Trends in Life Expectancy and the Macroeconomy in Malawi

This paper studies the trends in life expectancy in Malawi since independence and offers possible explanations regarding inter-temporal variations. Descriptive analysis reveals that the life expectancy in Malawi has trailed below the Sub Saharan African average. From the 1960s through to the early 1980s life expectancy improved driven mainly by rising incomes and the absence of HIV/AIDS. In the mid 1980s life expectancy declined tremendously and never improved due to the spread of HIV/AIDS, the economic slump that followed the World Bank's Structural Adjustment programmes (SAP) and widespread corruption and poor governance in the era of democracy. At the turn of the new millennium, Malawians were no healthier than their ancestors at the dawn of independence though this improved after 2004. If Malawi is to meet its health Millennium Development Goals by 2015, good governance, improved agricultural performance and an increase in health expenditure should be at the heart of its development policies.Malawi Medical Journal Vol. 19 (4) 2007 pp. 154-15

Africa agriculture transformation scorecard performance and lessons for Zimbabwe

The main objective of this BR brief is to summarize the performance, key issues, and recommendations for improving progress toward agricultural transformation in Zimbabwe. This brief provides recommendations and action items based on Zimbabwe’s performance in the inaugural BR mechanism to help the country improve its domestication and implementation of the Malabo Declaration commitments. In addition, recommendations are shared to help the country strengthen mutual accountability to actions and results, ultimately contributing to improving the country’s progress towards achieving the Malabo targets by 2025

Provider diversity in the NHS: impact on quality and innovation. Final report for the NIHR Policy Research Programme

Health system reforms were introduced in the UK in 1990, partially reversed in 1997, and relaunched with the NHS Plan of 2000. The reforms introduced by New Labour (DH 2005a) aimed to encourage a diversity of providers with freedom to innovate and improve service quality. The reforms also involved centralised price setting, decentralised commissioning, and entry reforms to encourage a diversity of providers with more freedom to innovate and improve service quality (DH 2005a). Commissioners of NHS services were expected to engage with new providers from the for-profit private sector and the ‘Third Sector’ including voluntary groups, registered charities, foundations, trusts, social enterprises, and cooperatives alongside incumbent NHS providers1. The promotion of the entry of new providers was designed to stimulate innovation, quality and choice in the provision of health and social care services. Yet relatively little was known about the comparative performance of different types of providers, the barriers to entry and growth which they faced, or how their involvement could best be used to improve quality and innovation in service delivery

Rainfall shocks and crop productivity in Zambia: implication for agricultural water risk management

This paper investigates the impact of erratic rainfall and related water problems on agricultural productivity. The paper also aims to shed light on the conceptual importance of understanding the incidence and impacts of rainfall shocks for choosing feasible agricultural water risk management strategies both at household and policy levels. To achieve these goals we develop a conceptual framework, use national representative data from Zambia’s crop estimates survey for 2017/2018 farming season, employ fixed effects regression approach, and find that dry spells, excessive floods, incidence of water logging are all detrimental to crop productivity. The crop-based equations also reveal the differential impacts of the rainfall shocks on different crops. Since the effect of water factors including dry spells, floods and water logging on agricultural productivity is dependent on the crop types, it is important for the Zambian government as well as other countries to take this into account when planning and implementing strategies for agricultural water risk management

Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard: Performance and Lessons for the Southern Africa Development Community-SADC

This paper describes preliminary lessons and experiences from the African Union/NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency�s Biennial Reviews process in which agricultural investment plans for every African Union Member State are reviewed every two years in order to track the country�s progress in the implementation of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) and Malabo commitments that were made by African Union Heads of State in June 2014 in Equatorial Guinea, on how to improve agriculture. We have analysed documents from the African Union, previous meeting notes and other literature to in order to understand the Biennial review processes and draw conclusions on how best countries can improve their processes and possibly their biennial reviews scores going forward

Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard: Performance and Lessons for the Southern Africa Development Community-SADC

This paper describes preliminary lessons and experiences from the African Union/NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency�s Biennial Reviews process in which agricultural investment plans for every African Union Member State are reviewed every two years in order to track the country�s progress in the implementation of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) and Malabo commitments that were made by African Union Heads of State in June 2014 in Equatorial Guinea, on how to improve agriculture. We have analysed documents from the African Union, previous meeting notes and other literature to in order to understand the Biennial review processes and draw conclusions on how best countries can improve their processes and possibly their biennial reviews scores going forward

Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard: performance and lessons. Zimbabwe

This brief highlights Zimbabwe’s performance in the second BR and assesses challenges faced and lessons learned by the country during the review process. The brief also reviews policy and programmatic changes in Zimbabwe that can be attributed to the first (2017) and second BRs. It concludes by highlighting required policy actions for Zimbabwe to meet the Malabo Commitments by 2025

Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard: Performance and Lessons. Botswana

The Malabo Declaration on accelerated agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods is a set of goals that were adopted by Heads of State and Government of the African Union in 2014 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (AUC 2014). To translate the seven Malabo commitments into results, a call for action was made by the Heads of State and Governments, by calling upon the AU Commission and the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, in collaboration with partners, to initiate a review process to be conducted on a biennial basis starting 2017, with an objective of tracking, measuring, and reporting progress towards achieving the Malabo Declaration commitments by 2025. Three Biennial Reviews (BR) have been conducted—the inaugural BR in 2017, the second BR in 2019, and the third and most recent BR in 2021. This brief draws on the third BR report to summarize Botswana’s performance in pursuit of the seven Malabo Declaration commitments across the three BR cycles, highlights challenges and lessons from the third BR, and outlines policy and programmatic measures required for the country to meet the Malabo targets by 2025. The third BR reveals that Botswana is not on-track for achieving the Malabo Declaration commitments. However, the analysis notes an improvement in the country’s overall performance score since the second BR cycle. This progress from the second to the third BR indicates a turnaround from the decline the country registered between the first and second BR cycles. A key recommendation from the analysis is for the country to enhance its resilience to climate change by providing sufficient public funding. The country should also establish government budget lines to respond to spending needs on resilience-building initiatives