Food aid and child nutrition in rural Ethiopia

"Food aid programs have become increasingly important for disaster relief in many developing countries. In Ethiopia, a drought-stricken economy with one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world, food aid has amounted to almost 10 million metric tons (mt) from 1984 to 1998, almost 10 percent of annual cereal production. Because of the importance of food aid in Ethiopia, much effort has been devoted to evaluation of its effectiveness.....Many evaluations of food aid have examined its impact on household calorie availability. This paper focuses on the effects of food aid on individual nutritional status, as measured by indicators of child nutrition." from Author's Abstract

Methods in Consumption Analysis: Consumer Theory, Econometric Issues and Philippine Estimates

This article has been presented at the Workshop on Methods for Agricultural Policy Analysis held at the UP Los Baños on August 13-14, 1985. It reviews the consumer theory and demand system and the econometric issues in utilizing household level data. It also reviews the Philippine estimates and its significance in nutrition policy simulation.agriculture sector, econometric modeling

Methods in Consumption Analysis: Consumer Theory, Econometric Issues and Philippine Estimates

This article has been presented at the Workshop on Methods for Agricultural Policy Analysis held at the UP Los Baños on August 13-14, 1985. It reviews the consumer theory and demand system and the econometric issues in utilizing household level data. It also reviews the Philippine estimates and its significance in nutrition policy simulation.agriculture sector, econometric modeling

Promising Approaches to Address the Needs of Poor Female Farmers: Resources, Constraints, and Interventions

This paper critically reviews attempts to increase poor female farmers' access to, and control of, productive resources in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It surveys the literature from 1998 to 2008 that describes interventions and policy changes across several key agricultural resources, including land, soil, and water; labor-saving technologies; improved varieties; extension services; and credit. Main questions: (1) Are women more constrained in access to, and control of, productive resources? (2) What are the key intervention strategies to address constraints to accessing such resources? (3) What are some of the promising approaches that have been used in the field? and (4) Have those approaches been rigorously evaluated, and what are the implications for scaling up

Investments in Adolescent Girl's Physical and Financial Assets: Issues and Review of Evidence

This issues paper focuses on strengthening poor adolescent girls' ability to invest in and accumulate physical (including land) and financial assets. The paper begins by presenting a conceptual framework showing the relationship between the gendered distribution of assets, empowerment, and well-being. It then discusses why assets are important for adolescent girls, and then moves on to elucidating the ways through which girls acquire assets across the life course. It continues by reviewing the existing evidence on programs and interventions that have attempted to increase girls' physical and financial assets, emphasizing "bundled" interventions or integrated programs that combine efforts to build stocks of physical and financial assets with education, training, or programming to attain other development objectives, such as delayed marriage or prevention of risky sexual behavior. We end by summarizing "lessons learned," identifying new opportunities, and suggesting steps for future research and implementation. This paper is accompanied by a mapping document which contains the results in more detail

Migration and the Rural-Urban Continuum: Evidence from Bukidnon, Philippines

This paper explores the heterogeneity of the migrant experience using the Bukidnon Panel Survey, which follows up 448 families in rural Mindanao who were first interviewed in 1984-85, as well as their offspring. Migration patterns are examined using the full listing of children of the original respondents as well as a special survey including 257 of the migrant offspring who were tracked down and interviewed in 2004. The migrant survey focuses on differences in the migration experience of males and females who migrated to rural, poblacion, and urban areas. The study finds that rural areas, poblaciones, and urban areas systematically attract different types of migrants. It also finds that the most important determinants of an individual`s location decision are life-cycle effects, specifically marriage and educational attainment.migration, Bukidnon, migration decision, migration pattern

Human capital, productivity, and labor allocation in rural Pakistan

This paper investigates whether human capital affects the productivity and labor allocation of rural households in four districts of Pakistan. The investigation shows that households with better-educated males earn higher off-farm income and divert labor resources away from farm activities toward nonfarm work. Education has no significant effect on productivity in crop and livestock production. The effect of human capital on household incomes is partly realized through the reallocation of labor from low-productivity activities to nonfarm work. Female education and nutrition do not affect productivity and labor allocation in any systematic fashion, a finding that is consistent with the marginal role women play in market-oriented activities in Pakistan. As a by-product, our estimation approach also tests the existence of perfect labor and factor markets; the hypothesis that such markets exist is strongly rejected.employment ,Gender ,Female labor ,Income distribution ,Labor Gender issues. ,Labor productivity. ,Pakistan. ,Nutrition ,

Gendered impacts of the 2007-08 food price crisis: Evidence using panel data from rural Ethiopia

This paper provides empirical evidence on the gendered impact of the 2007–08 food price crisis using panel data on 1,400 households from rural Ethiopia that were initially surveyed before the onset of the crisis, in 1994–95, 1997, and 2004, and after food prices spiked, in 2009. It investigates whether female-headed households are more likely to report experiencing a food price shock, and whether female-headed households experiencing a shock are more (or less) likely to adopt certain coping strategies, controlling for individual, household, and community characteristics. Our findings suggest that female-headed households are more vulnerable to food price changes and are more likely to have experienced a food price shock in 2007–08. Because female-headed households are also resource poor and have a larger food gap compared with male-headed households, they cope by cutting back on the number of meals they provide their households during good months and eating less preferred foods in general. Our findings that land—particularly better quality land—has a protective effect against food price shocks also highlight the role of strengthening land rights of the poor, particularly poor women, to enable them to cope better with food price increases.coping mechanisms, food price crisis, Gender,

How fair is workfare? gender, public works, and employment in rural Ethiopia

The authors use the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey to examine the gender dimensions of public works. They use three rounds of a panel conducted in 1994-95 to explore the determinants of participation in, days worked, wages, and earnings from wage labor, food-for-work (FFW), and self-employment. Then they analyze public works data collected in 1997, together with program data collected in 2003. FFW operates in a similar fashion with other labor markets in Ethiopia where female participation is low. Gender differences are important in the participation decision, but operate differently in different types of labor markets. Better-educated women are more likely to participate in the wage labor market, while higher livestock holdings diminish participation more for women. Females with more schooling are also more likely to participate in FFW. Men’s and women’s participation in FFW and self-employment responds differently to household and community shocks. After controlling for selection in which gender plays an important role, gender disadvantages in the wage labor market and FFW are insignificant. Returns to schooling and height are consistently positive in both wage labor and FFW, suggesting returns to human capital investment, even in the low-skill labor markets of rural Ethiopia. Program characteristics significantly affect participation, with differential effects on men and women. Participation, days worked, wages, and earnings vary according to the type of project. Relative to infrastructure projects, water, social services, and other projects decrease participation probabilities. Distance has a strong negative effect on women’s participation relative to men’s.Labor Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Gender and Development,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Housing&Human Habitats,Work&Working Conditions

Gender and development: bridging the gap between research and action

Gender, Development, Research, households, Household resource allocation, Property rights, Project evaluation, Needs assessment,