Suchergebnisse

Using a large household survey data, this study examines the impact of government involvement in agricultural service provision on the use of modern inputs by farmers in Nigeria. The empirical methodology used in this study is based on the multilevel (nested) mixed effects estimator and controls for systematic differences and unobserved heterogeneity across sub-national governments. The empirical findings suggest that government involvement in agricultural service provision positively influences the farmers� input use. However, wealthier farmers are more likely than poor farmers to benefit from such services. The likelihood of farmers� input use significantly varies across states and local government areas. Another important finding indicates that the impact of access to all-season roads on input use is heterogeneous across states; it is insignificant in states where the overall likelihood of fertilizer use is relatively high, but becomes significant and positive in states where the overall likelihood of fertilizer use is relatively low. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; GRP36; GRP32 ; DSGD

Central Asia faced unprecedented challenges in 2020 as the global pandemic compounded existing problems facing the region. These included the growing effects of climate change, unstable commodity markets, and a heavy reliance on remittances and undiversified trade flows. Unlike other recent shocks, COVID-19 and the associated policy responses forced Central Asians to change daily practices and routines, many essential to their livelihoods, and disrupted connections at the local, regional, and global levels. The short-term response by governments helped to buffer the shock, while the agriculture sector proved fairly resilient. Recovery in the main destination countries for Central Asia's migrant laborers has already helped restore flows of remittances. For long-term transformation of the region's food system, however, the shock has highlighted weakness in social safety nets and digital connectivity, as well as the risk of relying heavily on remittances and a limited set of exports. ; PR ; IFPRI1; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry ; DGO; DSGD

This paper documents the food and agricultural policy process in the context of agrarian reforms in Tajikistan. It uses the case study of Tajikistan and applies a recently developed conceptual framework for understanding the drivers of policy change. It undertakes a historical review of agrarian reforms and appraises current policy challenges within the food and agricultural sector. Using specific tools to study power relations, financing, and information flows in the policy process, it maps institutional architecture and key stakeholders in the pre- and post-soviet era. Information gathered through focused group discussions, key informant interviews, and recent field research on food and agricultural policy issues is used to analyze factors that drive different stages of the policy making process. We find that understanding the political economy and policy process interface in Tajikistan is key for designing and implementing successful policy interventions. While progress has been made, agrarian reforms towards improving land tenure rights, strengthening WUAs, providing crop insurance against drought, are the necessary steps in a larger policy discussion. Ensuring the effectiveness of land reforms, building agricultural extension system, and supporting agricultural research systems are examples of some key initiatives that the government should focus on. Investments in transportation, storage, credit facilities, and markets involving private sector will speed up the reform process. ; PR ; IFPRI3; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; Capacity Strengthening ; DSGD

Can having higher aspirations, or goals for the future, contribute to the empowerment of women? A growing literature shows that aspirations increase a host of forward-looking economic and political behaviors, from entrepreneurship to civic engagement. This has stimulated interest in development interventions aimed at reducing behavioral poverty traps. At the same time, a wealth of literature suggests that women's empowerment and involvement in decision-making can be welfare-improving. It can increase household income and asset wealth by ensuring that women are economically active and have high levels of human capital; increase technical efficiency on the farm; and improve health, nutrition, and education outcomes for children. Linking these two literatures, we posit that one route to women's empowerment may be to raise aspirations—either those of a woman herself, or those of her husband, who often wields considerable influence over her decision-making authority and access to resources. We find that having a husband who sets ambitious goals for himself predicts more egalitarian gender attitudes for both the husband and his wife. Higher aspirations on the part of wives also predict more egalitarian gender attitudes (for both the husband and his wife), but they additionally predict greater involvement of women in household decision-making. This suggests that efforts to fuel either men's or women's ambition can shift gender attitudes, but that targeting women is the more effective way to build women's decision-making power. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; CRP2; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; G Cross-cutting gender theme; DCA ; DSGD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

"Decentralization has the potential to improve the accountability of government and lead to a more efficient provision of public services. However, accountability requires broad groups of people to participate in local government. Thus, voter turnout at local government elections is an important component of government accountability. This study used survey data on the 2005 local government elections in Pakistan to analyze the impact of electoral mechanisms, the credibility of elections, and voters� socioeconomic characteristics on voter turnout. The rational-choice perspective is applied to develop the specifications of the empirical model. The empirical analysis is based on a series of standard and multilevel random-intercept logistic models. Our important findings reveal that (1) voter turnout is strongly associated with the personal and social gratifications people derive from voting; (2) the preference-matching ability of candidates for local government positions is marginal; and (3) the introduction of direct elections of the district nazims�a key position in local government�might improve electoral participation and thus create a precondition for better local government accountability. The findings also suggest that less educated people, farmers, and rural people are more likely to vote." -- Authors' Abstract ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; DCA; Theme 5; Subtheme 5.2; GRP37 ; DSGD

Nigeria, whose export earnings are heavily oil dependent, has experienced rapid economic growth in recent years. In 1990–99 the economy grew at 2.6–3.0 percent annually, whereas the annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate rose to 7.3 percent during 2000–07 (Nigeria, NBS 2007a). Notably, the agricultural sector has been the key driver of the economy, growing at 6.3 percent and contributing 42 percent to the country's total GDP in 2008. Hence, despite the high dependence of government revenues and national export earnings on the oil sector, the agricultural sector remains the country's mainstay (Sanyal and Babu 2010). Furthermore, because agriculture is the largest employer among all sectors (70 percent of the labor force) (Nigeria, NBS 2006) and labor is the main (and sometimes only) asset for the poor (Agenor Izquierdo, and Fofack 2003), the agricultural sector has the greatest potential for reducing poverty. ; PR ; IFPRI1 ; DGO; DSGD

This study uses an economy-wide, dynamic computable general equilibrium (DCGE) model to analyze the ability of growth in various agricultural subsectors to accelerate overall economic growth and reduce poverty in Nigeria over the next years (2009-17). In addition, econometric methods are used to assess growth requirements in agricultural public spending and the relationship between public services and farmers' use of modern technology. The DCGE model results show that if certain agricultural subsectors can reach the growth targets set by the Nigerian government, the country will see 9.5 percent annual growth in agriculture and 8.0 percent growth of GDP over the next years. The national poverty rate will fall to 30.8 percent by 2017, more than halving the 1996 poverty rate of 65.6 percent and thereby accomplishing the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG1). This report emphasizes that in designing an agricultural strategy and prioritizing growth, it is important to consider the following four factors at the subsectoral level: (i) the size of a given subsector in the economy; (ii) the growth-multiplier effects occurring through linkages of the subsector with the rest of the economy; (iii) the subsector-led poverty reduction-growth elasticity; and (iv) the market opportunities and price effects for individual agricultural products. In analyzing the public investments that would be required to support a 9.5 percent annual growth in agriculture, this study first estimates the growth elasticity of public investments using historical spending and agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) growth data. The results show that a 1 percent increase in agricultural spending is associated with a 0.24 percent annual increase in agricultural TFP. With such low elasticity, agricultural investments must grow at 23.8 percent annually to support a 9.5 percent increase in agriculture. However, if the spending efficiency can be improved by 70 percent, the required agricultural investment growth becomes 13.6 percent per year. The study also finds that investments outside agriculture benefit growth in the agricultural sector. Thus, assessments of required growth in agricultural spending should include the indirect effects of nonagricultural investments and emphasize the importance of improving the efficiency of agricultural investments. To further show that efficiency in agricultural spending is critically important to agricultural growth, this study utilizes household-level data to empirically show that access to agricultural services has a significantly positive effect on the use of modern agricultural inputs. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; GRP32 ; DSGD