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EPAR Technical Report #347
Publication Date: 03/17/2017
Type: Literature Review
Abstract

A growing body of evidence suggests that empowering women may lead to economic benefits (The World Bank, 2011; Duflo, 2012; Kabeer & Natali, 2013). Little work, however, focuses specifically on the potential impacts of women’s empowerment in agricultural settings. Through a comprehensive review of literature this report considers how prioritizing women’s empowerment in agriculture might lead to economic benefits. With an intentionally narrow focus on economic empowerment, we draw on the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI)’s indicators of women’s empowerment in agriculture to consider the potential economic rewards to increasing women’s control over agricultural productive resources (including their own time and labor), over agricultural production decisions, and over agricultural income. While we recognize that there may be quantifiable benefits of improving women’s empowerment in and of itself, we focus on potential longer-term economic benefits of improvements in these empowerment measures.

EPAR Research Brief #332
Publication Date: 02/26/2016
Type: Literature Review
Abstract

Household survey data are a key source of information for policy-makers at all levels. In developing countries, household data are commonly used to target interventions and evaluate progress towards development goals. The World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study - Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) are a particularly rich source of nationally-representative panel data for six Sub-Saharan African countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. To help understand how these data are used, EPAR reviewed the existing literature referencing the LSMS-ISA and identified 415 publications, working papers, reports, and presentations with primary research based on LSMS-ISA data. We find that use of the LSMS-ISA has been increasing each year since the first survey waves were made available in 2009, with several universities, multilateral organizations, government offices, and research groups across the globe using the data to answer questions on agricultural productivity, farm management, poverty and welfare, nutrition, and several other topics.

EPAR Technical Report #35
Publication Date: 05/13/2009
Type: Literature Review
Abstract

This report provides a general overview of trends in public and private agricultural research and development (R&D) funding and expenditures in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The request is divided into two sections, covering public funding and private funding. Within each section, relevant data is presented on historical funding patterns, the types of research conducted, and which countries within SSA are financing R&D at the highest level. We find that the majority of growth in African public agricultural research funding took place in the 1960s, when real public spending on agricultural research increased 6% a year. From 1971 to 2000 annual growth averaged 1.4% a year. Public financing of agricultural R&D experienced a moderate shift in the 1990s from bilateral and multilateral donor funding to domestic government financing. The shift varied by country, but donor funding dropped for all SSA countries an average of 10%. Private research and development funding is heavily concentrated in developed countries with the United States and Japan the two biggest spenders. Within SSA, private R&D expenditures comprise 2% of all R&D spending. The main private actors in SSA are companies based in South Africa and Nigeria. The private sector is focused on research areas that involve marketable inputs, such as chemicals, seeds, and machines/