Conflict, Growth, and Poverty in Guinea-Bissau

Conflicts and political instability have been serious constraints to growth in Guinea-Bissau. Of special concern was the civil war of 1998, which lasted 11 months and led to substantial loss of life as well as to a massive decrease in GDP per capita. Based on research on the economic cost of conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa conducted by Lopez and Wodon (2005) and using a technique to identify outliers in time series and to correct the series for such outliers, this chapter estimates that GDP per capita today could have been more than 40 percent higher if there had been no conflict in 1998. In turn, one in three persons living in poverty today might not be poor had it not been for the conflict.Poverty; conflict; growth; Guinea-Bissau

Cashew Production, Taxation, and Poverty in Guinea-Bissau

Agriculture is the engine of Guinea-Bissau’s economy. The sector relies mainly on cashew nuts, rice, and the subsistence production of food crops. Cashews represent 90 percent of the country’s exports and the principal source of income in rural areas. Unfortunately, cumbersome administrative arrangements, weak legal systems, and an absence of credit often lead to high transaction costs for cashew buyers and exporters, which help decrease the farm-gate price of the raw nuts. This chapter provides a review of the cashew sector in Guinea-Bissau, as well as estimates of the likely impact of changes in farm-gate prices and export taxes on poverty among cashew producers and in the country as a whole. The chapter also notes that over the last three decades, the production of rice has significantly decreased in favor of cashew farming. This situation represents a threat to food security. For the rural sector to ensure food security and create new jobs, policymakers would need to adopt a coherent agrarian development strategy in the context of the PRSP, which would aim at rehabilitating and encouraging rice production, and also promoting the processing of raw cashews into exportable cashew kernels, in order to generate more value added in the cashew sector.Cashew nuts; export tax; poverty; Guinea-Bissau

Contribution of informal shallow groundwater irrigation to livelihoods security and poverty reduction in the White Volta Basin (WVB): Current status and future sustainability

Shallow groundwater irrigation (SGI) using hand-dug shallow wells and dugouts is expanding, in the WVB, and is becoming attractive to farmers throughout. SGI is farmer-driven and has developed without any government or donor involvement. The production of vegetables and cash crops during the dry season utilizing SGI has provided farmers with a supplemental source of income and an alternative to seasonal urban migration. Although SGI has been increasing substantially, the extent of this practice is not documented.This project has help assess, the impacts of intensive SGI on sub-basin hydrology, net groundwater recharge farmers' livelihoods and on rural poverty reduction in the Atankuidi catchment a tributary of the WVB with the highest per capita groundwater use

Conflict, Livelihoods, and Poverty in Guinea-Bissau: An Overview

Conflict and political instability have considerably weakened Guinea-Bissau’s productive infrastructure during the past three decades. This situation has contributed to an increase in the degree of vulnerability of the population, especially in rural areas. As growth has been weak, poverty levels have remained high. This paper serves as an introduction and overview for a book that provides a collection of papers on conflict, livelihoods, and poverty in Guinea-Bissau based on both a nationally representative 2002 household survey and a small-scale survey with both quantitative and qualitative components implemented in 2004. After a brief review of political developments since independence, this overview summarizes the report’s main findings in the areas of conflict, growth and poverty, institutions and social networks, the characteristics of the poor and determinants of poverty, the population’s means of livelihood, and, finally, cashew production and taxation.Conflict; Livelihoods; Poverty; Gionea-Bissau

Farmers Awareness, Perception of Climate Hazards and their Willingness to Participate in Crop Insurance Schemes in Southwestern Burkina Faso

AbstractInnovative financing arrangements such as index-base crop insurance (IBCI) schemes are increasingly becoming popular in West Africa for managing catastrophic agricultural risks. Recently, an IBCI pilot project was launched in Burkina Faso by PlaNet Guarantee11A member of the Planet Finance Group and the Global Index Insurance Facility program (GIIF).. However, similar to many existing IBCI schemes in the region, the enrolment rate is still very low. One possible explanation for this is based on the fact that remote sensing data is used as the basis for the design. Although the use of remote sensing data is appealing in many respect, it has several limitations. One major limitation is that it fails to take into account sensitive phases of the crops cycle, which may be more prone to climate and other environmental stresses (Muller, 2014).In this paper, we highlights the importance of using field facts in the design of innovative IBCI schemes in rural Burkina Faso. Farmers’ awareness and perception of climate hazards in relation to crop productivity and their willingness to participate (WTP) in IBCI in South-western Burkina were captured through household surveys and focus group discussions. Empirical findings indicate that farmers are aware of the effects of climate hazard on farm productivity and consider mid-season dry spells, during sowing, flowering and ripening depending on the crop type, as the most significant climate risk affecting local crop productivity. Specifically, 98% of the sampled farmers are willing to insure maize, cotton and sorghum, but only if the most sensitive periods of these crops to dry spell are taken into account in designing the crop insurance contracts. Furthermore, Probit regression analysis indicates that the probability to participate increases with years of farming experience, past experience of climate hazards, educational attainment of household head and insecurity to climate hazard, and decreases with farmer's age and household size

GOVERNMENT REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES IN GUINEA-BISSAU: CAUSALITY AND COINTEGRATION

The paper establishes empirically the temporal causality and long run relationship between government expenditures and government revenues for the case of Guinea-Bissau - a low income country under stress (LICUS) in Africa. A macroeconomic model is developed to lay out the hypothesis of a spend-tax behavior in the country¡¯s public finances management system. Empirical validation is carried out by means of a traditional Granger-causality test and the estimation of an error correction model between expenditures and revenues.Public Finances, Causality Tests, Cointegration Analysis

An overview of the development challenges and constraints of the Niger Basin and possible intervention strategies

The Niger River Basin covers 7.5% of the African continent, and is shared between nine riparian countries. The basin countries can be categorized into water resources producers, consumers, both producers and consumers, and minimum contributors and consumers. As in the case for most transboundary rivers, upstream and downstream conflicts emanating from the development and utilization of the Niger River are inevitable and are expected to be intense, particularly given the escalating demands for water from the many uses and users. The basin is divided into four major sections, namely Upper Niger, Inland Delta, Middle Niger, and Lower Niger. But these divisions, though useful, are too generic to provide a complete understanding of biophysical, hydrological and socioeconomic processes impinging on the basin’s water resources, and to provide intervention recommendations. On average, the basin’s population is two-thirds (64%) rural and a significant part of the northern zones of the basin is unpopulated. People in the basin are engaged in various livelihood strategies such as dry- and wet-season cropping systems, pastoral systems, crop-livestock systems, and fishing. The dry-season livelihood systems include fadama (lowland or inland valleys) farming, recession flood farming, agroforestry, irrigated rice farming and fishing. Wet-season livelihood systems center mostly on cereal cropping and transhumance. The major crops grown in the basin are yam, cassava, rice, groundnut, millet, sorghum, plantain, cocoa, maize, sugarcane, and cotton. Agriculture represents a large part of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the Niger River Basin with crop production alone contributing 25-35% of the basin’s GDP, while livestock and fishery contribute 10-15% and 1-4%, respectively. All countries of the Niger Basin suffer from chronic and acute poverty and are ranked ‘poor’ by most poverty indicators (Human Development Index [HDI]), child mortality, life expectancy, Social Vulnerability Index, etc.). Several structural (social and institutional) factors hold a large segment of the basin’s population in the throes of poverty. Niger Basin’s challenge is to break this vicious circle by using resources to generate sustainable growth that is favorable to the poor. Some of the prominent water-related challenges are degradation of land and water resources, climate change and variability, vulnerability to disasters, inefficiency and poor performance of agriculture (rain-fed and irrigation), competing demands between sectors and water users and inadequate investment in water infrastructure. At a wider level, inadequate public services, institutional and governance failure, high population growth and urbanization, poor macro-economic performance, and unemployment have also undermined the development of the basin. The severity of these challenges varies from location to location in the basin. The basin’s development goals and objectives originate as a response to the development challenges and are articulated in various policy documents such as the Niger Basin Shared Vision (NBA PADD), poverty reduction strategy papers, United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), specifically the pillars 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). The goals of the basin countries are eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowerment of women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a global partnership for development. viii The specific development objectives of the basin countries are the following: • Increase income, generate jobs, improve living standards, and alleviate poverty, especially among the poorest section of the population while at the same time safeguarding the environment including the sustainable management of the Niger Basin water resources. • Improve access to health and education services, and increase life expectancy. • Achieve political stability, good governance and an appropriate institutional framework. • Improve the investment climate for private-sector development where infrastructure plays a decisive part. • Develop infrastructures and the productive sector to ensure better productivity of factors of production and economic growth. • Reduce food imports, boost agricultural exports through stabilization, intensification and expansion of agricultural production. To realize the basin’s development goals and objectives the following water-centered intervention clusters needed to be synergistically pursued. • Ensuring right to secure access to water for the poor. • Developing new infrastructure. • Improving access to agricultural water management innovations. • Strengthening Niger Basin’s water governance. • Upgrading rain-fed systems. • Reducing the vulnerability of poor people to climate shocks and other hazards. • Minimizing degradation of the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. • Diversifying livelihood strategies