THE NATURE OF PUBLIC AGRICULTURAL SPENDING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

This paper sets out to analyses and present trends in investments in agriculture in the SADC region. In pursuing this goal the paper empirically highlights the importance of disaggregating expenditure data when examining its links to measures of productivity and poverty. This is important because not all types of expenditure have the potential to positively impact on productivity and poverty. In order to pursue the goals set out in this paper, analysis focused mainly on data on agricultural public expenditure for Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.  Trend analysis leads to the following main findings:  Various countries have tended to invest in their agricultural sectors differently across time, but investments have been limited and volatile, while the quality of spending has also gone down.  There is also public agricultural expenditure bias towards crops at the expense of other sectors.  The major implication is that there is need for more concerted efforts in the SADC to ensure  more and better-targeted agricultural growth enhancing investment

International Trade and Income in Malawi: A Co-integration and Causality Approach

This paper investigates causal relationships between exports, imports, and economic growth in Malawi over the period 1961-2010. These relationships are examined using the Johansen frameworks for co-integration whereas the Vector Error Correction (VECM) framework is further used to provide estimates for both short-run and long-run dynamics in the series under study. The empirical results, including the impulse responses support the export-led economic growth and export driven imports hypotheses in the long run, but they provide no evidence of any economic growth-driven exports. These results strongly support the role of international trade in Malawi's economic development and hence policies that seek to facilitate Malawi's trade within and outside the SADC regional would be worthwhile to pursue

Agriculture growth trends in Southern Africa

Non-PRIFPRI1; ReSAKSSDSG

Trends in agricultural growth and performance in Southern Africa

Non-PRIFPRI1; ReSAKSS SADSG

Monitoring of public spending in agriculture in Southern Africa

Non-PRIFPRI1; ReSAKSS SADSG

Poverty, food security and agricultural trends in Southern Africa

Non-PRIFPRI1; ReSAKS

Monitoring agriculture sector performance, growth and poverty trends in Mozambique

This report assesses the performance of the agriculture sector in Mozambique. It focuses on analysis of agricultural investment, growth, trade, poverty and hunger trends, and the progress made by Mozambique towards attaining the targets of the African Union’s (AU) Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and The Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP). The monitoring of the sector’s performance contributes towards, and promotes, the culture of evidence-based development planning. Regional commitments such as CAADP and national strategies such as the Strategic Plan for the Development of the Agricultural Sector (PEDSA) have developed monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks. This trends report signals the Ministry of Agriculture’s (MINAG) interest and effort to implement these frameworks with the support of the Mozambique Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (MozSAKSS) funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).PRIFPRI2; ReSAKSS SADSG