Promoting a strong seed sector in Sub-Saharan Africa:

"Given that Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of poverty and malnutrition in the world, the stagnation in per capita grain production there is worrisome. Since 1970, per capita grain production in Sub-Saharan Africa has declined more than 10 percent. Increasing the productivity of staple foodcrops will help poor farmers and consumers, and one of the most sustainable ways to expand food production in Sub-Saharan Africa is to generate new technologies—including staple seed varieties—that are adapted to the constraints of the continent's small-scale farmers. The region thus requires a cost-effective system of seed production and distribution to ensure that appropriate seeds are delivered to farmers. Both the private and public sectors have a role to play in developing the seed sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although the private sector can effectively carry out many seed production and distribution activities, for reasons discussed in this brief, private companies acting on their own will not develop and produce optimal amounts of appropriate seeds for Sub-Saharan Africa. Thus the public sector also has a role to play." from Author's textSeed systems, Private sector, Public sector,

Staple food prices in Malawi

Prepared for the Comesa policy seminar on “Variation in staple food prices: Causes, consequence, and policy options”, Maputo, Mozambique, 25-26 January 2010 under the African Agricultural Marketing Project (AAMP)Malawi, food security, food prices, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, International Relations/Trade, q11, q13, q18,

Market Access and Rural Poverty in Tanzania

Economic reforms in Tanzania have resulted in low inflation and solid economic growth, but many observers question whether the standard of living of ordinary Tanzanians has improved. Furthermore, there is a strong suspicion that the benefits have been concentrated among the urban population and among rural households with good market access, leaving remote rural households behind. In this paper, we demonstrate a new approach to measuring poverty trends over time. First, the relationship between poverty and household characteristics is estimated using household budget survey data. Second, this relationship is applied to the same characteristics in Demographic and Health Surveys, four of which have been carried out in Tanzania. The results suggest that the headcount poverty rate has declined by almost 9 percentage points over 1991-2003. The percentagepoint decline has been similar in rural and urban areas. Although remote rural areas tend to be poorer than other rural areas, there is no evidence that remote areas have gained any less than other rural areas in terms of poverty reduction.poverty, market access, Tanzania, economic reforms, Food Security and Poverty, C0, I3, O1, Q13, R0,

INCOME DIVERSIFICATION AND POVERTY REDUCTION IN THE NORTHERN UPLANDS OF VIETNAM

In the context of the economic development, income diversification is sometimes defined as the process by which households switch from growing low-value staple food crops to growing a mix of food crops and higher-value commercial crops (crop diversification) and from farming to non-farm activities (non-farm diversification). The literature on income diversification has measured trends, identified determinants, and speculated on the constraints to diversification, but there has been relatively little analysis of the contribution of diversification to income growth. This paper uses household survey data from 1993 and 1998 to quantify the contribution of crop diversification and non-farm diversification to the growth of household income in the northern upland region of Vietnam. We find that rural incomes have increased substantially over this period, but non-farm income has increased at the same rate as farm income. Poor households are particularly dependent on crop income growth, while higher-income households rely more on non-farm diversification to increase their incomes. Crop diversification has made a non-negligible contribution to rising living standards in the northern uplands, but the contribution of yield growth is substantially greater. Crop income growth among poor households is based heavily on yield increases, while income growth among richer households is associated with area expansion and crop diversification. These results have implications for policies and investment to improve rural living standards.Food Security and Poverty,

Staple food prices in Tanzania

Prepared for the Comesa policy seminar on “Variation in staple food prices: Causes, consequence, and policy options”, Maputo, Mozambique, 25-26 January 2010 under the African Agricultural Marketing Project (AAMP)Tanzania, food security, food prices, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, International Relations/Trade, q11, q13, q18,

Transmission of world food price changes to markets in Sub-Saharan Africa:

error correction model, food crisis, Food prices, Price transmission, Staple food,

Generating disaggregated poverty maps

Geographic targeting is often recommended as a way to improve the impact of social spending and infrastructure investments on rural poverty. Previous research shows that such targeting is not very accurate unless the geographic units are small. Household surveys, however, rarely allow the estimation of poverty rates for more than 5-10 regions in a country. This study develops a method for generating disaggregated poverty maps and applies the method to Viet Nam. First, the relationship between rural poverty and 25 household indicators is estimated using household survey data. Then, census data on those same indicators are used to estimate the poverty rates for each of the 543 rural districts in Viet Nam. The results indicate that poverty is concentrated in the north and in districts furthest from the coast and cities.Poverty ,Infrastructure (Economics) Viet Nam. ,Social service Viet Nam. ,Vietnam ,

Are poor, remote areas left behind in agricultural development

"In Tanzania, as in many other developing countries, the conventional wisdom is that economic reforms may have stimulated economic growth, but that the benefits of this growth have been uneven, favoring urban households and farmers with good market access. This idea, although quite plausible, has rarely been tested empirically. In this paper, we develop a new approach to measuring trends in poverty and apply it to Tanzania in order to explore the distributional aspects of economic growth and the relationship between rural poverty and market access. We find that, between 1991 and 2003, a period of extensive economic reforms, the overall rate of poverty fell about 9 percentage points. The degree of poverty reduction was similar between rural and urban areas, though poverty appears not to have declined in Dar es Salaam. The poverty rate fell more among households with a less educated head of household than among those with a more educated head. The gains were greater among male-headed households than female-headed households. We find that rural poverty is associated with remoteness, but the relationship is surprisingly weak and it varies depending on the definition used. Rural poverty is more closely related to access to regional urban centers than distance to roads or to Dar es Salaam. We find little evidence that remote rural areas are being “left behind” in terms of the absolute decline in the poverty rate. " Authors' AbstractMarket access ,Agricultural development ,rural areas ,Economic reform ,measurement ,Rural poverty Tanzania ,

Transmission of World Food Price Changes to African Markets and its Effect on Household Welfare

Paper to be presented at the Comesa policy seminar “Food price variability: Causes, consequences, and policy options" on 25-26 January 2010 in Maputo, Mozambique under the Comesa-MSU-IFPRI African Agricultural Markets Project (AAMP)Africa, food security, food prices, global markets, Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, International Relations/Trade, q11, q13, q17, q18,

Transportation network companies as cost reduction strategies for paratransit

Paratransit service is an auxiliary type of public transportation provided for people with disabilities and older adults. Federal ADA regulations require all transit agencies receiving federal funding to provide paratransit service, but the per trip cost to transit operators is extremely expensive. Many transit agencies are looking for ways to reduce costs without limiting services. For many agencies, this results in providing the minimum services as required by ADA regulations. However, Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) has taken a different approach to cost reduction by entering into one of the first partnerships with transportation network companies. In September 2016, MBTA’s paratransit service, The Ride, began a partnership with both Uber and Lyft as a cost reduction strategy for paratransit provision. Since the beginning of the partnership, MBTA has been able to reduce costs of providing paratransit while maintaining the same level of service. This report will examine the benefits and limitations of such partnerships between transit agencies and transportation network companies, using MBTA’s The Ride partnership as an example for potentially successful partnerships throughout the United States.Community and Regional Plannin