Year Published
- 2008 (2) Apply 2008 filter
- 2009 (1) Apply 2009 filter
- (-) Remove 2010 filter 2010
- 2011 (6) Apply 2011 filter
- 2012 (3) Apply 2012 filter
- 2013 (5) Apply 2013 filter
- 2014 (3) Apply 2014 filter
- 2015 (2) Apply 2015 filter
- (-) Remove 2016 filter 2016
- 2017 (1) Apply 2017 filter
- 2018 (1) Apply 2018 filter
- 2019 (1) Apply 2019 filter
- 2020 (0)
- 2021 (0)
Research Topics
Populations
- Countries/Governments (0)
- Rural Populations (0)
- Smallholder Farmers (1) Apply Smallholder Farmers filter
- Women (0)
Types of Research
Geography
- East Africa Region and Selected Countries (3) Apply East Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
- Global (5) Apply Global filter
- (-) Remove South Asia Region and Selected Countries filter South Asia Region and Selected Countries
- Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries (0)
- Sub-Saharan Africa (14) Apply Sub-Saharan Africa filter
- West Africa Region and Selected Countries (11) Apply West Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
Dataset
- ASTI (0)
- FAOSTAT (0)
- Farmer First (0)
- LSMS & LSMS-ISA (0)
- Other Datasets (0)
Current search
- (-) Remove 2010 filter 2010
- (-) Remove South Asia Region and Selected Countries filter South Asia Region and Selected Countries
- (-) Remove Literature Review filter Literature Review
- (-) Remove Research Brief filter Research Brief
- (-) Remove 2016 filter 2016
In this report, we analyze the evidence that improved and expanded access to financial services can be a pathway out of poverty in Bangladesh and Tanzania. A brief background review of finance and poverty reduction evidence at the country, household, and individual level emphasizes the importance of a functioning financial system and the need to remove individual and household barriers to capital accumulation. We follow with an in-depth literature review on studies that link poverty reduction in Bangladesh or Tanzania with one or more of five financial intervention categories: remittances; government subsidies; conditional and unconditional cash transfers; credit; and combination programs. The resulting empirical evidence from these sources reveal a high share (61%) of positive reported associations between a financial intervention and outcome measure related to our five chosen financial interventions. The remaining studies found insignificant or mixed associations, but very few (3 out of 56) indicate that access to a financial mechanism was associated with worsened poverty. The heterogeneity of study types and interventions makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the efficacy of one intervention over another, and more research is needed on whether such approaches constitute a durable, long-term exit from poverty.
Water supply and sanitation is the responsibility of sub-national state governments under the Indian Constitution. At present, the national government sets water supply and sanitation policy while states plan, design, and execute water supply schemes accordingly. Furthermore, while state governments are in charge of operation and maintenance, they may pass the responsibility to village or district levels. Given the highly decentralized provision of water and sanitation services, there is no autonomous regulatory agency for the water supply and sanitation sector in India at the state or national level. This report reviews literature on India’s urban sanitation policy. The methodology includes Google, Lexis-Nexis, and University of Washington Library searches, searches of two major Indian newspapers, and searches of websites and blogs sponsored by non-governmental organizations. Sources also include the India Sanitation Portal, a forum on sanitation in India used by governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and WASH Sanitation Updates, a sanitation news feed with considerable material on India. We find that urban sanitation policy, as embodied in the National Urban Sanitation Plan of 2008, remains focused on decentralized approaches. Our research reveals no evidence of a change in official policy, nor evidence suggesting that government sanitation programs conflict with official policy.
In recent years, product supply chains for agricultural goods have become increasingly globalized. As a result, greater numbers of smallholder farmers in South Asia (SA) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) participate in global supply chains, many of them through contract farming (CF). CF is an arrangement between a farmer and a processing or marketing firm for the production and supply of agricultural products, often at predetermined prices. This literature review finds empirical evidence that demonstrates that the economic and social benefits of CF for smallholder farmers are mixed. A number of studies suggest that CF may improve farmer productivity, reduce production risk and transaction costs, and increase farmer incomes. However, critics caution that CF may undermine farmers’ relative bargaining power and increase health, environmental, and financial risk through exposure to monopsonistic markets, weak contract environments, and unfamiliar agricultural technologies. There is consensus across the literature that CF has the best outcomes for farmers when farmers have more bargaining power to negotiate the terms of the contract. In reviewing the literature on CF, we find a number of challenges to comparing studies and evaluating outcomes across contracts. This literature review summarizes empirical findings and analyses regarding contract models and best practices to increase farmers’ bargaining power and decrease contract default.