The objective of this report is to identify and evaluate best practices in smallholder private irrigation in West Africa. The report is based on a comparative assessment of the smallholder private irrigation subsector in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, which included a literature review, field visits, and workshops at both national and regional levels. The task lists for the assessment is provided in annex one. This report first presents the main features of smallholder irrigation and the development projects that have promoted its use in West Africa in chapter two.
This report summarizes and consolidates the findings of three Bank studies on poverty issues in Mexico, written as part of the second phase of this work: Urban Poverty, Rural Poverty, and Social Protection. It also expands on how Mexico will seek to use social protection policy as a vehicle for redistribution. Discussed in Chapter 1, the state has a clear role in providing risk-pooling mechanisms where private insurance markets fail (e.g., old age and health insurance), but the role of social protection policy in promoting redistribution is more an issue of national choice.
Over the past 25 years, Uganda has experienced sustained economic growth, supported by a prudent macroeconomic framework and propelled by consistent policy reforms. Annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth averaged 7.4 percent in the 2000s, compared with 6.5 in the 1990s. Economic growth has enabled substantial poverty reduction, with the proportion of people living in poverty more than halving from 56 percent in the 1992 to 23.3 percent in 2009. However, welfare improvements have not been shared equally; there is increasing urban rural inequality and inequality between regions.
There is an ongoing debate on what constitutes sustainable intensification of agriculture (SIA). In this paper, we propose that a paradigm for sustainable intensification can be defined and translated into an operational framework for agricultural development. We argue that this paradigm must now be defined—at all scales—in the context of rapidly rising global environmental changes in the Anthropocene, while focusing on eradicating poverty and hunger and contributing to human wellbeing.
Sustainable agricultural intensification requires the use of multiple agricultural technologies in an integrated manner to enhance productivity while conserving the natural resource base. This study analyses the adoption and impacts of sustainable intensification practices (SIPs) using a dataset from Ghana. A multivariate probit (MVP) model was estimated to assess the adoption of multiple SIPs. Moreover, we used a multivalued semi-parametric treatment effect (MVTE) model to estimate the effects of adopting multiple SIPs on maize productivity.
The study was commissioned by the Advisory Service on Agricultural Research for Development of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and was carried out in cooperation with GIZ Western Kenya and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture in Nairobi. Overall objective of the study was to design a strategy and make recommendations for locally adapted climate smart agriculture (CSA) tailored to smallholder needs in Western Kenya. This included the production of practical policy and technical guidance material.
In developing regions with high levels of poverty and a dependence on climate sensitive agriculture, studies focusing on climate change adaptation, planning, and policy processes, have gained relative importance over the years. This study assesses the impact of farmer perceptions regarding climate change on the use of sustainable agricultural practices as an adaptation strategy in the Chinyanja Triangle, Southern Africa.
The promotion of land, soil and water conservation measures has been a widespread development in sub-Saharan Africa in a bid to tackle degradation and improve productivity. As a result, several governments have launched various campaigns on soil, land and water conservation measures. The aim of this study is to determine some of the factors that influence farmers’ awareness (knowledge) and adoption of land, soil and water conservation practices. Data for this study was collected from 312 households using a questionnaire survey in the Chinyanja Triangle of Southern Africa.
The paper is one of a series of research papers that are designed to timely disseminate research and policy analytical outputs generated by the USAID funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy (FSP) and its Associate Awards. The FSP project is managed by the Food Security Group of the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University (MSU), and implemented in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the University of Pretoria (UP).
The Feed the Future Asia Innovative Farmers Activity (AIFA) is a regional project working to facilitate the scaling of critical agricultural technologies through regional partnership and technology transfer. The project works with a range of agricultural technology stakeholders on a regional basis (private sector, research institutions, governments, networks, etc.) to increase food security, reduce poverty, and improve environmental sustainability by facilitating agricultural innovation and technology diffusion in the Asia region.