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Tadecha, Chachu

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.
Presented at the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006.

Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum

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.
Prepared for the AERC-Cornell Conference on “Bottom-Up Interventions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” May 31-June 1, 2007, Nairobi, Kenya

Tamukong, Joseph

Access to Schooling and Employment in Cameroon: New Inequalities and Opportunities
April 2004
Eloundou-Enyegue, Parfait M., Ngoube Maurice, Okene Richard, V.P Onguene,Serge Bahoken, Joseph Tamukong, Moses Mbangwana, Joseph Essindi Evina, and Caroline Mongue Djongoue
This report is about recent trends in education and access to employment in Cameroon. It focuses on five questions about (1) current levels of schooling, (2) recent trends in enrolment, (3) recent trends in schooling inequalities, (4) access to employment, and (5) risks and opportunities to improve education and employment outcomes. Based on these analyses, the report discusses several challenges and opportunities in improving education and employment outcomes.

Tanguy, Bernard

Tati, Gabriel

Swaziland: In the pursuit of economic liberalization and growth. How poverty is reproduced at the micro-level under changing labour market regimes?
October 2004
Gabriel Tati
Why is poverty so pervasive in Swaziland despite substantial economic growth achieved through extreme economic openness over several years? Is poverty alleviation in Swaziland a more reachable goal than was in the past, as this country strives to restore rapid economic growth through AGOA facilitating greater insertion into the global commodity market chains? How have macroeconomic developments impacted on poverty within the labour markets, cross-border and domestic alike, and what measures can be taken to improve competitiveness in the labour market? The paper explores these issues by looking into some prominent structures of the labour market regimes in Swaziland from both the cross-border and domestic perspectives. Understanding the relationships between trade, labour market regimes and poverty reproduction is critical for this country, as insufficient analytical attention has been paid on what is happening at their interface. Economic growth has been exceptional over the past years, and the country strives to attract more investors to rip the benefits of African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA). Yet efforts to reduce the high incidence of poverty affecting most Swazis remain very disappointing, and elusive as inequality of all forms is substantially in rise. The heavy concern put on opening up the national economy to foreign investors has tended to obscure the realities lived on the ground by most of those engaged in making this liberalisation possible: the ordinary Swazis workers. Public considerations at the macroeconomic level seem to have been disconnected from those at the micro-level, as lived by the actors engaged in the crossborder and domestic labour forces.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Teal, Francis

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.
Presented at the International Conference on "Shared Growth in Africa," July 21-22, 2005, Accra, Ghana

Exporting from manufacturing firms in Sub-Saharan Africa: Micro evidence for macro outcomes
October 2004
Neil Rankin, Måns Söderbom and Francis Teal
The poor performance of many African economies has been associated with low growth of exports in general and of manufacturing exports in particular. In this paper we draw on micro evidence of manufacturing firms in five African countries - Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa and Nigeria - to investigate the causes of poor exporting performance. Micro empirical work on manufacturing firms has focused on the relationship between export participation and efficiency. The evidence for SSA shows that exporters te nd to be larger, more capital intensive and produce more output per unit of labour than non exporters. We show that firm size is a robust determinant of the decision to export. It is not a proxy for efficiency, for capital intensity, for sector, for time -invariant unobservables or for the fixed cost of entry into exporting. The implication of these findings is that large firms are necessary for exporting. However larger firms are more capital intensive. Small firms may create jobs, they will not be able to export. We also find that efficiency only impacts on the decision to export regionally, defined as within Africa, not internationally. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

In Journal of African Economies 15(4):671-687, 2006

Production Changes in Ghana Cocoa Farming Households Under Market Reforms
October 2003
Francis Teal and Marcella Vigneri
The Ghana cocoa market has been extensively liberalised over the period since the mid 1980s. Three issues have been prominent in research on agricultural supply response to liberalisation. The first has been the size of the supply elasticity, the second the response to reduced subsidies on inputs, the third whether innovation will occur. In this paper we investigate these three issues by estimating a production function for cocoa in Ghana drawing on two household surveys covering the period from 1991 to 1998. The estimated production function allows identifying the factors underlying the change in output. It is shown that for most regions the whole rise in cocoa production occurring over the period, of about 6 per cent per household, was accounted for by a rise in land and non-labour inputs. The data is consistent with a constant returns to scale technology in which total factor productivity was unchanged in almost all regions. There were offsetting changes in factor use: the labour to land ratio fell while the non-labour to land ratio rose. Thus the analysis of the micro data shows that, contrary to much of the discussion of the effects of trade reform, the contribution of non-labour inputs to cocoa production has increased both relative to land and, very substantially, relative to labour. The reform period has seen a rise in the ratio of both land to labour and of non-labour input to labour which have increased labour productivity. Reform has not led to innovation in techniques which raise total factor productivity.
Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana

Survival and Success Among African Manufacturing Firms
February 2004
Alan Harding, Måns Söderbom and Francis Teal
Recent reforms in most African economies of their trading and exchange rate regimes have eliminated much of the protection which previously limited competition. Despite these reforms, African manufacturing firms remain unsuccessful, particularly in international export markets. In this paper we consider the roles of learning, competition and market imperfections in determining three aspects of firm performance, namely firm exit, firm growth and productivity growth. We use a pooled panel data set of firms in Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania that spans a period of five years. We find that the main determinant of exit is firm size, with small firms having much higher exit rates than large ones. Productivity impacts on firm survival among large firms, but not among small firms. Reasons for this result are discussed. We find evidence that, among surviving firms, old firms grow slower than young firms, which is interpreted as evidence consistent with market constraints limiting growth of firms in Africa. We find no evidence that larger firms have faster rates of productivity or input growth, or are more efficient in the sense of benefiting from scale economies. We also find that competitive pressure enhances productivity growth. Given that one of the objectives of the reform programmes implemented in all three countries was to stimulate higher efficiency levels, this finding shows that one aspect of the reform programme has been successful.
Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana

Temesgen, Anteneh

Alleviating rural poverty through efficient small holders farming systems in Ethiopia: Relevance of macro policies with ground realities
October 2004
D. K. Grover and Anteneh Temesgen
Ethiopia is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. The country had a real per capita GDP of less than US $100 in 1995, and over 60 per cent of its population lives in absolute poverty. The problem of rural poverty and underdeveloped agriculture are closely linked with both micro as well as macro dimensions. To tackle the challenges of poverty in Ethiopia, the policies need to be initiated both macro and micro in nature and especially the macro-micro linkages are extremely crucial. In order to formulate and implement the macro policies effectively, there is an urgent need to first understand the ground realities of the Ethiopian society in general and of agricultural economy in particular. The micro-level study has been conducted in North Wollo zone, situated in the northeastern part of the country. The linear programming model was used to study the existing farm income and scope of improvement through optimal and alternative plans. The optimal solutions in both base model and alternative optimal plan resulted in an increase in gross margin. This was obtained by using improved seed with fertilizer. Thus, the availability of improved seed, fertilizer, working capital and other inputs is crucial, i.e. modern inputs should be delivered at right time and place with a reasonable cost, so that all farmers can afford to use it. Agricultural and poverty related macro policies and strategies were reviewed to highlight that how effectively the ground realities of smallholders were addressed through the macro level government agricultural policy initiatives in Ethiopia. The utilization of improved seeds has not exceeded 2 per cent of the overall seed requirements of the country. Hence, pragmatic seed policy needs to be formulated and implemented effectively to make available improved seeds to the farmers for improving their income and reducing rural poverty. The macro fertilizer policy should be designed to encourage the farmers to make use of this crucial input for raising their income and reducing poverty. Contrary to it, the present macro policy of decontrolled fertilizer has discouraged the farmers to adopt crops with fertilizers. The credit extended by Commercial Bank of Ethiopia has been increasing yet it should be taken up on priority at macro level in order to improve the economic conditions of rural folk and hence reducing the poverty in the country. The Small Scale and Micro Industry Development Strategy (SSIMD) and related programs initiated by Government of Ethiopia are very much in line with the micro level requirements. Such efforts must be further strengthened for generating rural non-farm employment and hence tackling the problem of rural poverty in the country. On scarce land, improved technology needs to be made available to farmers through macro policies for intensive utilization of the existing land. Besides, government and NGO’s should promote subsidiary activities requiring less land such as poultry and bee keeping. Land-use-planning needs to be initiated to advise the smallholders to use their scarce land only for most desired enterprises and abandon the practice of growing trees like eucalyptus. Besides, Intensive Agricultural Technology Dissemination Programs needs to be chalked out and implemented to improve the efficiency of smallholders farming systems in terms of increasing farm income and reducing rural poverty in Ethiopia.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Tezera, Seyoum

Thirumurthy, Harsha

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.
Prepared for the AERC-Cornell Conference on “Bottom-Up Interventions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” May 31-June 1, 2007, Nairobi, Kenya

Thompson, M.

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.
Presented at the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006.

Thurlow, James

The Road to Pro-Poor Growth in Zambia: Past Lessons and Future Challenges
December 2004
James Thurlow and Peter Wobst
Zambia is one of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Almost three-quarters of the population were considered poor at the start of the 1990s, with a vast majority of these people concentrated in rural and remote areas. This extreme poverty arose in spite of Zambia’s seemingly promising prospects following independence. To better understand the failure of growth and poverty-reduction this paper first considers the relationship between the structure of growth and Zambia’s evolving political economy. A strong urban-bias has shaped the country’s growth path leading to a economy both artificially and unsustainably distorted in favor of manufacturing and mining at the expense of rural areas. For agriculture it was the maize-bias of public policies that undermined export and growth potential within this sector. A series of poverty profiles are developed and compared to the structure of growth during the structural adjustment period. Substantial policy-changes led to rapidly rising poverty, especially in urban areas. The costs of adjustment were particularly pronounced given the big bang approach to reform. Concurrent trade liberalization and privatization collapsed the formal sector with persistent macro-economic instability undermining necessary private investment. Middle income urban households were hardest hit, with more-educated workers moving into informal activities and the less educated migrating to rural areas. Agricultural liberalization prompted changes in the structure of rural production, with a general shift away from maize towards export-crops for medium-scale farmers and more sustainable staples crops for small-scale farmers. While overall rural poverty increased during the 1990s, its depth has declined considerably. Poor market access and low agricultural productivity were key constraints facing small-scale and more remote rural households. The urban core of the economy therefore collapsed under structural adjustment but agriculture and rural areas have continued to grow. Since this growth has occurred at the lowest end of the income distribution, there is some evidence of ‘pro-poor’ growth in Zambia under structural adjustment despite national stagnation. Sustained investment and economic growth during recent years suggest a possible change of fortune for Zambia. In light of this renewed growth, the paper uses a dynamic and spatially-disaggregated economy-wide model linked to a household survey to examine the potential for future poverty-reduction. The findings indicate that the current growth path, while positive, will be insufficient to substantially alleviate poverty. The large increases in growth that would be required suggest that finding a more pro-poor growth path should be a priority for public policy. The paper examines alternative growth paths and finds that diversification through an agriculture-led development strategy is likely to prove the most pro-poor. This is particularly pronounced for staples-led growth, although this option is contingent on improving productivity and market access, especially in remoter rural areas. Although agricultural growth is essential for substantial poverty-reduction, the country’s large poor urban population necessitates growth in non-agriculture. The findings suggest that returning to a copper-led growth path is not pro-poor and that non-mining urban growth, although undermined by foreign exchange shortages and inadequate private investment, is likely to be preferable for reducing poverty.
Presented at the International Conference on "Shared Growth in Africa," July 21-22, 2005, Accra, Ghana

Tiki, Waktole

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.
Presented at the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006.

Timothy, Awoyemi Taiwo

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.
Presented at the International Conference on "Shared Growth in Africa," July 21-22, 2005, Accra, Ghana

Trench, P.

Tsekpo, Anthony

Budget Implementation and Poverty Reduction in Ghana
July 2004
Anthony Tsekpo and Charles D. Jebuni
In a poor country, the government plays a key role in poverty reduction. A critical instrument available to government in the pursuit of the poverty reduction objective is fiscal policy – budgetary allocation and disbursement of budgetary resources. In recent times, the Government of Ghana adopted the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS), which serves as the overall framework document for medium to long-term development policy in Ghana. Budget and macroeconomic policies are therefore, to be derived from the GPRS. The fact that the GPRS has poverty reduction as its focus suggests that resource allocation within the context of the budget will recognise expenditures that are more likely to have significant impact on the poor or sectors and activities where the poor are expected to benefit most.
In Ernest Aryeetey and Ravi Kanbur (editors), The Economy of Ghana: Analytical Perspectives on Stability, Growth and Poverty, James Currey, 2008.
Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana

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