As a key pillar of the Ugandan economy, the agriculture sector is a critical driver of economic growth and poverty alleviation. Uganda's agricultural sector is dominated by smallholders with low levels of productivity. The agriculture sector is highly exposed to co-variant risks, which include weather, biological, infrastructure (post-harvest loss), price, and market risks. This plethora of risks suppresses appetite for investment in the sector. Despite the sector's contribution to the economy, farmers' access to finance remains a major constraint.
Lesotho's agricultural system faces a growing number of climate-related vulnerabilities with droughts, floods, pests, and extreme temperatures occurring more frequently. In response, the Government of Lesotho is collaborating with the World Bank to integrate climate change into the country’s agriculture policy agenda through the Lesotho Climate-Smart Agriculture Investment Plan (CSAIP).
This document provides an investment plan for climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in Côte d’Ivoire, developped with support of the Adaptation of African Agriculture (AAA) Initiative and the World Bank, and technical assistance of the CGIAR Research Program on Climatre Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). It identifies specific interventions that define on-the-ground actions that are consistent with Côte d’Ivoire’s NDC and National Agricultural Investment Plan II (2017-2025), which can be funded by public- and private-sector partners.
This technical report covers the rapid assessment of agriculture finance and its recommendations, the findings of the situation and gap analysis of the Uganda Agricultural Insurance Scheme (UAIS), and where appropriate, presents the WBG’s recommendations for strengthening the scheme; it also includes a proposal for two additional insurance programs, one for crop and one for livestock, targeted at small-scale farmers.
This report seeks to support the larger jobs study by examining how investment in South Sudan’s food sector can not only address food security needs, it can generate income and lay the foundation for livelihood and job creation in the country. It argues that applying a value chain lens to investments in the sector can contribute to creating direct, indirect, and induced labor in the food system. The goal is to move the country from a dependency on humanitarian aid to building recovery and resilience in the short term in a way that can produce stable jobs over the medium to long term.
This report identifies key obstacles to job creation within the cashew sector and provides insight on how to remove obstacles. It begins with a general description of cashew culture, its characteristics and cultivation practices, and emphasizes the multipurpose uses of cashew, including a range of by-products that could support generation of new and better jobs. The report also presents an overview of the world cashew industry.
One solution that may help farmers face climate challenges is for them to access real-time water-related information by using smart Information and Communication a Technology (ICT).
Despite the positive attributions ascribed to Digital Platforms (DPs), empirical studies that explore the role of DPs in smallholder credit access are lacking, particularly that which takes into account the dynamics of trust in complex actor interactions in the value chain. Consequently, it remains unclear whether, and how DPs influence trust and actor cooperation in value chain financing of maize production in Ghana.
Agricultural extension in sub-Saharan Africa has often been criticised for its focus on linear knowledge transfer, and limited attention to systemic approaches to service delivery. Currently, the region is experiencing a new-ICT revolution and there are high expectations of new-ICTs to enhance interaction and information exchange in extension service delivery. Using an innovation systems perspective, we distinguish the roles demand-articulation, matching demand and supply, and innovation process management for innovation-intermediaries.
After years of neglect, there is a renewed interest in agricultural mechanization in Africa. Since government initiatives to promote mechanization are confronted with major governance challenges, private-sector initiatives may offer a promising alternative. However, given limited scientific studies on such private-sector options such approaches are often viewed skeptically. One concern is that multi-national agribusiness companies take advantage of smallholder farmers. Another concern is that mechanization causes rural unemployment.