1. Bottom-Up Interventions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa—Nairobi, Kenya, May 31-June 1, 2007
   
   
2. Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa—Kenya, June 2006
   
   
3. Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa—Kenya, June 2006
   
   
4. Education in West Africa: Constraints and Opportunities—Senegal, November 2005
   
   
5. Shared Growth in Africa—Ghana, July 2005
   
   
6. Empowering the Rural Poor and Reducing Their Risk and Vulnerability—Nairobi, Kenya, February 2005
   
   
7. African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage—South Africa, October 2004
   
   
8. Ghana at the Half Century—Ghana, July 2004
   
   
9. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods for Poverty Analysis—Kenya, March 2004
   
   

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• Nutrition, Health and Productivity in Urban Ethiopia: Panel Evidence using Instrumental Variables (IV) Quantile Regression Framework
  March 2007
  Kedir, Abbi M.
  Using the panel data (1994-2000) on individuals who reported their wages in urban Ethiopia, we have estimated a relationship between health measures (i.e. height and BMI) and wages (which proxies productivity). Our preliminary findings from the IV quantile regression estimates (which controls for the endogeneity) indicates that productivity of individuals is significantly and positively affected by both human capital measures. The returns to BMI or current bodily strength is important at the lower end of the wage distribution. The return to height (a measure of long term nutrition investment) also falls starting from the 75th wage quintile. Our estimates are robust to specification. The substantive content of the results (i.e. the high-nutrition and high-productivity equilibrium story) does not change even if we did not control for endogeneity of schooling. Non-parametric evidence also supports the strong and positive relationship between productivity and the two key indicators of human capital. There are surprising findings such as the lack of statistically significant link between schooling and wage. This will further be investigated along with other empirical issues such as outliers.
  
  
• Heterogeneous Impacts of Cooperatives on Smallholders’ Commercialization Behavior: Evidence from Ethiopia
  May 2007
  Tanguy, Bernard, Eleni Gabre-Madhin and Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse
  This paper examines the impact of marketing cooperatives on smallholder commercialization of cereals using detailed household data in rural Ethiopia. We use the strong government role in promoting the establishment of cooperatives to justify the use of propensity score matching in order to compare households that are cooperative members to similar households in comparable areas without cooperatives. The analysis reveals that while cooperatives obtain higher prices for their members, they are not associated with a significant increase in the overall share of surplus cereal production sold commercially by their members. However, these average results hide considerable heterogeneity in the impact across households. In particular, we find smaller farmers tend reduce their marketable surplus as a result of higher prices, while the opposite is true for larger farmers.
  
  
• Trade Reforms, Human Capital and Poverty: A Pseudo-Panel Analysis for Ghana
  March 2007
  Ackah, Charles
  In this paper, we present one of the first direct microeconometric studies of the impact of trade protection on household income in Ghana. Tariff measures at the two-digit ISIC level are matched to Ghanaian household survey data for 1991/92 and 1998/99 to represent the tariff for the industry in which the household head is employed. We examine the possibility that the effect of protection on income might not be uniform across households characterized by different skill levels. Specifically, we allow the relationship between welfare and trade policy to differ for households with different levels of education. In the absence of suitable panel data, the analysis applies pseudo-panel econometric techniques to our repeated cross-section data. This method has rarely been used in poverty analysis. The results suggest that higher tariffs are associated with higher incomes for households employed in the sector, so tariff reductions may reduce incomes (and increase poverty), at least in the short run, but with differing effects across skill groups. We find that this positive effect of protection is disproportionately greater for low skilled labour households, suggesting an erosion of welfare of unskilled labour households would result from trade liberalization. We conclude that contemplating trade liberalization without recognizing the complementary role of human capital investment may be a sub-optimal policy for the poor, at least in the short-run.
  
  
• Sex Work as a Response to Risk in Western Kenya
  March 2007
  Robinson, Jonathan and Ethan Yeh
  Formal and informal commercial sex work is a way of life for many poor women in developing countries. Though sex workers have long been identified as crucial in affecting the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the nature of sex-for-money transactions remains poorly understood. This paper investigates sex worker behavior using daily self-reported data on sexual behavior, income shocks, expenditures, and labor supply for a sample of 237 women in Western Kenya. We find significant day-to-day fluctuations in sex worker decisions, and that women engage in sex-for-money transactions in part to deal with unexpected non-labor income shocks. Riskier sex is better compensated in Western Kenya, and we find that women increase their supply of riskier, better compensated sex on days in which a household member falls ill. In particular, women are 23.6% more likely to have unprotected sex, 16.8% more likely to have anal sex, and increase the number of unprotected sexual acts by 21.7% on such days. These increases in risky sexual behavior have important health consequences for these women and on the spread of HIV/AIDS. While not denying the need for interventions that encourage women to leave the commercial sex industry, our research suggests that important opportunities exist to reduce the health risks of sex work within sex work beyond HIV education and condom distribution.
  
  
• Boda Bodas Rule: Non-agricultural Activities and Their Inequality Implications in Western Kenya
  March 2007
  Lay, Jann, George Michuki M’Mukaria and Toman Omar Mahmoud
  Engagement in non-agricultural activities in rural areas can be classified into survival-led or opportunity-led. Survival-led diversification would decrease inequality by increasing the incomes of poorer households and thus reduce poverty. By contrast, opportunity-led diversification would increase inequality and have a minor effect on poverty, as it tends to be confined to non-poor households. Using data from Western Kenya, we confirm the existence of the differently motivated diversification strategies. Yet, the poverty and inequality implications differ somewhat from our expectations. Our findings indicate that in addition to asset constraints, rural households also face limited or relatively risky high-return opportunities outside agriculture.
  
  
• Can Information Campaigns Eradicate AIDS? The Effect of HIV Knowledge and Risk Behavior on HIV Status: The Case of Three Sub-Saharan Countries
  February 2007
  Frölich, Markus and Rosalia Vazquez-Alvarez
  AIDS continues to have a devastating effect on many developing economies, par- ticularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the lack of a vaccine to stop HIV transmission and the very expensive medical treatment, most public policy emphasis has been placed on edu- cation and particular information campaigns. In this paper, we examine the impact of AIDS education from two sides. First, we examine to what extent information campaigns have been successful in reducing HIV prevalence and incidence. Second, we examine the impact of actual AIDS knowledge on HIV rates. The basic policy issue can be expressed as follows: Suppose that everyone knew and understood the basic facts about AIDS, would this reduce HIV rates to (almost) zero? If so, public policy should target groups with incomplete knowledge. If not, information campaigns alone are bound to fail and much stronger interventions are required to eradicate AIDS. Using rich data sets from three Sub-Saharan economies (Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia) we investigate the effect of observed HIV related knowledge on the probability of catching the virus using data on individuals. Our analysis controls for detailed individual specific characteristics including variables reflecting innate risk behaviour that may drive the risk of becoming HIV positive irrespective of HIV related health knowledge. We examine fur- ther how these effects differ between different groups, thereby identifying target groups that public information campaigns should direct more attention to. Results so far are preliminary.
  
  
• HIV/AIDS and Rural Livelihoods in Zambia: A Test of the New Variant Famine Hypothesis
  May 2007
  Mason, Nicole M., Antony Chapoto, Thomas S. Jayne and Robert J. Myers
  The ‘new variant famine’ (NVF) hypothesis postulates that the HIV/AIDS pandemic is eroding rural livelihoods and making rural households more vulnerable to drought and other transitory shocks. Despite limited empirical evidence, the NVF hypothesis has become an important part of the conventional wisdom surrounding the relationship between HIV/AIDS and food crises in southern Africa. This study provides a new empirical test of the NVF hypothesis via econometric estimation of the relationship between AIDS-related morbidity and mortality and indicators of rural livelihoods. District longitudinal data from smallholder farmers in Zambia surveyed annually between 1991 and 2003 are used to estimate several econometric models in order to: (1) understand the effects of HIV/AIDS on rural farm production; (2) measure whether HIV/AIDS exacerbates the impacts of drought and other factors affecting rural farm production; and (3) determine whether these results are consistent with the predictions of the NVF hypothesis. We find little evidence of a systematic decline in rural livelihoods at the national or provincial level as measured by mean household agricultural production, area cultivated, or the value of production per unit of land. Furthermore, contrary to a priori expectations, we do not find evidence of a robust negative direct effect of HIV/AIDS on any of these three agricultural production outcomes. We do find some evidence that HIV/AIDS may have negative indirect effects on rural farm production by exacerbating the impacts of drought, gender inequalities and agricultural sector policy changes related to structural adjustment. This final finding is consistent with the predictions of the NVF hypothesis.
  
  
• Malaria in Rural Nigeria: Implications for the Millennium Development Goals
  May 2007
  Alaba, Olufunke A. and Olumuyiwa B. Alaba
  In recent years, there has been increase in human and financial commitments to malaria control, nationally and internationally, partly due to the need to meet the development targets set in the millennium development goals (MDGs). However, these efforts have not translated into significant decrease in the disease incidence and its impact in Nigeria. Using the cost of illness analysis, the paper found that an estimate of about 10% of gross domestic output of Oyo state is lost annually to malaria attack. This has serious implications for the achievement of development blueprint in the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategies (NEEDS) and the MDG target. Effective control of malaria is capable of reducing household poverty, inequality, welfare and aggregate national development.
  
  
• Understanding the Differential Impact of Institutions and Institutional Interventions on Smallholder Behavior and Livelihoods in Rural Ethiopia
  May 2007
  Liverpool, Saweda Onipede, Alex Winter-Nelson and Shahidur Rashid
  This paper focuses on making the case that: 1) there is differential impact of modern technology adoption on livelihoods for rural households of different asset poverty typologies; 2) this difference can be explained in part, by the differential impact of services provided by various institutions on participation in these modern agriculture practices amongst rural households in different poverty classes; 3) there is a need to assess more closely the nature of constraints faced by different classes of poor agricultural households and the packages offered by different institutional interventions geared towards encouraging farmer participation in various agricultural practices expected to increase their productivity and improve livelihood; and 4) this analysis shows that recognizing target group differences (e.g. using asset poverty typologies) are an important consideration in program development as well as program evaluation.
  
  
• The Economic Impact of AIDS Treatment: Labor Supply in Western Kenya
  February 2007
  Thirumurthy, Harsha, Joshua Graff Zivin, and Markus Goldstein
  Using longitudinal survey data collected in collaboration with a treatment program, this paper is the first to estimate the economic impacts of antiretroviral treatment in Africa. The responses in two important outcomes are studied: (1) labor supply of adult AIDS patients receiving treatment; and (2) labor supply of children and adults living in the patients’ households. We find that within six months after the initiation of treatment, there is a 20 percent increase in the likelihood of the patient participating in the labor force and a 35 percent increase in weekly hours worked. These results indicate that the labor supply response to treatment is both rapid and large. Since patient health would continue to decline without treatment, these labor supply responses are underestimates of the impact of treatment on the treated. The upper bound of the treatment impact, which is based on plausible assumptions about the counterfactual, is considerably larger and also implies that the wage benefit from treatment is roughly equal to the costs of treatment provision. The responses in the labor supply of patients’ household members are heterogeneous. Young boys work considerably less after initiation of treatment, while girls and other adults in the household do not change their labor supply. In multiple-patient households, only the labor supply of girls remains unaffected. The effects on child labor are particularly important since they suggest significant spillover effects from individual treatment.
  
  

• The Relationship between Poverty and Maternal Morbidity and Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa
  December 2006
  Meyerhoefer, Chad and David E. Sahn
  “ Good maternal health is of fundamental importance to a country’s well-being and ability to prosper, and there are few times when maternal health is more at risk than in the period surrounding childbirth. Protecting the health of mothers during reproduction safeguards their future contributions to society and ensures the health and productivity of future generations. If either the health of mothers or their newborn offspring is compromised, there will be serious negative consequences for their families, communities, and the entire process of economic and social development. This is why the United Nations has set as one of its eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the reduction of the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by two-thirds in the developing world by the year 2015... ”
  
  
• Labor Market Activities and Fertility
  December 2006
  Younger, Stephen D.
  “This paper focuses on one aspect of the demographic transition, women’s labor market activity, and how it relates to the basic variables of fertility and poverty. Just as there are differences in fertility and mortality in rich and poor countries, there are differences in women’s time use. In rich countries, women tend to work outside the home, usually in wage employment on a fixed hourly schedule. In poor countries, women tend to work at home or, especially in Africa, on their family’s farm or at own- account activities where time use is more flexible. Understanding the relationship between the demographic transition and these differences in time use is our main theme...”
  
  
• Reproductive Health and Behavior, HIV/AIDS, and Poverty in Africa
  May 2007 (updated)
  Glick, Peter
  This paper examines the complex linkages of poverty, reproductive/sexual health and behavior, and HIV/AIDS in Africa. It addresses the following questions: (1) what have we learned to date about these links and what are the gaps in knowledge to be addressed by further research; (2) what is known about the effectiveness for HIV prevention of reproductive health and HIV/AIDS interventions and policies in Africa; and (3) what are the appropriate methodological approaches to research on these questions. With regard to what has been learned so far, the paper pays considerable attention in particular to the evidence regarding the impacts of a range of HIV interventions on risk behaviors and HIV incidence. Other sections review the extensive microeconomic literature on the impacts of AIDS on households and children in Africa and the effects of the epidemic on sexual risk behavior and fertility decisions. With regard to methodology, the paper assesses the approaches used in the literature to deal with, among other things, the problem of self-selection and non- randomness in the placement of HIV and reproductive health programs. Data requirements for different research questions are discussed, and an effort is made to assess what researchers can learn from existing sources such as Demographic and Health Surveys.
  
  

• Challenging Orthodoxies: Understanding Poverty in Pastoral Areas of East Africa
  June 2006 (revised March 2008)
  Little, Peter, John McPeak, Christopher B. Barrett, Patti Kristjanson
  Understanding and alleviating poverty in Africa continues to receive considerable attention by a range of diverse actors, including politicians, international celebrities, academics, activists, and practitioners. Despite the onslaught of interest, there surprisingly is little agreement on what constitutes poverty in rural Africa, how it should be assessed, and what should be done to alleviate it. Based on data from an interdisciplinary study of pastoralism in northern Kenya, this article examines issues of poverty among one of the continent’s most vulnerable groups, pastoralists, and challenges the application of such orthodox proxies as incomes/expenditures, geographic remoteness, and market integration. It argues that current poverty debates ‘homogenize’ the concept of ‘pastoralist’ by failing to acknowledge the diverse livelihoods and wealth differentiation that fall under the term. The article concludes that what is not needed is another development label (stereotype) that equates pastoralism with poverty, thereby empowering outside interests to transform rather than strengthen pastoral livelihoods.
  
  
• Beyond Group Ranch Subdivision: Collective Action for Livestock Mobility, Ecological Viability and Livelihoods
  June 2006
  BurnSilver, S. and E. Mwangi
  Pastoralism is the dominant land use in 25% of the world’s landscapes and comprises the basic subsistence strategy of 20 million households (Galaty and Johnson 1990). These rangeland ecosystems largely occur in regions too dry for rainfed agriculture, and are characterized by recurrent drought and strong intra- and inter-seasonal variability in climate (Ellis and Galvin 1994, Galvin et al. 2001). Historically, the primary pastoral response to minimize risk has been mobility. Opportunistic and extensive seasonal livestock movements provided access to water and forage resources that were heterogeneous (i.e., patchy) in space and time. This mobility occurred largely in the context of communal land tenure systems – wherein flexible use rights were negotiated through layered memberships in kinship, clan, and lineage groupings (Bekure et al. 1991, Lane and Moorehead 1994, Turner 1999). Recent developments in ecological and common property theories clearly support the logic of pastoral mobility to compensate for resource heterogeneity (Ellis and Swift 1988, Ostrom et al. 1999, Illius and O’Connor 2000). However, over the past three decades, a combination of government policy and internal drivers has pushed pastoral systems in the opposite direction, towards privatization of communal rangelands characterized by little flexibility (Galaty 1992, Niamir-Fuller 1999, Blench 2001). Many scientists are concerned this transition from mobile systems to continuous grazing of private parcels will lead to ecological degradation and spiraling poverty among pastoral households, and a gradual decrease in both system stability and sustainability (Ellis et al. 2001, Agrawal 2002, Reid et al. 2003, Boone and Hobbs 2004)
  
  
• The Policy and Practice of Educational Service Provision for Pastoralists in Tanzania
  June 2006
  Bishop, Elizabeth
  This paper will explore the context within which policies concerning education in pastoralist areas in Tanzania have been formulated and implemented. It will look at the way in which international and national agendas concerning pastoralism and education are manifested in the policy and practice of educational service provision in pastoralist areas in Tanzania. It will also examine the practice of educational provision in these areas, and assess the impact this provision is likely to have in terms of pastoralist poverty.
  
  
• Is Settling Good for Pastoralists? The Effects of Pastoral Sedentarization on Children’s Nutrition, Growth, and Health Among Rendille and Ariaal of Marsabit District, Northern Kenya
  June 2006
  Fratkin, Elliot, Martha A. Nathan, and Eric A. Roth
  The settling of formerly mobile pastoral populations is occurring rapidly throughout East Africa. Pastoral sedentarization has been encouraged by international development agencies and national governments to alleviate problems of food insecurity, health care delivery, and national integration. However, it has not been demonstrated that abandoning the pastoral way of life, and particularly access to livestock products, has been beneficial to the health and well-being of pastoral populations. This paper reports the results of a three-year study of pastoral and settled Rendille and Ariaal (mixed Samburu/Rendille) communities in Marsabit District northern Kenya, which compares levels of child malnutrition and illness between five different Rendille communities, ranging from purely pastoral to agricultural and urban communities. Analysis of bimonthly dietary recalls, anthropometric measurements, morbidity data, and economic differentiation and specialization among 202 mothers and their 488 children under age 9 reveals large differences in the growth patterns and morbidity of nomadic vs. settled children. In particular, age-specific height and weight measurements for the nomadic pastoral community are significantly higher than same-aged measurements of children from the sedentary villages. Furthermore, women and especially pregnant women showed higher levels of malnutrition in the settled communities. Both women and children showed higher rates of respiratory and diarrheal morbidity in settled versus nomadic communities, although malaria rates were uniformly higher in lowland communities than in the highlands. Differences in child growth are attributed mainly to better nutrition, and particularly access to camel’s milk within the nomadic communities. The striking decrease in diarrheal and respiratory diseases for the nomadic children vs. settled children coupled with the findings of a relative decrease in malnutrition and stunting indicate an unexpected edge for health and growth of nomadic Rendille children. The policy implications of our findings are significant. Although pastoralism is not an option for everyone living in dry regions like northern Kenya, the decrease in diarrheal and respiratory illness and for pastoralist children, and the higher levels of stunting in settled children from pastoral populations, should be part of decisions affecting social, economic, and health policy for pastoral regions.
  
  
• Livelihood Diversification in Borana Pastoral Communities of Ethiopia—Prospects and Challenges
  June 2006
  Gemtessa, Kejela, Bezabih Emana, and Waktole Tiki
  This paper analyzes the livelihood of the Borana pastoral communities of Southern Oromiya in Ethiopia. The study employed Participatory Rural Appraisal and survey methods. Stakeholders’ consultations were carried out at community, district, and regional levels. The study shows that livestock mobility would continue to ensure high productivity due to changing environment, change water and feed sources, better pasture supply, etc. However, mobility is curtailed by combination of factors such as population growth and settlement in remote grazing areas, existence of claims by different ethnic groups on rangelands, the impartial impact of drought, increasing settlement to get social services, and the declining number of cattle holding per household. In both pastoral and agro-pastoral communities, the contribution of livestock and livestock products to the household's income is the highest for the rich and smallest for the poor owing to the size of livestock they hold. The destitute households have no livestock. Yet the number of poor households is increasing due to drought. The livelihood of the pastoralists diversified into crop production, petty trades, wage, remittance, firewood and charcoal production, and incense collection. The study revealed that the agro-pastoralists are poorer than the pure pastoral communities indicating that farming has been adopted to cope with food insecurity caused by declining livestock herd. But the income discrepancy between the social groups is significantly high. The rich could generate four folds of the income the poor earns. Finally, the researchers recommended that the need for mobility in the use of range resources in order to cope with the ecosystem vulnerability should be understood by the federal and regional governments. Appropriate land use planning for appropriate use of rangeland and delimiting cropland from rangeland is an essential intervention in a participatory manner.
  
  
• Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Land Privatization on Samburu Pastoralist Livelihood Strategies: 2000-2005
  June 2006
  Lesorogol, Carolyn K.
  Extensive pastoralism as practiced by East African pastoralists such as the Samburu of Northern Kenya, is premised on access to relatively large tracts of rangeland. Most pastoral land has been communally managed by groups of pastoralists who have, over time, developed rules and norms for regulating access to and use of the resources. In recent years, however, a number of pastoral groups have begun to privatize land, raising questions about the implications of this shift for pastoral livelihoods and the future of commonly held rangelands themselves (Ensminger and Rutten 1991, Rutten 1992, Kimani and Pickard 1998). The “new thinking” about pastoralism, which emerged during the 1990s, suggests that maintaining pastoralists’ mobility is critical to enabling them to remain successful herders (Behnke et.al. 1993, Scoones 1994, McCabe 2004). Accordingly, privatization of pastoral lands and the trend toward increasing sedentarization of pastoralists, appears to be a threat to the continued viability of pastoral production and livelihoods (Fratkin and Roth 2005). However, there is little empirical data demonstrating the effect of a shift from communal to private rangeland on household well-being or economic survival strategies. More information is needed to determine the effects of privatization on livestock production and livelihood strategies of pastoral households. This paper presents findings from an ongoing research project inquiring into these questions.
  
  
• Women’s Groups in Arid Northern Kenya: Origins, Governance, and Roles in Poverty Reduction
  June 2006
  Coppock, D. Layne, Solomon Desta, Adan Wako, Ibrahim Aden, Getachew Gebru, Seyoum Tezera, and Chachu Tadecha
  Collective action can be effective means of local development and risk reduction among rural people, but few examples have been documented in pastoral rangeland areas. We conducted extensive qualitative interviews for 16 women’s groups residing in settlements in northern Kenya during early 2005. Our objectives were to understand how groups were formed and governed and what activities they have pursued. Other questions included to what extent such groups can mitigate drought crises and reduce poverty for their members, and what most threatens group sustainability. At the time of interviews, our groups had existed for an average of 10 years, with two being 18-19 years old. Charter memberships averaged about 24 women, 20 of whom were typically illiterate. Half of the groups had been formed after facilitation by a GO or NGO partner and half formed spontaneously. Groups are governed under detailed constitutional frameworks outlining rights and responsibilities of members. All groups have eventually been registered with the Kenya government. Chairladies of the groups are typically elected to two-year terms. Group applicants and candidates for office are carefully screened. Groups primarily form to improve living standards of the members. Groups undertake a wide variety of social and economic activities founded on savings and credit schemes, income diversification, small business development, and expansion of education, health service, and natural resource management functions. The livestock and non-livestock economies become intermixed—commercialized livestock activities provide capital for small business ventures as well as the reverse. Groups have taken an active role in mitigating drought impacts on their members and the scope of drought mitigation appears to expand as groups mature over time. Interview respondents gave many examples of group members that have lifted themselves up from destitution. Relatively few of the groups we interviewed have experienced abject failure, but many have struggled. The greatest threats to the sustainability of these women’s groups come from external factors such as drought, resource scarcity, poverty, and political incitement as well as internal factors such as unfavorable group dynamics and illiteracy. Principles of good group governance and wisdom in business creation and management were repeatedly stated by respondents as the key ingredients for long-term success; making linkages to external development partners is also vital to secure access to technology and small grants. Groups have ambitious plans to further improve their social and economic circumstances; evidence is shown that rates of group formation in the region appear to be increasing. In a highly risky and poverty-stricken environment such as northern Kenya, such groups help create relatively deep pools of social, human, and diversified economic capital. Many of these processes fill large gaps in public service delivery and should be encouraged by policy makers. At the micro-level groups and their GO and NGO facilitators need continued support to strengthen groups. At a macro-level, investments that lead to broader economic development and greater access to formal education in the rangelands may permit further proliferation of sustainable efforts towards collective action.
  
  
• Influencing and Developing Good Policy in Early Childhood Development (ECD) amongst Pastoralist Communities in East Africa: The Case of Samburu in Kenya
  June 2006
  van de Linde, Tanja
  What do we mean by a good ECD policy and are there special elements that are particularly relevant to children from pastoralist societies? Let’s start by a quick deconstruction of ECD: early childhood and development. By early childhood we mean the period of a child’s life, starting at conception and including the first years of primary school usually up to age eight. We look at child development holistically, meaning physical, social, intellectual, language, cultural and emotional development. A working definition of “good” or “quality” ECD is “one that meets the developmental and cultural needs of young children and their families in ways that enable them to thrive”. (Bernard van Leer Foundation). It can also be defined as that program which does not alienate the developing young generation but prepares them to fit into their society.
  
  
• Heterogeneous Wealth Dynamics: On the Roles of Risk and Ability
  June 2006
  Santos, Paulo and Christopher B. Barrett
  This paper studies the causal mechanisms behind poverty traps, building on evidence of nonlinear wealth dynamics among a poor pastoralist population, the Boran from southern Ethiopia. In particular, it explores the roles of adverse weather shocks and individual ability to cope with such shocks in conditioning wealth dynamics. Using original data, we establish pastoralists’ expectations of herd dynamics and show both that pastoralists perceive the nonlinear long-term dynamics that characterize livestock wealth in the region and that this pattern results from adverse weather shocks. We estimate a stochastic herd growth frontier that yields herder-specific estimates of unobservable ability on which we then condition our simulations of wealth dynamics. We find that those with lower ability converge to a unique dynamic equilibrium at a small herd size, while those with higher ability exhibit multiple stable dynamic wealth equilibria. Our results underscore the criticality of asset protection against exogenous shocks in order to facilitate wealth accumulation and economic growth and the importance of incorporating indicators of ability in the targeting of asset transfers, as we demonstrate with simulations of alternative asset transfer designs.
  
  
• Conservation, Land Rights and Livelihoods in the Tarangire Ecosystem of Tanzania: Increasing Incentives for Non-conservation Compatible Land Use Change through Conservation Policy
  June 2006
  Sachedina, Hassan
  For millennia, pastoralists have shared landscapes with wildlife throughout Africa (Pilgram, Siiriäinen et al. 1990; Homewood and Rodgers 1991; Little, Dyson-Hudson et al. 1999). Throughout the 20th century, this co-existence has been in decline as conservation policy excluded people and livestock from protected areas, and demographic growth and expanding agriculture excluded wildlife use (Ellis and Swift 1988; Pagiola, Kellenberg et al. 1998; Homewood, Lambin et al. 2001; Serneels and Lambin 2001). Concurrently, many pastoral systems across the globe, including those of Maasai pastoralists in Tanzania, are believed to be in decline and under unprecedented pressure to diversify livestock based economies. In East Africa, an estimated 70 percent of wildlife populations are dispersed outside protected areas on land which overlaps with pastoralism (Western and Gichohi 1993). The presence of unfenced and uncultivated rangelands adjacent to protected areas increases the total range of resources available to wildlife, and enhances long-term survival as predicted by island bio-geographic theory (Western and Ssemakula 1981). Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBRNM) is one approach that has been proposed as a way of enhancing protected areas by creating economic incentives for local communities to manage wildlife on their lands and enable wildlife to compete as a form of land use. The economic and ecological impacts of CBNRM in pastoral communities are still largely unknown (Caro 1998). CBNRM projects are being initiated across northern Tanzania encouraged by central government agencies and international conservation organisations, with a focus on establishing revenue generating, community based tourism projects on Village land that has been zoned for conservation.
  
  
• Livelihood Choices and Returns among Agro-Pastoralists in Southern Kenya
  June 2006
  Radeny, M., D. Nkedianye, P. Kristjanson, and M. Herrero
  This article addresses livelihood choices and income diversification strategies among agro-pastoralists and pastoralists in southern Kenya, and the factors influencing the returns to the diverse livelihood strategies being pursued. We explore how variability in income and wealth levels across households can be explained by household-level versus geographic factors. We find that household livestock asset levels, education level, landholdings, and diversification of household income sources can largely explain how well households are doing. Geographic factors such as distance to the nearest town, permanent water source, and Nairobi National Park, as well as pasture potential also matter in some cases, but relatively little compared to household-level factors. Investments in livestock remain key to how well households are doing and in some cases appear to be driving livelihood diversification strategies that keep them from falling into poverty. While relatively few households are yet receiving wildlife conservation-related income, for those that are, it is a more lucrative option than cropping, from which very few are earning positive returns. This information can contribute to more evidence-based decision making occurring across pastoral areas and inform policy decisions regarding conservation of wildlife and poverty reduction strategies.
  
  
• Pastoralists Preferences for Cattle Traits: Letting Them Be Heard
  June 2006
  Ouma, Emily, Awudu Abdulai and Adam Drucker
  This paper investigates preferences for cattle traits among a pastoral community in a trypanosomosis prevalent area in Kenya. Choice experiments and mixed logit models are employed to estimate economic values of preferred traits which could be introduced through systematic breeding in breed improvement programs that utilise trypanotolerance trait. The findings suggest preference for traits linked to drought tolerance, high live weight, trypanotolerance and fecundity. Identification and estimation of preferred traits provides useful information for breeding policy and provides a framework for promoting conservation of breeds that possess adaptability traits, critical for arid and semi-arid areas.
  
  
• Cattle Breeding Strategies using Genetic Markers as a Pathway for Improving Competitiveness of Pastoral Systems in Kenya
  June 2006
  Janssen-Tapken, Ulrike, Haja N. Kadarmideen and Peter von Rohr
  Pastoralists in Kenya have increasingly become less food secure and vulnerable to poverty over the last two decades. This is due to increasing human population and changes in land tenure system as well as the harsh agro-climatic conditions associated with their environments. (Rushton, et al., 2002, Wollny, 2003) Livestock keeping is the mainstay of the pastoral systems and 15 million livestock keepers in rangeland-based systems in Sub-Saharan Africa are poor according to the national poverty rate (Thornton, et al., 2003). The enterprise is beset by several constraints, one of the most important of which is livestock diseases, particularly endemic diseases transmitted by vectors such as ticks and tsetse flies (Rushton, et al., 2002). Resistance against trypanocides for controlling tsetse-transmitted trypanosomiasis becomes increasingly a problem (Geerts, et al., 2001, Sinyangwe, et al., 2004). Owing to the strong attachment to livestock by the pastoral communities, any poverty alleviation goal targeted at pastoral communities will have to focus on strategies to improve livestock productivity by minimizing some of the livestock enterprise constraints. One of the issues that this paper focuses on is the breeding strategies as a pathway to minimize cattle disease constraints, especially trypanosomosis, which is ranked among the top ten global cattle diseases impacting on the poor in pastoral systems (Thornton, et al., 2002) As will be shown, our strategy is to develop cattle breeding schemes to ensure genetic gain through selection programs that utilize identified trypanotolerant genotypes, using conventional genetic evaluation techniques with or without the use of genetic (DNA) markers for trypanotolerance.
  
  
• Conflict Minimizing Strategies on Natural Resource Management and Use: The Case for Managing and Coping with Conflicts between Wildlife and Agropastoral Production Resources in Transmara District, Kenya
  June 2006
  Nyamwaro, S.O., G.A. Murilla, M.O.K. Mochabo and K.B. Wanjala
  It is now well known that a large proportion (up to 90%) of the wildlife population is not contained within the designated areas (the national parks and game reserves) in Kenya. The wildlife thus coexists and interacts with humans and livestock. Research was initiated in Transmara district of Kenya to identify and document factors contributing to competition for and conflicts over management and use of wildlife interactions with agro-pastoral production resources. The research was aimed at finding out: (a) causes leading to competition for and conflicts over multiple land uses, (b) whether the policy on Wildlife Compensation Schemes* is necessary and sufficient, (c) extent of losses incurred and benefits received by local communities due to wildlife interactions, and (d) how the conflicts are managed. Informal and formal socioeconomic surveys were undertaken to collect both secondary and primary information on perceptions of communities about the stated issues. About 97% of the respondents indicated that wildlife is the major cause of conflicts affecting local human communities. Elephants, baboons and leopards were the most destructive and dreadful wild animals. Losses that were incurred by the local communities in the past one year were in the form of human deaths (9%) and injuries (7%), cattle deaths (35%) and injuries (15%), and sheep and goats’ deaths (80%) and injuries (23%). The most affected gender groups were the school-going children (56%) and male adults (21%). Some of the local people (32%) indicated that they used to receive indirect benefits in terms of social amenities that are no longer being received. Most respondents (65%) pointed to a unanimous view that wild animals provided little benefits but destruction to people. Majority of the respondents (72%) appeared to be aware that Wildlife Compensation Schemes were in existence but on the other hand most of them (73%) did not necessarily know why the schemes are there for or how they operated. The most cited solutions to minimize and manage such conflicts were putting up a perimeter fence around Mara National Game Reserve, getting rid of wildlife using every means possible, and increasing and expanding wildlife compensation rates. Respondents also proposed that equitable sharing of earnings from wildlife resources be initiated and implemented in an acceptable and amicable manner. The respondents further suggested that for the new proposals to be actualized they should be incorporated into a reviewed broad-based wildlife policy. This would go a long way in contributing to poverty alleviation for the Maasai pastoralists and agropastolarists.
  *Compensation Schemes are Acts of Parliament first enacted in 1976 and amended in 1989 stating the rules, regulations and procedures of getting compensated either in monetary terms or in kind by the government when land owners and their livestock are killed or injured and their properties destroyed.
  
  
• Empirical Forecasting of Slow-Onset Disasters for Improved Emergency Response: An Application to Kenya’s Arid North
  June 2006 (rev. November 2006)
  Mude, Andrew, Christopher B. Barrett, John G. McPeak, Robert Kaitho, Patti Kristjansen
  Mitigating the negative welfare consequences of crises such as droughts, floods, and disease outbreaks, especially in highly vulnerable areas insufficiently equipped to prevent food and livelihood security crisis in the face of adverse shocks, is a major challenge in many areas of the world. Given the finite resources allocated for emergency response, and an the expected increase in incidences of humanitarian catastrophe due to changing climactic patterns, there is a need for the development of rigorous and efficient methods of early warning and emergency needs assessment. In this paper we develop an empirical model, based on a relatively parsimonious set of regularly measured variables from communities in Kenya’s Arid North, that generates sufficiently accurate forecasts of the likelihood of famine with at least three months lead time. While several early warning and emergency needs assessment guides exist, our empirical forecasting method has the advantage of demonstrable statistical rigor and out-of-sample performance. Such a forecasting model is an invaluable tool for emergency awareness and response needs, offering rigorous, cost-effective and practical early warning capacity.
  
  
• Property Rights among Afar Pastoralists of Northeastern Ethiopia: Forms, Changes and Conflicts
  June 2006
  Hundie, Bekele
  This study has been conducted in three districts in Afar of Northeastern Ethiopia. The objective is to (1) describe the traditional land use arrangements among pastoralists; (2) explain changes in pastoral customary rights; (2) explain resource-based conflicts among various pastoral groups. The results show that the state is the giant actor behind property right changes especially in areas with better resource endowments. The state-driven changes in customary rights have led to increasing conflicts between pastoralists and the state. It also created disparity among clan members in the level of resource use as it facilitated the exclusion of some clan members. In addition to the state, natural as well as socioeconomic challenges are important in explaining the current changes in land use arrangements. It is also evident that, conflicts nurtured by obscurely defined property rights are extensive among pastoral groups causing humanitarian crisis (especially of the active labor force), loss of assets (primarily livestock), underutilization of pastoral resources by creating “no go” areas, and underutilization of market opportunities.
  
  
• Maasai Pastoralists: Diversification and Poverty
  June 2006
  Homewood, K., E. Coast, S. Kiruswa, S. Serneels, M. Thompson, and P. Trench
  Sub-Saharan African pastoralism involves highly fluid production systems responding flexibly to variable and unpredictable arid and semi arid rangeland environments. Household wealth is typically subject to stochastic events and most pastoralist groups have a history of entire families shifting in and out of the system as their fortunes have changed. This potential to re-enter the system has been maintained by the often communal nature of land tenure in pastoral societies, alongside the potential to restock through raiding, trading (including wild resources), or cultivation. However, the last hundred years have seen a drastic decline in the commons available for extensive pastoralism. Large areas of land have been given over to alternative uses as pastoral populations have become marginalized within most African nation states. Extensive land loss to conservation and rapid piecemeal privatisation of formerly communal rangelands for agriculture and ranching enterprises are framed within an environmental discourse that invokes Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons to justify land alienation and subdivision. This process has entailed the loss of access to key dry season land and water resources.
  
  
• Contextualising Conflict: Introduced Institutions and Political Networks Combating Pastoral Poverty
  June 2006
  Zaal, Fred and Morgan Ole Siloma
  Poverty and conflict both bring to mind images of destitution. Conflict causes destruction, destitution and disruption of society. The resources to which people have access are damaged to the degree that livelihoods are threatened and poverty is increased. Poverty may also lead to conflict as righteous claims on resources are not met (Verstegen 2001) and scarce resources are competed about (Homer-Dixon 1999). However, this last relationship may be a simplification, as there are many other causes for conflict that hide behind this simple explanation. For example, it may be that not the poor among themselves compete for scarce resources, but that parties previously not involved start to compete with the local poor. The poor may not even have the resources to start a conflict, but rather the well off who through a lack of political, social and cultural mechanisms for control, compete freely for access to resources. As conflict-resolution mechanisms are likely to be absent in those cases, there is very little likelihood of conflicts being moderated once they break out unhindered. In fact, conflicts may be the unavoidable outcome in any society where processes of resource access and distribution are not handled through established political institutions and their controlling elites (Verstegen 2001).
  
  
• Strengthening Pastoralists’ Voice in Shaping Policies for Sustainable Poverty Reduction in ASAL Regions of East Africa
  June 2006
  Hesse, Ced and Michael Ochieng Odhiambo
  The absence of a representative and effective pastoral civil society movement capable of articulating its members’ vision of their development is one of the key factors explaining why policies for pastoral development continue to fail, and poverty and conflict still characterise many pastoral communities in East Africa. Development experience in pastoral regions, particularly since independence, has clearly shown that pastoral people tend to lack the knowledge, political clout and resources with which to fight their own cause, and thus remain vulnerable to other people’s interpretation of what is best for them. In particular, policy makers continue to impose on pastoralists what they perceive to be good for them with little or no reference to the communities themselves. That these perceptions are for the most part founded on stereotypes of what pastoralism and pastoral land use is, only serves to compound the problem.
  
  
• Collective Action and Informal Institutions: The Case of Agropastoralists of Eastern Ethiopia
  June 2006
  Beyene, Fekadu
  An increasing scarcity of water for crop farming and livestock watering among agropastoralists of Mieso in Eastern Ethiopia has largely disrupted their livelihoods. Indigenous water well maintenance and government initiated rainwater harvesting are two important collective actions common among these communities. With the aim of examining collective action institutions in both cases, we collected data from different stakeholders and individual members. Theoretically, low level of physical assets (action resource) limits participation of an individual in collective action. In our case, other factors such as environmental uncertainty and lower level of dependence on the resource have been found to be more significant in limiting membership than limitation of assets. Poor agropastoralists depend on their informal networks to have access to other assets. This enables them to maintain their membership. Moreover, there is a difference between self-organized and imposed collective action in terms of rule enforcement and sanctioning. Institutions also produce different incentives in that free riding leads to automatic exclusion in water harvesting, whereas poor members who continue free riding can benefit from the water well. In evaluating the success, we conclude that technical capacity of members in benefiting from their collective action is limited and deserves more attention than their ability to develop effective collective action institutions. Technical capacity development of user groups needs to be central in policy and programs addressing this.
  
  

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• Public Education Expenditure and Defence Spending in Nigeria: An Empirical Investigation
  November 2005
  Adebiyi, Michael Adebayo and Oderinde Oladele
  In this study, we set out to empirically investigate the empirical relationship between public education expenditure and defence spending in Nigeria, using annual time series data from 1970 to 2003. Some statistical tools are employed to explore the relationship between these variables. The study examines stochastic characteristics of each time series by testing their stationarity using Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillip Perron (PP) tests. This is followed by estimating the error correction model of public education expenditure. The effects of stochastic shocks of public education expenditure and defence spending are explored, using vector autoregressive (VAR) model. Although it is contended by some that the military may contribute towards the promotion of the modernization of developing societies through the enhancement of the quality and quantity of human capital by, among others, dismantling social rigidities, there is limited conclusive evidence to support this view. In fact, a negative trade-off between defence spending and public education expenditure (used as a proxy for human capital formation) is generally expected. A regression analysis of the relationship between military spending and public education expenditure in Nigeria between 1970 and 2003 is positive and statistically significant in all the techniques employed. It should be pointed out that the statistical analyses conducted in this study are concerned only with reported public expenditures on education. Inasmuch as private education and private expenditures on public education are excluded, the data employed understate the country’s commitment to education. With this caveat in mind, the study concludes that it is not unlikely that military activity has served to enhance the productive capability of the Nigerian economy via some modernizing effect. Thus, in the short and long run, the impact of military expenditure on Nigeria’s stock of human capital, particularly education, has been positive.
  
  
• Impact de la pauvreté sur la scolarisation et le travail des enfants de 6-14 ans au Togo (Effect of poverty on schooling and child labor in Togo)
  November 2005
  Adjiwanou, Vissého
  Based on “Family, migrations and urbanizations” the survey was carried out on 2000 by the Unity of Research in Demography (University of Lomé). This paper aims to estimate the effect of poverty on schooling and child labor. About 2946 children were interviewed with 46% girls; 28% go only to school, 49% combine school and work, 15% work only, and 7% do neither work nor go school. The obtained results are based upon the bivariate probit model. The results point out that household poverty is one of the factor that discourages parents to send children to school.
  
  
• Education, Allocation, Unemployment and Economy Growth in Nigeria: 1970-2004
  November 2005
  Ajetomobi, J. O. and A. B. Ayanwale
  This paper examined education expenditure trend, higher education student enrolment and linkage with unemployment and economic growth in Nigeria. Data for the study came from several issues of Central Bank of Nigeria annual reports and statement of account, Federal Ministry of Education and National University Commission (N.U.C). The results show that Government funding is unstable and unpredictable, capital and recurrent funding since 1970 are only a very small fraction of the nation’s budget, total enrolment contrasts sharply with level of employment because government could not limit enrolment to a level which fund made available could adequately cater for and the proportion of GDP that goes to education is still low.
  
  
• Economic Analysis of Private Returns to Investment in Education in Cameroon
  November 2005
  Amin, Aloysius Ajab and Wilfred J. Awung
  Since 1960, the Cameroon Government has invested very heavily in Cameroon’s educational system—nursery through to higher education level. There has been pressure on the government to put more emphasis on the primary level rather than on tertiary level. The paper’s findings strongly suggest that emphasis should be on all the educational levels, and more so, on the tertiary level. The conclusion is drawn from the earnings function model from which estimates are brought out on the average rate of return to education with the marginal return referring to additional year of education at the different levels.
  
  
• Long Run Relationship between Education and Economic Growth in Nigeria: Evidence from the Johansen’s Cointegration Approach
  November 2005
  Babatunde, Musibau Adetunji and Adefabi, Rasak Adetunji
  This paper investigates the long run relationship between education and economic growth in Nigeria between 1970 and 2003 through the application of Johansen Cointegration technique and Vector Error Correction Methodology. It examines two different channels through which human capital can affect long run economic growth in Nigeria. The first channel is when human capital is a direct input in the production function and the second channel is when the human capital affects the technology parameter. The Johansen Cointegration result establishes a long run relationship between education and economic growth. A well educated labour force appears to significantly influence economic growth both as a factor in the production function and through total factor productivity.
  
  
• Improving Schools in a Context of Decentralization: Findings from Research in West Africa – Benin, Guinea, Mali and Senegal
  November 2005
  De Grauwe, A. and C. Lugaz (IIEP); D. Odushina and M. Moustapha (Bénin) ; D. Baldé (Guinée) ; D. Dougnon (Mali); and C. Diakhaté (Sénégal)
  Discussions on decentralization have increased in complexity in recent years because of the deepened realization that the ‘school’ as an institutional unit is a core actor in ensuring educational quality. A growing number of studies demonstrate that the management of a school, the relationships between the different actors (the head teacher, the teachers and the community) and the school’s own involvement in defining and evaluating its improvement have a profound impact on the quality of education. This ‘autonomization’ of the school in combination with the more traditional forms of decentralization, has led to greater diversity in the policies implemented in different countries.
  
  
• L’impact des niveaux de qualification de la main d’oeuvre sur la productivité des enterprises: analyse appliquée au secteur industriel sénégalais
  November 2005
  Dia, Abdoul Alpha
  Sur la question des effets du capital humain, les études consacrées aux pays africains sont relativement rares, et en grande majorité, il s’agit d’ailleurs soit d’analyses macroéconomiques, soit d’études consacrées au secteur agricole. Dans le cadre de cette étude, nous nous proposons d’analyser l’impact des niveaux de qualification de la main d’oeuvre industrielle sur les performances productives des entreprises. Plus particulièrement, quatre catégories de main d’oeuvre sont ici prises en compte : (i) les cadres, (ii) les techniciens supérieurs, (iii) les techniciens et agents de maîtrise, et enfin (iv) les employés ouvriers et manoeuvres. Les résultats obtenus ici n’indiquent globalement pas un impact considérable de la structure des qualifications (et plus particulièrement des catégories de main d’oeuvre les plus qualifiées) sur les performances productives, et ce quelle que soit la spécification retenue (Cobb-Douglas ou Translog). Assurément, il s’agit ici d’un résultat très largement contre-intuitif, qui s’oppose autant aux postulats de la théorie économique qu’aux résultats de la recherche internationale consacrée à cette question (cf. plus particulièrement les études conduites en France, aux Etats Unis ou en Grande Bretagne). En ce qui concerne les facteurs en mesure d’expliquer un tel résultat, ils sont de plusieurs ordres : la faible qualité des formations dispensées (et donc la forte inadéquation formation/emploi), le poids très minime de la main d’oeuvre qualifiée au sein des entreprises (on serait donc en présence d’un effet de seuil), la répartition très inégale de la main d’oeuvre industrielle (et plus particulièrement l’hypertrophie des services administratifs au détriment des services “productifs”), et enfin les caractéristiques structurelles du secteur industriel sénégalais (cf. notamment le faible niveau de progrès technique caractérisant la plupart des entreprises, lequel aurait donc globalement tendance à limiter le potentiel productif du capital humain).
  
  
• La dimension économique de l’efficacité externe de l’éducation en Afrique de l’Ouest
  November 2005
  Duret, Elsa, Mathias Kuepie, Christophe Nordman, and François Roubaud
  Les analyses ciblant l’efficacité externe1 des systèmes éducatifs s’intéressent à l’influence de l’éducation reçue par les individus après qu’ils sont sortis des écoles et établissements de formation pour mener à bien leur vie d’adulte au sein de la société. Ces effets sont de deux ordres, économiques dans un sens étroit, sociaux dans une conception plus large, et peuvent être lus à travers deux dimensions complémentaires : individuelle d’une part, collective d’autre part. Le croisement de ces deux perspectives offre un tableau synthétique des différentes analyses qui peuvent être conduites dans ce domaine...
  
  
• Causes of low academic performance of primary school pupils in the Shama Sub-Metro of Shama Ahanta East Metropolitan Assembly (SAEMA) in Ghana
  November 2005
  Kafui Etsey
  Shama Ahanta East Metropolitan Assembly (SAEMA) is one of the district assemblies in the Western Region of Ghana. It is one of the three metropolitan assemblies in the country. The other two are Accra-Tema and Kumasi. SAEMA is located about 210 kilometres along the coast, west of Accra and is divided into three sub-metro district councils which are Shama, Sekondi and Takoradi. The twin city of Sekondi-Takoradi is both the district capital and the regional capital. The Shama sub-metro is made up of Shama and Inchaban circuits. The poor academic performance of pupils in the Shama sub-metro of the Shama Ahanta Metropolis has been a concern for the metropolitan assembly over the past few years. The schools have shown poor performances in all public examinations and as one director puts it, ‘their BECE results have been appalling’...The purpose of this study therefore is to obtain evidence of the factors that are responsible for the poor academic performance of pupils in the Shama sub-metro...
  
  
• Strategies to Reduce Repetition in Cameroon Primary School
  November 2005
  Fonkeng, George
  Repetition is one indicator of the internal inefficiency of an educational system. In Cameroon, primary school repetition is high (40%) and as such, constitutes wastage particularly, and of course problematic to the state, parents and individual pupils/victims. It is conceptualized that efficiency as applied to educational achievement combines both qualitative and quantitative variables and relates inputs to outputs. An efficient educational system should enable students graduate within the time frame prescribed. If students spend more time than is required there is wastage. To combat this phenomenon in the primary school system in Cameroon, the government has resorted to experiment on some strategies namely: Compensatory Education, Competency-Based Teaching Approach, Automatic/ Administrative Promotion in addition to the New Pedagogic Approach with apparently, significant results in the reduction of repeating. It is concluded that these strategies based on a pupil-centred philosophy/pedagogy tend to promote learning and consequently, increase promotion in primary schools.
  
  
• Household Level Social Capital and Children’s Schooling Decision in Cameroon: A Gender Analysis
  November 2005
  Johannes, Tabi Atemnkeng
  This paper re-examines and incorporates household level social capital amongst the determinants of children schooling in Cameroon. Reduced form demand equations of schooling for the entire sample, male and female children as well as for rural and urban children are estimated separately. Results indicate that social capital especially female related, mothers’ education and income strongly influences parental decisions towards a child schooling. However, social capital as well as its female component is more important as both male and female children are equally given the opportunity to school and there is neither gender bias nor rural-urban difference in children schooling outcome when parents participate in groups or associations. Thus, we recommend the building of social capital by strengthening local community networks.
  
  
• Income Risk and School Decisions in Burkina Faso
  December 2005
  Kazianga, Harounan
  There is a large literature which explores how negative income shocks impact human capital accumulation (especially education) when financial markets are incomplete and households can neither insure nor borrow to smooth their consumption. The main conclusion is that households in these circumstances allocate child time to more labor and to less schooling. Such ex-post use of child time as a self-insurance mechanism translates into lower human capital (lower years of education completed) over time which is detrimental to economic growth. There has been, however, little research on the cumulative effects of (perceived) income uncertainty on child education. The intuition is that households that face more a volatile income stream have greater incentives to build up a buffer stock to insure against unforeseen adverse shocks, and non-enrollment can be part of such strategy. This paper fills this gap on the literature which focuses on income shocks and education in developing countries. The empirical work uses data from rural Burkina Faso, an environment where school enrollment rates are low and households face frequent income shocks. Controlling for current economic shocks, household wealth levels and child characteristics, I find that income uncertainty (expressed as income variance) consistently reduces a number of education outcomes, including current enrollment status, education expenditures per child, the number of years of education completed and the probability of having been ever enrolled. The estimation results suggest that income uncertainty might have large welfare costs in terms of human capital.
  
  
• Les dépenses publiques d’éducation sont elles pro pauvres? Analyse et Application au cas du Sénégal
  November 2005
  Niang, Birahim Bouna
  La lutte contre la pauvreté constitue aujourd’hui une des principales priorités des pouvoirs publics des pays d’Afrique au Sud du Sahara et des partenaires au développement qui apportent leur soutien à cette région du monde. Le Sénégal n’est pas une exception à cette règle. La volonté de faire reculer la pauvreté apparaît àtravers la structure des dépenses publiques qui est caractérisée par un arbitrage en faveur des secteurs sociaux notamment l’éducation. En effet, les dépenses d’éducation représentent le premier poste du budget de l’Etat alors que les dépenses sociales représentent près du tiers des dépenses totales...
  
  
• Earning and Learning in the Rural Area of Sub-Saharan Africa: An Inquiry into the Cocoa Sector
  November 2005
  Nkamleu, Guy Blaise
  The challenge of a child labor policy is to remove children away from work and toward schooling. To this end, there is a need to better understand the reality of the interplay between work and schooling as well as household’s behavior with respect to child’s time allocation. This paper investigates child labor issue in the cocoa sector in Cote d’Ivoire, with the aim to identify determinant factors that can help to design a multi-angle policy approach towards the elimination of child labor. The present study is based on a survey done in 2002, over a representative sample of more than 11000 cocoa-households’ members. The paper presents model, which portrays the child labor decision as a three-stage sequential process. Study reveals that child labor’s contribution in cocoa farm as well as non-enrollment in school are considerable. More, numerous children are involved in potentially dangerous and/or injurious tasks. Results of econometric analysis using sequential probit model show that child Characteristics, parent characteristic as well as household characteristics are all pertinent in explaining the child work/schooling outcome in the cocoa sector of Cote d’Ivoire. Confirming the need of a multi-angled policy approach towards the elimination of child labor. The important variables highlight in this study should be taken into consideration in efforts to design an array of policy instruments to promote good development of children in the cocoa sector.
  
  
• Child Schooling in Nigeria: The Role of Gender in Urban, Rural, North and South Nigeria
  November 2005
  Okpukpara, Benjamin Chiedozie and Nnaemeka A. Chukwuone
  This research was conceived as a result of increasing drop out of children from school as well as high incidence of children combining schooling with some economic activities in Nigeria. Though many researches have been conducted in areas of school enrolment of the children in Nigeria, little or none of these researchers has bordered much on the role of child, parent, household and community characteristics on child schooling. Previous works centre mainly on explorative studies rather than econometric causes of the observed trends in school enrollment.
  
  
• L’augmentation des budgets suffit-elle à la qualité des systèmes éducatifs? Cas du Gabon (Is a rise of public expenditures enough to improve the quality of educational systems? The Gabonese evidence.)
  November 2005
  Oyaya, Jean Rémy
  The present survey is a contribution to the means to reach the objective education of quality for all. So it contributes at first to set out the dysfunctions of the Gabonese education system to justify the rise of the budget for the education. Using an econometric model of analysis, it thereafter contributes to the identification of the main determinants of the evolution of these public expenditures. But a rise of these expenditures is not enough to improve the quality of the educational system. So the study pleads subsequently for the stake of a preventive system of education. It concludes while putting the accent on the necessity of the State to fight against the corruption and to hold its liability, the one guarantee to the success of the reforms that a quality system of education for all supposes.
  
  
• Do Mothers’ Educational Levels Matter in Child Malnutrition and Health Outcomes in Gambia and Niger?
  November 2005
  Oyekale, A. S. and T. O. Oyekale
  Despite past policy interventions and supports, malnutrition remains one of the major problems confronting children in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA). This study analyzed the effect of mothers’ educational levels on child malnutrition. Data from the 2000 End-Decade Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey by the United Nations International Children Emergency Funds (UNICEF) for Gambia and Niger were used. Data were analyzed with Foster-Greer-Thorbeck approach and Probit regression. Results show stunting, wasting and underweight head counts are higher in Niger rural and urban areas, while stunting, wasting and underweight head count, depth and severity are higher among children whose mothers had no secondary education for all the countries. The Probit analysis reveals that attainment of secondary education by the mothers, urbanization, presence of pipe water, presence of mother and father at home, polio vaccination, ever breast fed and access to radio and television significantly reduce the probability of stunting, wasting and underweight, while infection with diarrhea, fever and age at first polio vaccine significantly increase it. It was recommended that to reduce malnutrition and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Gambia and Niger, institutional arrangements for catering for secondary education of girls and ensuring consistency in child health programs must be strengthened, among others.
  
  
• Analyse critique des normes EFA-FT de production de service éducatif dans l’enseignement primaire des pays de l’UEMOA
  November 2005
  Quenum, Célestin Venant C.
  The West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries adopted the program “Education For All Fast Track Initiative” (EFA-FT) to achieve the goal of universal elementary education. Although the EFA-FT deals with some constraints that hinder universal education, it has some shortcomings that should be addressed to avoid any perverse effects in the short to medium run. For instance, the teachers’ pay under the EFA-FT seems unequitable and may even be counterproductive in the national context. Moreover, under the current terms the states will be unable to sustain the funding required for this program beyond the year 2015.
  
  
• Primary School Enrollment and Gender Gap of Rural Households’ Children in South Western Nigeria
  November 2005
  Rahji, M. A. Y.
  The study examined school enrollment and gender gap of rural household children at the primary level. A multi-stage sampling technique was used in data collection. Probit model was used in analyzing the data set. Evidence from the analysis indicated that more boys were enrolled than girls. The factors considered affect male and female children differently. Father’s education variable is significant for boys. It is not significant for girls. Mother's education variable though positive in both cases is not significant. The probit model predicted a gender gap of 12.56% in favour of boys. Most of the gap is due to differences in the ways households perceive male and female children. There is thus a preference for boys over girls in the demand for schooling. Based on the findings of this study, incentives for the enrollment of more girls were recommended. These include: differential fees, free tuition, and increased public subsidies for female education.
  
  
• Education et développement humain en Afrique de l’Ouest: des hauts et des bas. Les cas du Burkina-Faso, de la Côte d’Ivoire et du Sénégal
  November 2005
  Saha, Jean Claude
  Nous proposons une estimation de l’apport de l’éducation au processus de développement humain au Burkina-Faso, en Côte-d’Ivoire et au Sénégal. Le développement humain est entendu au sens du Programme des Nations Unies pour le Développement (PNUD). Suivant une approche par la valeur de Shapley, nous décomposons les variations annuelles de l’Indicateur de Développement Humain (IDH) de ces pays. D’après les résultats obtenus, le secteur éducatif ivoirien a contribué pour 146,75% au progrès de développement humain réalisé par ce pays entre 1990 et 2004, celui du Sénégal pour 23,77% et celui du Burkina-Faso pour –13,35 %. Mais on déplore l’absence de synergie entre le secteur éducatif ivoirien et les autres aspects du développement humain dans le pays (la santé et le revenu par tête), tout autant que l’on s’inquiète devant le rôle marginal que joue l’éducation au Sénégal et surtout devant le sort du Burkina-Faso où le secteur éducatif a considérablement freiné le développement humain depuis 1990. Un échange d’expérience entre pays de la sous-région est alors souhaitable.
  
  
• Corruption, Croissance et Capital Humain: Quels Rapports
  November 2005
  Seka, Pierre Roche
  The objective of this paper is to explain some of the reasons of the high rate of dropout observed in the system of higher education. It has been shown theoretically that corruption is one of the major factors. Indeed, very talented students, who otherwise could have pushed further their studies, suddenly drop out when they compare the level of well being of those who are well educated with that of those who are not but enriched through corruption. Where do they go? They join the latter in their corruptive activities. Such practice, that somehow is rational, endangers the whole education system. An econometric model has been estimated to show the negative impact of corruption on the registration rate for higher education. The paper ends by calling for the attention of the public authority that if nothing is done to retribute better well educated people, the education system is at high risk of extinction, endangering development efforts that have been made so far.
  
  
• Optimiser la participation communautaire au financement et à l’accroissement de l’offre éducative
  November 2005
  Wallace, Servais Edoh
  La situation de l’éducation de base au Togo reste critique. Elle pâtit lourdement des difficultés sociopolitiques de cette dernière décennie. “Aujourd’hui, environ, 30% de la population scolarisable n’a pas encore accès à l’éducation de base.” Le taux net de scolarisation se situe autour de 65% pour le cycle primaire en 2000. Une décadence effroyable quand on sait qu’au début des années 1980, le Togo faisait partie des pays à fort taux de scolarisation de la sous région ouest africaine. En effet, à partir de 1985, les conditions macro-économiques particulièrement difficiles conjuguées aux effets du programme d’ajustement structurel conduisent à un ralentissement de l’expansion du système éducatif.
  
  

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• Unemployment in South Africa, 1995 - 2003: Causes, Problems and Policies
  January 2005
  Geeta Kingdon and John Knight
  It is our view that developments in the labour market hold the key to South African prosperity or penury. It is from the labour market that the income benefits from growing labour scarcity, or the threat to social and political stability from growing unemployment and underemployment, could emerge. The government response should be to keep this issue at the forefront and to pursue whatever policies will improve labour market outcomes. Our primary concern in this paper is with unemployment and the informal employment that often disguises unemployment. However, in order to understand these phenomena it is necessary to consider a range of related indicators such as the adult population, the labour force, labour force participation, employment, distinguishing here between formal and informal employment, or between wage- and self-employment, and real wages and incomes.
  
  
• Analysis of farmers’ preferences for development intervention programs: A case study of subsistence farmers from Eastern Ethiopian Highlands.
  July 2005
  Wagayehu Bekele
  The aim of this paper is to better understand farmers’ perception of the relevance of different development intervention programs. Farmers’ subjective ranking of agricultural problems and their preference for development intervention are elicited using a stated preference method. The factors influencing these preferences are determined using a random utility model. The study is based on a survey conducted in the Hunde-Lafto area of the Eastern Ethiopian Highlands. Individual interviews were conducted with 145 randomly selected farm households using semi-structured questionnaires. The study suggests that drought, soil erosion and, shortage of cultivable land are high priority agricultural production problems for farmers. Low market prices for farm products and high prices of purchased inputs also came out as major problems for the majority of farmers. Farmers’ preferences for development intervention fall into four major categories, market, irrigation, resettlement, and soil and water conservation. Multinomial logit analysis of the factors influencing these preferences revealed that farmer’s specific socio-economic circumstances, and subjective ranking of agricultural problems play a major role. It is also shown that preferences for some interventions are complimentary and need to be addressed simultaneously. Recognition and understanding of these factors, affecting the acceptability of development policies for micro level implementation, will have significant contribution to improve macro level policy formulation.
  
  
• Socioeconomic Impact of Export Oriented Agricultural Production on Farmers, in Eastern Ethiopia
  July 2005
  Adem Kedir
  This study was undertaken to assess the socio-economic impact of producing export oriented agricultural crops on the livelihoods of the farmers in eastern Ethiopia. A random sample of 305 farmers was studied. Comparisons were made between producers and non-producers using the Z-test and regression analysis. It was found that producers of export oriented crops are better off than the non-producers in terms of sending their children to school, housing conditions and ability to finance their families’ food requirements. The impact of father’s education, number of children and livestock ownership on the improvements in the livelihoods of the farmers and the problems facing the farmers were also emphasized. The implications of the findings for the policy makers were also pointed out.
  
  
• Is Sub-Saharan Africa a Convergence Club?
  July 2005
  Johnson P. Asiama and Maurice Kugler
  The African growth effect has been found to be significant in many empirical growth research papers — suggesting that even after controlling for a wide range of variables that potentially affect growth, the Sub-Saharan African dummy has an adverse impact on economic growth. This has thus remained one of the unexplained empirical puzzles in the growth literature. Earlier studies have attributed this growth tragedy to factors such as macroeconomic instability; external shocks; human capital inadequacies, institutional and political uncertainty, geography, ethnic fractionalisation, etc. Moreover, the recent perspective about the effect of colonial, geographical and disease factors in previously colonised regions such as Africa, also offers significant insights about the growth situation in Sub-Saharan Africa. On the other hand, some have suggested that Sub-Sahara Africa could simply be an example of club convergence from the lower end. We evaluate the latter view, and provide some new evidence on long run growth dynamics in Sub- Sahara Africa. We make use of the dynamic panel GMM methodology, which by construction controls for such country-specific and time-invariant effects due to history, disease or geographic factors. Our findings suggest that Sub-Saharan Africa is not an example of a convergence club. Rather, countries conditionally converge to their own steady states, and this could explain the increasing heterogeneity in economic conditions across the sub-region. In addition, we found openness, the extent of financial development, and foreign direct investment provide beneficial marginal effects on the steady state growth path of each country in the region. By contrast, government consumption, inflation, and excessive monetization have a negative effect on growth.
  
  
• An Inquiry into the role of personal wealth in the pastoralist - agropastoralist conflict resolution in Yerer and Daketa Valleys, Eastern Ethiopia
  May 2005
  Ayalneh Bogale and Benedikt Korf
  Capitalizing on the mobility of livestock is one of the major ways in which pastoralists have managed ecological uncertainties and risks, as it enables them the opportunistic use of the resources. However, agricultural encroachment onto rangelands by nearby agro-pastoralists has led to a shortage in grazing area and threatened the mobility of the pastoralists. As this process leads to a significant disruption and weakening of the risk-management systems of pastoralists, they seek for various institutional arrangements with agropastoralists to enable them access to common grazing land. Based on an exploratory survey and data derived from interview of 146 households in eastern Ethiopia, this paper uses an adaptation of the sequential rationality game theoretical model and institutional analysis to discrete choice models. The analytical framework, in its entirety, presents a simple model of household and community level decision-making, in which they are concerned about their welfare along many different dimensions. Choice of institutional arrangement, namely no opinion, reciprocal, sharing milk and the right to use milk, is modelled using multinomial logit discrete choice procedure. The model chi-squared statistic is significant at the 1% level of probability. For all arrangements, there are three to five observable characteristics of household that provide statistically significant predictive power for practicing a given arrangement. The paper argues resource scarcity may enhance the bargaining position of asset-poor members of an agro-pastoral society and urges the wealthier agropastoralists to comply with a nonviolent resolution of competing claims towards a resource sharing arrangement.
  
  
• Stochastic Technology and Crop Production Risk: The Case of Small-Scale Farmers in East Hararghe Zone of Oromiya Regional State in Ethiopia
  July 2005
  Bekabil Fufa and R. M. Hassan
  This study used the Just and Pope stochastic production technology specification to analyse the crop production and supply response behaviour of farmers in East Hararghe zone of Ethiopia under production risk. The results showed that improved seed, human labour, oxen labour and planting date were the most important determinants of yield levels of the crops grown in the area. On the other hand, the use of improved seed and fertilizer were yield risk increasing inputs in the production of maize and sorghum crops. However, early planting for all the annual crops grown, use of human labour for the package crops and oxen labour for all food crops grown in Faddis district were found to have yield risk reducing effects. The results have important implications for agricultural technology development and transfer in the study area. To reduce the yield risk increasing effect of fertilizer, the development and promotion of new crop varieties should consider fertilizer application trails for different levels across different agro-ecologies and farmers’ conditions. Also, farmers need to be provided with adequate advice and information on the use and application of fertilizer. Moreover, to overcome the yield risk increasing effect of improved seed, varieties should be tested for their suitability to varying agro-ecologies and management conditions of the farmers in the area. Extension advice and information on the management of the improved crop varieties need to be provided to the farmers to improve the yield stability of the crops. In addition, extension advice on early planting, provision of meteorological information to farmers to aid them in planting date decisions and development of short period maturing varieties could help to reduce variability in the yield levels of crops grown in the area. Finally, improving the small-scale farmers’ access to oxen would also enable the farmers to achieve stable yields from crop production.
  
  
• Can Africa Reduce Poverty by Half by 2015? The Case for a Pro-Poor Growth Strategy
  June 2005
  Arne Bigsten and Abebe Shimeles
  This study uses simulations to explore the possibility of achieving the target of halving the percentage of people living in extreme poverty in Africa by 2015. A pro-poor growth scenario and a constant inequality scenario are compared. It is shown how initial levels of inequality and mean per capita income determine the cumulative growth and inequality reduction required to achieve the target. The simulations show that small changes in income distribution have a large impact on the possibility of halving poverty. It is shown that the trade-off between growth and inequality varies greatly among countries and that their policy choices thus are quite different. In some cases small changes in income distribution can have a large effect on poverty, while in others a strong focus on growth is the only viable option.
  
  
• Shared Sectoral Growth: Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Zimbabwe
  June 2005
  Niels-Hugo Blunch and Dorte Verner
  This paper examines agriculture, industry and service sector growth in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Zimbabwe over more than three decades. The analyses find at least one long-run sectoral relationship in each country. This indicates the existence of a large degree of interdependence in long-run sectoral growth, implying that the sectors “grow together” or, similarly, that there are externalities or spillovers between sectors. This also provides evidence against the basic dual economy model, which implies that a long-run relation cannot exist between agricultural and industrial output. The impulse response and short-run sectoral growth analyses support these results, as both imply the existence of a positive link between growth in industry and growth in agriculture. Policy implications are also discussed; these include directing more attention towards the interdependencies in sectoral growth broadly defined. In particular, our findings have implications for the design of education and health programs, as well. This improved understanding of intersectoral dynamics at all levels may facilitate policy implementation aimed at increasing economic growth—and thereby ultimately improving peoples’ livelihoods—in Africa.
  
  
• Why Has Burundi Grown So Slowly? The Political Economy of Redistribution
  June 2005
  Janvier D. Nkurunziza and Floribert Ngaruko
  This study analyses Burundi’s economic performance over the period 1960-2000 and finds that it has been catastrophic. The usual economic factors determining growth are endogenous to political objectives, suggesting that politics explains the dismal performance. This finding limits the relevance of textbook models of growth relying on the assumption of a competitive resource allocation environment. When cronies rather than qualified managers are running the economy, when priority is given to investment projects in function of their location rather than the objective needs of the economy, economic models lose their explanatory power. Economic performance has been shaped by the occurrence of violent conflicts caused by factions fighting for the control of the state and its rents. The capture of rents by a small group has become the overarching objective of the governments that have ruled the country since the mid-1960s. In this regard, economic performance will not improve unless the political system is modernised from a dictatorial regime playing a zero-sum game to a more democratic and accountable regime. It would be naïve to advocate economic reforms as a way of boosting the country’s economy if they are not preceded or at least accompanied by political reforms. One central message of this study is that Burundi’s growth failure is the result of specific identifiable factors evolving around governance. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with Burundi: Development failure may be reversed if the problems identified in this study are properly addressed.
  
  
• Organizational Culture, Performance and Public Sector Reforms in Africa: The Ghanaian Case
  July 2005
  Francis Owusu
  Public sector reform programs implemented across Africa, including the World Bank’s “first” and ‘second” generation reforms, are based on the assumption that all public organizations are inefficient. This paper argues that this assumption is problematic and has had significant implications for policy. By failing to recognize that not all public organizations perform poorly, we ignore any potential lessons that could have been learnt from the experiences of organizations that have managed to perform effectively under the same social, political, economic and institutional environment. The study is based on the premise that the performance of an organization is influenced by the culture within the organization—which results from the ways in which organizations adapts to the external environment and the ways they ensure internal integration. Some organizations develop cultures that support, encourage and reward high performance; whereas others adopt a culture that perpetuates poor performance. Thus, public-sector reforms must be viewed as changing, or in some cases sustaining, organizational culture. Using Ghana as a case study, the study highlights lessons that can be learnt from studying differences in the performances of public organizations. It focuses on three-related issues. First, it addresses one major flaw of past reform policies—the assumption that all public organizations are ineffective. Second, it explores the relationship between organizational culture and performance. Third, it provides broad outlines of a comprehensive public sector reform strategy, centered on changing organizational cultures.
  
  
• Local Governance and Resource Allocation
  July 2005
  Sagre Bambangi and Al-hassan Seidu
  An important function of District Assemblies in Ghana is to ensure that the benefits of growth are shared equitably and fairly. One way of achieving this is to promote efficiency in resource allocation at both individual and community levels. This paper utilizes the case study approach to assess efficiency of resource distribution in four Districts in the Northern and Upper East regions of Ghana with emphasis on infrastructure, micro-credit, human and information resources. The conclusion is that the Medium Term Development plan prepared within the framework of the themes of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) is an important guiding document in resource allocation. The allocation of community facilities such as schools, health and administrative infrastructure have been found generally to conform to the plan in spite of occasional erratic influences and decisions of some personalities. However, in terms of resources that are allocated to individuals such as the Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF) the guidelines are often circumvented. It is recommended that Government policy of zero tolerance for corruption needs to be demonstrated at the local level in terms of the disbursement of the PAF. Priority must be given to development considerations instead of partisan party loyalty in appointing DCEs in order to check politicisation of resource allocation. A serious consideration must be given to the full implementation of the sub-district structures to facilitate information dissemination. For the people to “feel the growth in their pockets” resource allocation at the local level needs to be closely monitored to ensure compliance with guidelines.
  
  
• Growth Options and Poverty Reduction in Ethiopia - A Spatial Economy-Wide Model Analysis for 2004-2015
  July 2005
  Xinshen Diao and Alejandro Nin Pratt
  
  
• How will US Reforms of Settlement Rates Affect Telecom Investments in Africa
  July 2005
  Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong and John Agyei-Karikari
  
  
• An Analysis of the Impact of HIPC Initiative on Poverty Alleviation in Developing Countries: Evidence from Cameroon
  June 2005
  Arsene Honore Gideon Nkama
  After independence in 1960, Cameroon’s real economic growth was optimistic. Growth averaged 6 per cent during the 65-86 with agriculture being the main source of growth. When oil production started by the end of the 70s, Cameroon experienced a boom period. Its external resources balance that was negative in 1977 became positive. Gross domestic investment increased from 21% of GDP in 1977 to more than 30% in 1986. GDP per capita increased at about 4 percent during the 65-86. The boom period led to traditional growth sectors carelessness so their productivity declined. Public enterprises created during this period were highly inefficient. The banking system became very dependent on oil revenue as well as on government deposits….
  
  
• Economic Success or Human Development Failure? Development Partners or Development Parasites? The truth behind the truth: Evidence from Uganda
  July 2005
  Diego Angemi
  During the 1990s, and especially over the second half of the decade, Uganda experienced high economic growth, falling income poverty, and relative political stability. In addition, while it’s still too early to assess properly the medium term impact of direct budget support (DBS) on the lives of poor people, Uganda features among the few countries where real gains have been made in terms of scaling up the delivery of basic health and education services, increasing the focus of the budget, and giving people confidence to claim their rights (DFID, 2004). There is evidence to support the claim that the period between 1992 and 2000 may mark the transition of Uganda from recovery to fresh growth. Recovery has necessitated the rehabilitation of traditional export crops, the restoration of the public sector and a reversal of the retreat to subsistence. In this economic environment, the percentage of Ugandans who were poor decreased sharply from 56% in 1992 to 34% in 2000. . . .
  
  
• Public Expenditure and Human Capital in Nigeria: An Autoregressive Model
  July 2005
  Michael Adebayo Adebiyi
  In this study, we set out to empirically investigate the direction of causality between human capital (i.e. education and health) expenditures and defence spending including debt service obligations in Nigeria, using annual time series data from 1970 to 2000. Some statistical tools are employed to explore the relationship among these variables. The study examines stochastic characteristics of each time series by testing their stationarity using Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillip Perron (PP) tests. Then, the effects of stochastic shocks of each of the endogenous variables are explored, using vector autoregressive (VAR) model. The evidence from the Granger causality tests shows that, in Nigeria, debt service obligations determine human capital expenditure such as education. Also, from impulse response analysis, the result shows that unanticipated effect of debt service obligations or defence spending on human capital expenditure is ambiguous in Nigeria.
  
  
• Agricultural Growth, Non-Agricultural Growth and Poverty Reduction: Evidence from an African Perspective
  July 2005
  Luc Christiaensen, Lionel Demery and Jesper Kuhl
  
  
• Does Oil Corrupt? Theory and Evidence from Natural Experiment in West Africa
  July 2005
  Pedro Camarinha Vincente
  
  
• Operationalizing Pro-Poor Growth: A Country Case Study of Ghana
  October 2004
  Andrew McKay and Ernest Aryeetey
  This paper is prepared as part of the multi-donor Operationalising Pro-Poor Growth study, which is focusing on aiming to provide advice to governments on how to facilitate the involvement of poor people in the growth process. It is prepared as one of 14 case studies prepared as part of this project, and following a common outline structure and analytic approach. The case study papers are prepared to assess country-level evidence on the relationships between growth performance and trends in poverty, and on how this can be enhanced. This implies therefore an analysis which combines macro and sectoral analysis of the determinants of growth and its distributional pattern, with more micro-level poverty analysis. While much of the analysis investigating the links between pat-terns of growth and changes in poverty is historical, assessing past evidence, there is also an important forward looking component on how poverty-reducing growth can be initiated, sustained or enhanced….
  
  
• Characteristics and Determinants of Urban Youth Unemployment in Umuahia, Nigeria: Implications for Rural Development and Alternative Labour Market Variables
  June 2005
  Raphael N. Echebiri
  Umuahia metropolis typifies a fast growing capital city in terms of population growth rate. Its population grew from less than 20,000 residents in 1991 to an estimated excess over a million at present. This astronomical growth in population followed the creation of Abia State in 1991 and the subsequent change in the status of Umuahia as a state capital territory. Following this tremendous rise in population, Umuahia North metropolis which is the core capital city now has a teaming population of youths, most of whom are unemployed. This study was conceptualized against the backdrop of the increasing social and economic problems associated with youth unemployment in the metropolis. Some effort was made to characterize youth unemployment in the city from the perspective of the socio-economic and labour market perceptions of a sample of 220 youths drawn from areas with varying residential configurations. The sample randomly included youths, unemployed and employed in order to provide some basic counterbalancing assessment of the situation. It was found that youth unemployment in the town shared common characteristics with that observed in several other cities in the developing world. In particular, age of respondent was found to be inversely related to level of unemployment, hence suggesting that unemployment in the city was most pronounced among youths. Educational attainment and job preference were interrelated variables which had direct relationship with unemployment level. It was particularly noted that majority of the unemployed and first-time job seekers preferred salaried employment to self-employment. This orientation, although deriving from the economic and human capital development realities of the country, could be retrogressive in a liberalized market-driven economy. The youths showed strong aversion to rural-residency for several reasons prominent among which were lack of employment opportunities and poor social and physical infrastructures. Some policy issues were raised to provide a basis for a stronger community-driven rural and agricultural development strategy and alternative labour market variables.
  
  
• Structure of Sectoral Decomposition of Aggregate Poverty Changes in Cameroon
  July 2005
  Francis Menjo Baye
  This paper defines an exact decomposition rule based on the Shapley Value for assigning entitlements in distributive analysis and assesses the within- and between-sector contributions to changes in aggregate poverty. Between 1984 and 1996 poverty remained a rural phenomenon in Cameroon. It became more widespread, deeper and severer in both rural and urban areas, but more so in urban than rural areas. While the within sector effects disproportionately accounted for the increase in poverty in the period 1984-1996, the between-sector contributions in both rural and semi-urban areas played a mitigating role on the worse effects of the increase in poverty. These findings indicate the potential positive feedback effects of migration and the associated remittances as an effective strategy used by migrants to left their families and villages out of the worse effects of poverty. The implication of this interpretation is that decision-makers need to better understand the factors that push or pull potential migrants. Rural-urban mobility could, therefore, be viewed as a strategy used by households to moderate the worse effects of poverty and a vector of shared growth. The implications for public policy, in terms of open unemployment and associated social and insecurity problems at the receiving end, point to the wisdom of addressing the push-factors via targeting more in favour of rural areas.
  
  
• Gender Inequalities and Economic Growth: New Evidence from Cassava-based Farm Holdings in Rural South-Western Nigeria
  July 2005
  Awoyemi Taiwo Timothy
  It is a widely accepted fact that persistent inequality between men and women constraints a society’s productivity and ultimately slows its rate of economic growth. The economy pays for this inequality in reduced labour productivity today and diminished national output tomorrow. Motivated by this the study aim is to assess the possibilities of enhancing productivity gains by improving the efficiency of small-scale agriculture through gender-responsive intra-household allocation of resources in South-Western Nigeria. It adopts a stochastic parametric decomposition method which yields efficiency measures that are not distorted by statistical noise to estimate the efficiency level of resource allocation by small-scale cassava producers. The results indicate that average overall productive efficiency in the sample was 75.78 per cent implying that small scale cassava farmers in the sample could reduce total variable cost by 24.22 per cent if they reduce labour, fertilizer, land and capital applications to levels observed in the changing input mix (technical efficiency) and then obtain optimal input mix for the given input prices and technology (allocative efficiency). The average technical efficiency and allocative efficiency indexes for the sample were 82.2 per cent and 92.2 per cent respectively. Also, evidence from empirical analysis of data from the male respondents showed that the average economic, technical and allocative efficiency indexes were 88.06 per cent, 89.34 per cent and 78.67 per cent respectively while the same computed for the female sample were 94.9 per cent 74.85 per cent and 71.03 per cent respectively. Labour was the most limiting factor in cassava production suggesting that the technologies that enhance the productivity of labour are likely to achieve significant positive effects on cassava production. The paper shares the notion that producers control over the means of production and impact of development are related and has influence on the economic efficiency and growth of society. Again, technical inefficiency constituted a more serious problem than allocative inefficiency thus most cost savings will accrue to improvement in technical efficiency.
  
  
• Labor Market Flexibility, Wages and Incomes in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s
  June 2005
  Geeta Kingdon, Justin Sandefur and Francis Teal
  This paper provides an overview of how African labor markets have performed in the 1990s. It is argued that the failure of African labor markets to create good paying jobs has resulted in excess labor supply in the form of either open unemployment or a growing self-employment sector. One explanation for this outcome is a lack of labor market ‘flexibility’ keeping formal sector wages above their equilibrium level and restricting job creation. We identify three attributes of labor market flexibility. First whether real wages decline over time, secondly the tendency for wages to adjust in the face of unemployment, and thirdly the extent of wage differentials between sectors and/or firms of various size. Recent research shows that real wages in Africa during the 1990s may have been more downwardly flexible than previously thought and have been surprisingly responsive to unemployment rates, yet large wage differentials between formal and informal sector firms remain. This third sense of the term inflexibility can explain a common factor across diverse African economies - the high income divide between those working in large firms and those not. Those working in the thriving self-employment sector in Ghana have something in common with the unemployed in South Africa - both have very low income opportunities relative to those in large firms.
  
  
• Institutional Foundations for Shared Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa
  July 2005
  Machiko Nissanke and Alice Sindzingre
  The paper examines the dynamically evolving triangular relationships between institutions, growth and inequality in the process of economic development, in order to deepen the understanding on institutional conditions for pro-poor growth and shared growth. In this specific context, the paper discusses the institutional conditions found in Sub-Saharan Africa, which may have produced the growth pattern that are unequal and against the poor. The analysis shows that Sub-Saharan African countries require transforming institutions for embarking upon and sustaining a development path which would ensure shared growth in years to come. The paper first evaluates the growth-inequality-poverty nexus, as found in the recent literature, which increasingly challenges the trade-off between growth and equity, as postulated in the traditional theories. Various definitions of pro-poor growth are discussed and a sharper definition of the concept of ‘shared’ growth is provided. Definitions of institutions are then examined, as well as the triangular interrelationships between institutions, inequality and poverty. The paper finally analyses specific institutional conditions found in Sub-Saharan Africa that prevent economies from emerging out of low-equilibrium poverty traps that are characterised by low economic growth, unequal distribution of income and wealth as well as unequal access to resources and power.
  
  
• Market Structure and Productivity Growth in Ghanaian Cocoa Production
  June 2005
  Andrew Zeitlin
  This paper argues that market structure, and in particular the degree of competition among Licensed Buying Companies, is an important determinant of productivity in the Ghanaian cocoa industry. This issue is studied in the context of a two-year doubling of cocoa output at the national level. Evidence from microeconomic data confirms a significant increase among existing farmers, although this rate of in- crease is smaller than that observed at the national level. Analysis of production reveals an economically significant and statistically robust relationship between village-level Licensed Buying Company competition and the level and growth rate of total factor productivity.
  
  
• Does Female Schooling Reduce Fertility? Evide