. The 4 types of capital are; crop, live animal, mining and other financial capital. This SAM distinguishes households into three broad categories like, rural farm households, rural non-farm households and urban households. Households are further disaggregated into per capita expenditure quintiles. Therefore, this database is useful for the scholars and policy makers who are interested to work on macroeconomic policy analysis for Indian economy.
The 2014 Laos Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) follows IFPRI's Standard Nexus SAM approach, by focusing on consistency, comparability, and transparency of data. The Nexus SAMs available on IFPRI's website separates domestic production into 42 activities. Factors are disaggregated into labor, agricultural land, and capital, with labor further disaggregated across three education-based categories. The household account is divided into 10 representative household groups: Rural and urban households across per capita consumption quintiles. Nexus SAMs support the improvement of model-based research and policy analysis in developing countries and allow for more robust cross-country comparisons of national economic structures, especially agriculture-food systems.
Global food, fuel, and fertilizer prices have risen rapidly in recent months, driven in large part by the fallout from the ongoing war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia. Other factors, such as export bans, have also contributed to rising prices. Palm oil and wheat prices increased by 56 and 100 percent in real terms, respectively, between June 2021 and April 2022, with most of the in-crease occurring since February (Figure 1). Wide variation exists across products, with real maize prices increasing by only 11 percent and rice prices declining by 13 percent. The price of crude oil and natural gas has also risen substantially, while the weighted average price of fertilizer has dou-bled. With these changes in global prices, many developing countries and their development part-ners are concerned about the implications for economic stability, food security, and poverty.
The spike in global commodity prices caused by the Russia-Ukraine war has had major adverse impacts on many developing countries, including Bangladesh, that still depend heavily on energy and food imports. Although the Bangladesh economy has rebounded after the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest global trade shock has threated to increase food insecurity and poverty. This study utilizes the Bangladesh RIAPA economywide model to assess the impact of increases in global commodity prices and explores potential policy interventions to reduce negative impacts. Simulation results show that increases in international commodity prices create a GDP loss of 0.36 percent and an increase of three million in ...