Food security options for Sub-Saharan Africa

The food situation in Sub-Saharan Africa is an issue of growing concern. It is the contention of the paper that the primary issue is not overall supplies of food, but access to existing stocks of food and access to the means of production to produce food. Sen's concept of food entitlement is used as a means of analysing the food situation from the perspective of access to food. In the first section, the content of Sen's food entitlement approach is outlined. In the subsequent sections, various proposals for food security, both at the international and national levels, are outlined briefly and evaluated on the basis of the food entitlement approach. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the policy options designed to improve food entitlement systems

The food situation in the horn of Africa

In this paper, available data from World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organisation sources are presented in a brief, summary discussion of the food situation in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Specifically, the six countries are shown to be significant net exporters of 'food and beverages’. Subjects discussed in the paper include: food production, food imports, food aid, food exports, land use, rural demographic issues, and aggregate investment patterns. The intent is to highlight various aspects of the food crisis in the Horn of Africa and to initiate a policy discussion on various means that could be used to address the contemporary food situation

An analysis of the information on inter-district migration provided in the 1969 Kenya census

The primary intent of this paper is to make available to others an extensive set of calculations based on the Information on inter district movement provided in the 1969 Census. The calculations indicate the extent of inter-district migration and the nature of the various migration flows. The analysis is limited to using the available information on sex-ratios, age distribution and education completed to make some general observations on the likely types of migration involved

An analysis of the information on inter-district migration provided in the 1969 Kenya census

The primary intent of this paper is to make available to others an extensive set of calculations based on the information on inter-district movement provided in the 1969 Census. The calculations indicate the extent of inter-district migration and the nature of the various migration flows. The analysis is limited to using the available information on sex-ratios, age distribution and level of education completed to make some general observations on the likely types of migration involved

The divergence of private from social costs in rural-urban migration: a case study of Nairobi, Kenya

In Developing Economies the level of urban wages tends to induce more people to seek employment in the towns than can be employed at this wage level. The existence of these urban unemployed causes the private costs of migration to diverge from the social costs. The individual rural resident decides to remain or migrate on the basis of perceived private costs of migration. The effect of a decision to migrate on the economy is the social cost of migration. In our study we consider the determinants of different levels of private and social costs associated with different stocks of urban unemployed. In addition, utilizing survey data on Nairobi, Kenya, an attempt is made to quantify, the major private and social costs of migration to determine whether they diverge significantly. On the basis of these estimates some policy options for limiting urban unemployment caused by urban in-migration are considered

An analysis of the variation in modern sector earnings among the districst and major urban centres in Kenya

The paper analyses a large body of unpublished data collected by the Annual Enumeration of Employees. Occupational and industrial wage differentials are examined at the national level and then the technique of standardization is employed to explain inter-district and inter-town average modern sector earnings differentials. These differences are attributed to the occupational and industrial "mixes" of the districts and town and to the "area effect" the extent to which similarly classified occupations and industries pay different wages in districts and town. The latter effect is taken as a measure of the extent to which labour markets are segmented and is found to be particularly important in modern sector district labour markets

The role of competitive forces in the determination of wage increases in less developed economies: the case of Kenya

The theoretical literature concerned with rural-urban migration in LDCs has almost always assumed that the real wage differential between these sectors is fixed by the institutionally determined modern sector urban money wage and the relatively constant average product of labour in agriculture. An equilibrium flow of migrants is then determined by the "expected" wage differential, defined as some function of the money wage differential and the urban employment rate. Little attention has been given to an empirical estimate of the role played by the rate of unemployment in the determination of modern sector wages in LDCs. The major hypothesis tested here is that competitive forces are at work and that increases in the supply of labour tend to dampen the other institutional forces that serve to increase wages in the modern sector. The model is tested with data for 34 districts of Kenya and the major hypothesis is rejected

A model of labour allocation decision-making in peasant-type households

The extent of the food crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa is generating a renewed interest in the role of peasants in addressing the food problem. This paper is premised on the view that policy action with respect to agriculture development in Africa requires a realistic model of how rural peasants make decisions. In the first part of the paper we construct a model of such decision-making. The model focuses on peasant-type households as described and analysed by Chayanov. A central characteristic of such households is their attempt to seek a total of satisfactions, as producing and consuming units, rather than the pursuit of profit maximisation inherent in many microeconomic models of rural households. In the attempt to achieve its objectives, the household must make decisions concerning the allocation of its principal productive resource, labour. The model outlines the manner in which labour allocation decisions are made, subject to plausible constraints operating on rural households in Africa. The second part of the paper examines some of the implications of this model for various rural development policies