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Improvements in agricultural productivity and reductions in marketing costs in Mozambique are analysed using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The model incorporates detailed marketing margins and separates household demand for marketed and home-produced goods. Simulations improving agricultural technology and lowering marketing margins yield gains across the economy, but with differential impacts on factor returns. A combined scenario reveals significant synergy effects, as welfare gains exceed the sum of gains from the individual scenarios. Factor returns increase in roughly equal proportions, an attractive feature when assessing the political feasibility of policy initiatives. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1 ; TMD

The 21st Conference of the Parties (CoP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) shifted the nature of the political economy challenge associated with achieving a global emissions trajectory that is consistent with a climate. The shifts generated by CoP21 place country decision-making and country policies at centre stage. Under moderately optimistic assumptions concerning the vigour with which CoP21 objectives are pursued, nearly every country in the world will set about to design and implement the most promising and locally relevant policies for achieving their agreed contribution to global mitigation. These policies are virtually certain to vary dramatically across countries. In short, the world stands at the cusp of an unprecedented era of policy experimentation in driving a clean energy transition. This book steps into this new world of broad-scale and locally relevant policy experimentation. The chapters focus on the political economy of clean energy transition with an emphasis on specific issues encountered in both developed and developing countries. Lead authors contribute a broad diversity of experience drawn from all major regions of the world, representing a compendium of what has been learned from recent initiatives, mostly (but not exclusively) at country level, to reduce GHG emissions. As this new era of experimentation dawns, their contributions are both relevant and timely.

At independence in 1975, the Frelimo government took over public administration from the colonial system and started to transform it. The public financial management (PFM) system was adapted to the central planning and management of the economy in line with nationalist and Marxist-Leninist thinking. Collapse followed in the mid-1980s, amidst the Cold War and the liberalization of the economy. The PFM system was gradually and systematically reformed towards more transparent and efficient mechanisms, and successful reforms did coincide with high rates of economic growth for more than 20 years, after 1993. The reform process was supported by sizeable foreign aid to the extent that Mozambique became highly aid dependent. As the nationalist agenda became more forceful from around 2005-10, when the existence of large natural gas reserves in the Rovuma Basin was confirmed, the extraction of natural resources became the main government focus as a source of public revenue, and severe cracks in the PFM system started to emerge. The 'hidden debt' scandal in 2013-14, the renewed conflict between Frelimo and Renamo from 2013, and the insurgency war in Cabo Delgado from 2017 put the PFM system under pressure and performance suffered accordingly with significant economic and social costs. The paper brings out how difficult it is to make institutional reforms work, within a structure of political and economic power that may not benefit from them, even in the context of a high degree of aid dependence.

This paper explores agricultural performance of Mozambique, its institutional weaknesses, and the underlying factors that underpin an unsatisfactory performance during many decades. We point to the role of systemic political instability and violence combined with challenges to state legitimacy. Regional divides and lack of market integration continue to influence in a critical and all-encompassing manner. Finally, the way in which the interests of the elite and the influence of donors have affected progress in the agriculture sector suggests the need for concerted reorientation in existing strategies, policies, and priorities. This is reinforced by future challenges, including the extractive industry; population growth and internal migration; national and international markets; climate change; and COVID-19. We highlight the need to place the future of agriculture in Mozambique within a long-term perspective, focusing on the adoption and stabilization of an institutional framework aimed at increasing agricultural productivity and preserving the environment.

ABSTRACTThis paper assesses the implications of large-scale investments in biofuels for growth and income distribution. We find that biofuels investment enhances growth and poverty reduction despite some displacement of food crops by biofuels. Overall, the biofuel investment trajectory analyzed increases Mozambique's annual economic growth by 0.6 percentage points and reduces the incidence of poverty by about 6 percentage points over a 12-year phase-in period. Benefits depend on production technology. An outgrower approach to producing biofuels is more pro-poor, due to the greater use of unskilled labor and accrual of land rents to smallholders, compared with the more capital-intensive plantation approach. Moreover, the benefits of outgrower schemes are enhanced if they result in technology spillovers to other crops. These results should not be taken as a green light for unrestrained biofuels development. Rather, they indicate that a carefully designed and managed biofuels policy holds the potential for substantial gains.

This paper explores the productivity performance of the manufacturing sector in Vietnam between 2001 and 2007. Total Factor Productivity indices are computed using an index number approach and the productivity performance of manufacturing sub-sectors is analysed. We find that productivity increases in almost all sectors and that for many sectors the dispersion in productivity is declining over time. However, for the most productive sectors the gap is widening suggesting that productivity is being driven by the most productive enterprises getting better, leaving the least productive behind. The empirical analysis reveals investment and technology usage as important determinants of enterprise productivity levels. Specifically, higher levels of productivity are found in foreign- and state-owned enterprises, driven almost entirely by higher levels of investment and technology usage. Our results provide a strong quantitative basis in support of ongoing government initiatives aimed at encouraging investment in technology and innovation. They also point to the clear need for such initiatives to be complemented by measures to provide a more balanced distribution of investment, such that a level playing field is created for the different types of enterprises.