Evans School Policy Analysis & Research Group (EPAR)

In this brief, we report on measures of economic growth, poverty and agricultural activity in Ethiopia. For each category of measure, we first describe different measurement approaches and present available time series data on selected indicators. We then use data from the sources listed below to discuss associations within and between these categories between 1994 and 2017. 

Common aid allocation formulas incorporate measures of income per capita but not measures of poverty, likely based on the assumption that rising average incomes are associated with reduced poverty. If declining poverty is the outcome of interest, however, the case of Nigeria illustrates that such aid allocation formulas could lead to poorly targeted or inefficient aid disbursements. Using data from the World Bank and the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics, we find that while the relationship between economic growth and poverty in Nigeria varies depending on the time period studied, overall from 1992-2009 Nigeria’s poverty rate has only declined by 6% despite a 70% increase in per capita gross domestic product (GDP). A review of the literature indicates that income inequality, the prominence of the oil sector, unemployment, corruption, and poor education and health in Nigeria may help to explain the pattern of high ongoing poverty rates in the country even in the presence of economic growth. Our analysis is limited by substantial gaps in the availability of quality data on measures of poverty and economic growth in Nigeria, an issue also raised in the literature we reviewed, but our findings support arguments that economic growth should not be assumed to lead to poverty reduction and that the relationship between these outcomes likely depends on contextual factors.

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/