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Spillover effects of targeted subsidies
While there is growing evidence of the impact of targeted subsidies on private input demand, as far as we are aware no empirical studies have examined the spillover effects of targeted subsidies for just one input on the use of other complementary inputs with which there is low substitutability. Consequently, this study begins to fill this gap by exploring the effect of increasing access to subsidized fertilizer on farmers use of improved seed in Nigeria.
Measuring Food Policy Research Capacity
Addressing emerging global poverty, hunger, and malnutrition challenges requires prudent evidence-based policymaking at the country level. Capacity for generating evidence remains a major constraint in the policy process in developing countries. We surveyed 30 countries to measure the capacity of their individuals, organizations, and policy process system to undertake food and agricultural policy research. Our Food Policy Research Capacity Index, constructed using measures of human capacity (PhD full-time equivalent researchers per million rural residents), human capacity productivity (publications per PhD full-time equivalent researcher), and strength of institutions (the government effecti...
Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis
The Nigerian Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) provides an in-depth assessment of the food security situation within Nigeria. This is very important as it equips policymakers with timely and relevant information that will aid the targeting of interventions. Some of the most pertinent findings of the study are listed below: Food insecurity and poverty are intricately linked. Some 29 percent of households in the poorest wealth quintiles have unacceptable diets (9 percent poor and 20 percent borderline) compared with 15 percent in the wealthiest (2 percent poor and 13 percent borderline). The poorest livelihoods are found in agriculture. Seventy-seven percent ...
Dynamics of Transformation
Agriculture in African South of the Sahara (SSA) can be transformed if the right public support is provided at the initial stage, and it can sustain itself once the enabling environment is put in place. Successes are also specific to the location of projects. In Ghana, interesting insights are obtained from the successful Kpong Irrigation Project (KIP), contrasted with other major irrigation projects in the country. Through an exploratory review, we describe how a productive system evolved in KIP and how public support for critical aspects (accumulation of crop husbandry knowledge, selection and supply of profitable varieties, and mechanization of land preparation) might have created a productive environment that the private sector could enter and fill in the market for credit, processing, mechanization of harvesting, and other institutional voids that typically have constrained agricultural transformation in the rest of SSA. Slower progress in other projects also raises a number of questions. We conclude by summarizing those questions and some testable hypotheses for future research.
The Child Health Implications of Privatizing Africas Urban Water Supply
Identifying policies which can improve water sector management is critically important given the global burden of water-related disease. Each year, 1 in 10 child deathsroughly 800,000 in totalis the direct result of diarrhea. Can private-sector participation (PSP) in the urban piped water sector improve child health? The author uses child-level data from 39 African countries during 19862010 to show that introducing PSP decreases diarrhea among urban dwelling children under five years of age by 5.6 percentage points, or 35 percent of its mean prevalence. PSP also leads to greater reliance on piped water. To attribute causality, the author exploits time variation in the private water market share controlled by African countries former colonizers. A placebo analysis reveals that PSP does not affect symptoms of respiratory illness in the same children, nor does it affect a rural control group unaffected by PSP.
Organizational and Institutional Issues in Climate Change Adaptation and Risk Management
Climate change places demand on existing governance structures to reform and work more effectively than in the past. In response, greater attention to and funding for climate change adaptationincluding the efforts of National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), the Least Developed Country Fund, the Special Climate Change Fund, the Adaptation Fund, and the E.U. Global Climate Change Allianceprovide an opportunity for institutional, organizational, and human-capacity strengthening. This study was conducted to explore the challenges and opportunities for building human, organizational, and institutional capacity for more effective climate change adaptation in developing countries. It i...
The Policy Landscape of Agricultural Water Management in Pakistan
Irrigation is central to Pakistans agriculture; and managing the countrys canal, ground, and surface water resources in a more efficient, equitable, and sustainable way will be crucial to meeting agricultural production challenges, including increasing agricultural productivity and adapting to climate change. The water component of the International Food Policy Research Institutes Pakistan Strategy Support Program (PSSP) is working to address these topics through high-quality research and policy engagement. As one of the first activities of this program, the PSSP undertook this assessment of the policy landscape for agricultural water management in Pakistan, to better understand how to...
The Logic of Adaptive Sequential Experimentation in Policy Design
Inspired by the wide adoption of rigorous randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in medical research, economists and other social scientists have increasingly used RCTs in their research. As researchers pick up projects amenable to the RCT methodology, they likely leave out important questions to which RCTs cannot be directly applied. As a result, RCTs have been criticized for the proclivity of addressing trivial questions. As a matter of fact, in medical research RCTs are an integral part of adaptive sequential experiment designa few steps must be taken to screen out drugs that have toxins and strong side effects before running any RCTs on humans. In this paper, we argue that economists can learn a great deal from the design principles implemented in medical research. We develop a theoretical model to show the logic of adaptive sequential experiment design in the presence of uncertainty over negative effects and discuss how to choose samples in a population to minimize the experiment cost. We also point out the applications of our proposed framework in the economic domain, such as economic reforms and new product design.
Understanding the Role of Research in the Evolution of Fertilizer Policies in Malawi
This study examines the role of research in agricultural policy making in Malawi at a time when the Africa Union and the New Partnership for Africas Development have been seeking to promote greater evidenced-based decision making in agriculture. Drawing on both theory and actual past experiences documented in the literature, results are intended to improve our understanding of the extent to which research has played any role in influencing policy change in Malawi. This is done in the context of the evolution of the countrys fertilizer subsidy policies. Results point to some general lessons. First, strengthening the Ministry of Agricultures capacity for policy analysis and becoming more...
The Impact of Alternative Input Subsidy Exit Strategies on Malawis Maize Commodity Market
This study has been conducted in order to generate evidence of the visibility of exit from farm input subsidies in an African context. The study simulates the impact of alternative exit strategies from Malawis farm input subsidy program on maize markets. The simulation is conducted using a multiequation partial equilibrium model of the national maize market, which is sequentially linked via a price-linkage equation to local rural maize markets. The model accounts for market imperfections prevailing in the country that arise from government price interventions. Findings show that some alternative exit strategies have negative and sustained impacts on maize yields, production, and acreage al...
