Road network upgrading and overland trade expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa

Recent research suggests that isolation from regional and international markets has contributed significantly to poverty in many Sub-Saharan African countries. Numerous empirical studies identify poor transport infrastructure and border restrictions as significant deterrents to trade expansion. In response, the African Development Bank has proposed an integrated network of functional roads for the subcontinent. Drawing on new econometric results, the authors quantify the trade-expansion potential and costs of such a network. They use spatial network analysis techniques to identify a network of primary roads connecting allSub-Saharan capitals and other cities with populations over 500,000. The authors estimate current overland trade flows in the network using econometrically-estimated gravity model parameters, road transport quality indicators, actual road distances, and estimates of economic scale for cities in the network. Then they simulate the effect of feasible continental upgrading by setting network transport quality at a level that is functional, but less highly developed than existing roads in countries like South Africa and Botswana. The authors assess the costs of upgrading with econometric evidence from a large World Bank database of road project costs in Africa. Using a standard approach to forecast error estimation, they derive a range of potential benefits and costs. Their baseline results indicate that continental network upgrading would expand overland trade by about $250 billion over 15 years, with major direct and indirect benefits for the rural poor. Financing the program would require about$20 billion for initial upgrading and $1 billion annually for maintenance. The authors conclude with a discussion of supporting institutional arrangements and the potential cost of implementing them.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Common Carriers Industry,Rural Roads&Transport,Transport and Trade Logistics,Economic Theory&Research

Determinants of a digital divide in Sub-Saharan Africa : a spatial econometric analysis of cell phone coverage

Most discussions of the digital divide treat it as a"North-South"issue, but the conventional dichotomy doesn't applyto cell phones in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although almost all Sub-Saharan countries are poor by international standards, they exhibit great disparities in coverage by cell telephone systems. Buys, Dasgupta, Thomas and Wheeler investigate the determinants of these disparities with a spatially-disaggregated model that employs locational information for cell-phone towers across over 990,000 4.6-km grid squares in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using probit techniques, a probability model with adjustments for spatial autocorrelation has been estimated that relates the likelihood of cell-tower location within a grid square to potential market size (proximate population); installation and maintenance cost factors related to accessibility (elevation, slope, distance from a main road, distance from the nearest large city); and national competition policy. Probit estimates indicate strong, significant results for the supply-demand variables, and very strong results for the competition policy index. Simulations based on the econometric results suggest that a generalized improvement in competition policy to a level that currently characterizes the best-performing states in Sub-Saharan Africa could lead to huge improvements in cell-phone area coverage for many states currently with poor policy performance, and an overall coverage increase of nearly 100 percent.E-Business,ICT Policy and Strategies,Population Policies,Technology Industry,Geographical Information Systems

Quantifying the rural-urban gradient in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper addresses the deceptively simple question: What is the rural population of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)? It argues that rurality is a gradient, not a dichotomy, and nominates two dimensions to that gradient: population density and remoteness from large metropolitan areas. It uses geographically referenced population data (from the Gridded Population of the World, version 3) to tabulate the distribution of populations in Latin America and in individual countries by population density and by remoteness. It finds that the popular perception of Latin America as a 75 percent urban continent is misleading. Official census criteria, though inconsistent between countries, tend to classify as"urban"small settlements of less than 2,000 people. Many of these settlements are however embedded in an agriculturally based countryside. The paper finds that about 13 percent of Latin America populations live at ultra-low densities of less than 20 per square kilometer. Essentially these people are more than an hour's distance from a large city, and more than half live more than four hours'distance. A quarter of the population of Latin America is estimated to live at densities below 50, again essentially all of them more than an hour's distance from a large city. Almost half (46 pecent) of Latin America live at population densities below 150 (a conventional threshold for urban areas), and more than 90 percent of this group is at least an hour's distance from a city; about one-third of them (18 percent of the total) are more than four hours distance from a large city.Agricultural Research,Demographics,Health Indicators,,Health Information&Communications Technologies

Country stakes in climate change negotiations : two dimensions of vulnerability

Using a comprehensive geo-referenced database of indicators relating to global change and energy, the paper assesses countries'likely attitudes with respect to international treaties that regulate carbon emissions. The authors distinguish between source and impact vulnerability and classify countries according to these dimensions. The findings show clear differences in the factors that determine likely negotiating positions. This analysis and the resulting detailed, country level information help to explain the incentives required to make the establishment of such agreements more likely.Energy Production and Transportation,Energy and Environment,Environment and Energy Efficiency,Climate Change,Transport and Environment

Measuring up - new directions for environmental programs at the World Bank

The World Bank's new environment strategy advocates cost-effective reduction of air and water pollutants that are most harmful to human health. In addition, it addresses threats to the livelihood of over one billion people who live on fragile lands-lands that are steeply sloped, arid, or covered by natural forests. The new approach will require accurate information about environmental threats to health and livelihood, as well as an appropriate resource-allocation strategy. Drawing on recent research at the World Bank and elsewhere, this paper attempts to apply an optimal investment approach. It develops a rule for optimal cross-country resource allocation that reflects the Bank's investment policy. Using this rule, the paper estimates optimal country shares of the Bank's environmental investments from two sets of variables: threats from outdoor air pollution, water pollution, and fragile lands; and estimates of the likelihood that Bank projects will succeed. The paper combines the country shares with the Bank's investment data to estimate optimal country allocations for each environmental problem. Finally, it aggregates the country results to allocations for the major regions in which the Bank operates. Combining optimal investments for pollution and fragile lands, it finds that the largest share of total investment goes to East Asia (44 percent), followed by South Asia (21 percent) and Sub-Saharan Africa (19 percent). Other regions get significantly lower shares.Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,Water and Industry,Earth Sciences&GIS,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Earth Sciences&GIS,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Water and Industry,Agricultural Research

The Economics of Regional Poverty-Environment Programs: An Application for Lao People's Democratic Republic

Program administrators are often faced with the difficult problem of allocating scarce resources among regions in a country when interventions are aimed at addressing multiple objectives. One main concern is the tradeoff between poverty reduction and improvement of environmental quality. To provide a framework for analysis, the authors develop a model of optimal budget allocation that allows for variations in three factors: administrators'valuation of objectives; their willingness to accept tradeoffs among objectives and regional allotments; and regional administrative costs. The results from an application of this model using information for Lao People's Democratic Republic show that simple poverty indicators alone do not provide consistent guidelines for policy. However, when different poverty indicators are embedded in an optimizing model that incorporates preferences and costs, the resulting provincial allocations are very similar. This suggests that adoption of a formal analytical approach to resource allocation can help promote the harmonization of regional policy guidelines.Poverty Reduction Strategies,Public Health Promotion,Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Environmental Economics&Policies,Poverty Assessment,Poverty Reduction Strategies,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Health Economics&Finance

Invited review : Probiotic yogurt quality criteria, regulatory framework, clinical evidence, and analytical aspects

Yogurt is a milk-based product manufactured by lactic acid fermentation enabled by symbiotic yogurt cultures. Yogurt is largely considered to be a health product, and it is employed to deliver probiotics and prebiotics to the consumer. However, not all yogurts are probiotic, neither are they all functional products. There is increasing demand for health-promoting beverages, which is prompting the dairy industry to develop functional probiotic yogurts to meet the demand. However, there seems to be a scarcity of reviews providing critical information on regulatory frameworks in regions of the world, clinical trial outcomes, and methodological approaches for enumerating multiprobiotic strains in yogurt. This review, relating to functional probiotic yogurt, covers the newest information on the topic for the period mostly between 2014 and 2019. Conformance to regulations is paramount and hence, global regulatory frameworks for probiotic yogurt and prebiotic and nonprebiotic ingredients included in yogurt are reviewed. The paper emphasizes the need for convincing clinical trial outcomes that provide the dairy industry with an opportunity to market products with substantiated beneficial claims. The paper also discusses probiotic strains in functional yogurt, which is required to have population levels above the recommended therapeutic minimum during shelf life. The multiprobiotic species added to yogurt may present challenges relating to methodological and analytical approaches needed to determine viability of each strain contained in such yogurt. Hence, the review also presents the pros and cons of the culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches for the enumeration of probiotic cells in yogurt. The review is arguably valuable to the dairy industry, functional food developers, related scientists, and researchers, as well as policy makers.http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-dairy-scienceam2022Consumer ScienceFood Scienc

Dalam sengketa? perluasan pertanian, pengentasan kemiskinan, dan lingkungan di hutan tropis

xvii,280hlm.;bib.;ill

Inhibition d'Escherichia coli O157:H7 dans un lait de chèvre à lactoperoxydase activée fermenté par des cultures de souches pures ou indigènes de bactéries lactiques

The lactoperoxidase (LP) system has been reported to inhibit the production of acid by lactic starter cultures and can result in the survival and growth of acid-adapted enteropathogens in LP-activated fermented milk. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the LP system on growth and acid production by single strains and indigenous lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and the survival of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in fermented goat's milk. LP-activated raw and pasteurized goat's milks were inoculated with single strains of Lactococcus sp. and Bifidobacterium longum BB536 and incubated for 24 h at 30 °C to simulate commercial milk fermentation. Madila, a traditional fermented milk product, was fermented with indigenous LAB for 5 days at 30 °C. Goat's milk was also inoculated with E. coli O157:H7 to determine its survival during the fermentation of the LP-activated milk. The viability of LAB and E. coli O157:H7, pH and acid production were monitored during the fermentations. None of the LAB cultures tested displayed significant sensitivity to the LP system with respect to growth and acid production. However, E. coli O157:H7 was inhibited in the LP-activated milk in the commercial fermented milk and in the traditional Madila, where the counts were reduced by $>$ 5.0 log cfu$\cdot$mL$^{-1}$. Therefore, the LP system could be used during the fermentation of both traditional and commercial milk processing at ambient temperatures as an additional bacteriological control to improve the quality of commercial sour milk and traditional Madila-type products.Le système lactoperoxydase (LP) est considéré comme un inhibiteur de la production d'acide des cultures de levains lactiques qui peut entraîner la survie et la multiplication d'entéropathogènes adaptés à l'acide dans les laits fermentés à LP activée. Cette étude a été conduite pour rechercher l'effet du système LP sur la croissance et la production d'acide de souches pures ou indigènes de bactéries lactiques (LAB) et sur la survie d'Escherichia coli O157:H7 dans du lait de chèvre fermenté. Des laits de chèvre crus et pasteurisés à LP activée ont été inoculés avec des souches pures de Lactococcus sp. et de Bifidobacterium longum BB536 et incubés 24 h à 30 °C pour simuler la fermentation commerciale du lait, alors que le traditionnel Madila, un produit laitier fermenté, était fermenté avec des LAB indigènes pendant 5 jours à 30 °C. Le lait de chèvre était aussi inoculé avec E. coli O157:H7 pour en déterminer la survie pendant la fermentation du lait à lactoperoxydase activée. La viabilité des LAB et d'E. coli O157:H7, le pH et la production d'acide ont été suivis tout au long des périodes de fermentation. Aucune des cultures de LAB testées n'a montré de sensibilité significative au système LP en ce qui concerne la croissance et la production d'acide durant la fermentation du lait. E. coli était cependant inhibé par le lait à LP activée dans le lait fermenté commercial et le traditionnel Madila. Dans le Madila, les dénombrements d'E. coli O157:H7 étaient réduits de plus de 5,0 log cfu$\cdot$mL$^{-1}$. Le système LP peut donc être utilisé en fermentation de lait traditionnel ou commercial fabriqué à température ambiante, comme contrôle bactériologique additionnel pour améliorer la qualité de produits laitiers fermentés commerciaux et traditionnels de type Madila

Road Network Upgrading and Overland Trade Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa-super- †

Recent research suggests that poor economic integration and isolation from regional and international markets have contributed significantly to poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. Poor transport infrastructure and border restrictions are major deterrents to trade expansion which would stimulate economic growth and poverty reduction. Using spatial network analysis techniques and gravity trade model estimations, this paper quantifies the economics of upgrading a primary road network that connects the major urban areas in the region. The results indicate that continental network upgrading is worth serious consideration from an economic perspective. Our simulations suggest that overland trade among Sub-Saharan African countries might expand by about $250 billion over 15 years, with major direct and indirect benefits for the rural poor. Financing the programme would require about$20 billion for initial upgrading and $1 billion annually for maintenance. Copyright 2010 The author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected], Oxford University Press.