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Regoverning Markets
The internationalisation of food retailing and manufacturing that has swept through the agri-food system in industrialised countries is now moving into middle- and low-income countries with large rural populations, causing significant institutional changes that affect small producer agriculture and the livelihoods of rural communities the world over. Farmers and policy-makers are struggling to keep up with the wave of new demands being made on their supply chains by food manufacturers and retailers. In the process, new questions and challenges are arising: Can small-scale farmers organise to meet the demands of corporate giants? Should governments liberalise Foreign Direct Investment in the ...
Welfare and Poverty Impacts of Indias National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
Indias National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is one of the largest public works programs globally. Understanding the impacts of NREGS and the pathway through which its impacts are realized thus has important policy implications. We use a three-round 4,000-household panel from Andhra Pradesh together with administrative data to explore short- and medium-term poverty and welfare effects of NREGS. Triple difference estimates suggest that participants significantly increase consumption (protein and energy intake) in the short run and accumulate more nonfinancial assets in the medium term. Direct benefits exceed program-related transfers and are most pronounced for scheduled castes and tribes and households supplying casual labor. Asset creation via program-induced land improvements is consistent with a medium-term increase in assets by nonparticipants and increases in wage income in excess of program cost.
Womens Empowerment and Nutrition
Many development programs that aim to alleviate poverty and improve investments in human capital consider womens empowerment a key pathway by which to achieve impact and often target women as their main beneficiaries. Despite this, womens empowerment dimensions are often not rigorously measured and are at times merely assumed. This paper starts by reflecting on the concept and measurement of womens empowerment and then reviews some of the structural interventions that aim to influence underlying gender norms in society and eradicate gender discrimination. It then proceeds to review the evidence of the impact of three types of interventionscash transfer programs, agricultural interven...
The Impact of Food Price Shocks in Uganda
In developing countries, all too often policies formulated in response to high food prices are inspired by ideology instead of evidence-based policy research. We look at the immediate effects of these shocks faced by households in Uganda on their poverty and well-being. In addition, we look at the economywide impact in the long run when all markets have settled at a new equilibrium. We find that in the short run, poverty has increased substantially. However, in the longer run, we find welfare levels of rural farm households in particular to rise sharply, primarily as a result of increased returns to farm labor and agricultural land coupled with improved market prices for output sold. These results call for policies that aim to protect the most vulnerable against high food prices and extreme volatility in the short run, without eliminating the incentives of steadily rising commodity prices for longer-run structural agricultural development.
Agricultural Commercialization, Land Expansion, and Homegrown Large-Scale Farmers
The past decade has seen several African countries increasing their agricultural growth, a trend largely underpinned by increases in land area cultivated instead of productivity increases. Meanwhile, scholars debate whether Africa should pursue a strategy of large-scale or smallholder farms, paying little attention to a special group of smallholder farmers who have transitioned to become medium- and large-scale farmers. This study, therefore, begins to analyze this group of farmers, using qualitative data from in-depth interviews and focus group discussions in Ghana. We analyze their characteristics, ingredients of farm-size expansion, and commercialization. Numerous insights are gained and ...
Droughts and Integrated Water Resource Management in South Asia
Droughts have formed an inseparable part of South Asian history and culture, with tragic consequences for a region that houses the greatest number of the worlds poor. However, this volume challenges the popular conception of drought, which is presented as an absolute shortage-scarcity with respect to an implicit understanding of the sufficiency of water. It highlights the fact that while available water supplies may be a given quantum, droughts are differentially experienced, politically inspired and socially constituted. It emphasises that the relative water scarcity needs to be appreciated, and argues that water scarcity means different things for diverse constituencies of water users. P...
Efficiency and Productivity Differential Effects of Land Certification Program in Ethiopia
security effects (investment effects) and through more efficient input use due to enhanced tradability of the land (factor intensity effect), empirical studies on the size and magnitude of these effects are very scarce. Taking advantage of a unique quasi-experimental survey design, this study analyzes the productivity impacts of the Ethiopian land certification program by identifying how the investment effects (technological gains) would measure up against the benefits from any improvements in input use intensity (technical efficiency). For this purpose, we adopted a data envelopment analysisbased Malmquist-type productivity index to decompose productivity differences into (1) within-group...
Agriculture and Adaptation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to the impact of climate change because it is a low-lying, flat country subject to both riverine flooding and sea level rise, and because a large portion of its population is dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. The goal of this research was to examine the likely impacts of climate change on agriculture in Bangladesh, and develop recommendations to policymakers to help farmers adapt to the changes. In this study, we use climate data from four general circulation models (GCMs) to evaluate the impact of climate change on agriculture in Bangladesh by 2050. We use the DSSAT (Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer) crop modeling software to ...
CSR in Private Enterprises in Developing Countries
This book examines the growing trend of recognition and practices of CSR in private enterprises in developing countries. It identifies the challenges and deficiencies in these practices and proposes means for improvement. Based on a sound theoretical foundation, this book focusses on the case of Bangladesh and the ready-made garment industry to exemplify the described developments. After a brief introduction the book outlines the standards of Corporate Social Responsibility. It compares the trends in CSR practices both in developed and developing countries and then embarks on CSR practices in the private sector in Bangladesh to finally present a detailed analysis of CSR and its practices in the ready-made garment industry. The book not only compares developing countries with developed, but as well provides an assessment and analysis of different stages of CSR within the South Asian area.
An Evaluation of Poverty Prevalence in China
Knowledge of actual poverty prevalence is important for any society concerned with improving public welfare and reducing poverty. In this paper, we calculate and compare the poverty incidence rate in China using four nationally representative surveys: the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) of 2010, the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) of 2010, the Chinese Household Finance Survey (CHFS) of 2011, and the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) of 2007. Using both international and official domestic poverty standards, we show that poverty prevalence at the national, rural, and urban levels based on the CFPS, CGSS, and the CHFS are much higher than the official estimation and those based on the CHIP. The study highlights the importance of using independent datasets to validate official statistics of public and policy concern in contemporary China.
