EPAR Technical Report #349
Publication Date: 11/30/2017
Type: Literature Review
Abstract

Donor countries and multilateral organizations may pursue multiple goals with foreign aid, including supporting low-income country development for strategic/security purposes (national security, regional political stability) and for short-and long-term economic interests (market development and access, local and regional market stability). While the literature on the effectiveness of aid in supporting progress on different indicators of country development is inconclusive, donors are interested in evidence that aid funding is not permanent but rather contributes to a process by which recipient countries develop to a point that they are economically self-sufficient. In this report, we review the literature on measures of country self-sufficiency and descriptive evidence from illustrative case studies to explore conditions associated with transitions toward self-sufficiency in certain contexts.

  

EPAR Technical Report #335
Publication Date: 11/21/2017
Type: Data Analysis
Abstract
EPAR has developed Stata do.files for the construction of a set of agricultural development indicators using data from the Living Standards Measurement Study - Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). We are sharing our code and documenting our construction decisions both to facilitate analyses of these rich datasets and to make estimates of relevant indicators available to a broader audience of potential users. 
Code, Code, Code, Code
EPAR Technical Report #356
Publication Date: 10/31/2017
Type: Data Analysis
Abstract

According to AGRA's 2017 Africa Agriculture Status Report, smallholder farmers make up to about 70% of the population in Africa. The report finds that 500 million smallholder farms around the world provide livelihoods for more than 2 billion people and produce about 80% of the food in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Many development interventions and policies therefore target smallholder farm households with the goals of increasing their productivity and promoting agricultural transformation. Of particular interest for agricultural transformation is the degree to which smallholder farm households are commercializating their agricultural outputs, and diversifying their income sources away from agriculture. In this project, EPAR uses data from the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study - Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) to analyze and compare characteristics of smallholder farm households at different levels of crop commercialization and reliance on farm income, and to evaluate implications of using different criteria for defining "smallholder" households for conclusions on trends in agricultural transformation for those households.

 

Code
EPAR Technical Report #358
Publication Date: 09/30/2017
Type: Data Analysis
Abstract

Crop yield is one of the most commonly used partial factor productivity measures. It is used to estimate the ratio of quantity of crop output, generally measured in kilograms or tons, to a sole input, land area. Ongoing EPAR research explores the policy implications of measuring yield by area planted versus area harvested. In this brief, we consider implications for crop yield estimates of other decisions in how to construct yield measures from household survey microdata. Using data from three waves of the Tanzania National Panel Survey (TNPS) and two waves of the Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey (ESS), both part of the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA), we calculate separate crop yield estimates across survey waves following different decisions on disaggregating yield by gender(s) of the plot decision-maker(s) and for pure-stand and mixed stand (intercropped) plots, on including crop production from multiple growing seasons, and on how to treat outlier observations.

Code
EPAR Technical Report #326
Publication Date: 06/01/2017
Type: Data Analysis
Abstract

By examining how farmers respond to changes in crop yield, we provide evidence on how farmers are likely to respond to a yield-enhancing intervention that targets a single staple crop such as maize. Two alternate hypotheses we examine are: as yields increase, do farmers maintain output levels but change the output mix to switch into other crops or activities, or do they hold cultivated area constant to increase their total production quantity and therefore their own consumption or marketing of the crop? This exploratory data analysis using three waves of panel data from Tanzania is part of a long-term project examining the pathways between staple crop yield (a proxy for agricultural productivity) and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Code
EPAR Technical Report #283
Publication Date: 12/11/2014
Type: Literature Review
Abstract

Donors and governments are increasingly seeking to implement development projects through self-help groups (SHGs) in the belief that such institutional arrangements will enhance development outcomes, encourage sustainability, and foster capacity in local civil society – all at lower cost to coffers. But little is known about the effectiveness of such institutional arrangements or the potential harm that might be caused by using SHGs as ‘vehicles’ for the delivery of development aid.  This report synthesizes available evidence on the effectiveness of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in promoting health, finance, agriculture, and empowerment objectives in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Our findings are intended to inform strategic decisions about how to best use scarce resources to leverage existing SHG interventions in various geographies and to better understand how local institutions such as SHGs can serve as platforms to enhance investments. 

Suggested Citation:

Anderson, C. L., Gugerty, M. K., Biscaye, P., True, Z., Clark, C., & Harris, K. P. (2014). Self-Help Groups in Development: A Review of Evidence from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. EPAR Technical Report #283. Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, University of Washington. Retrieved <Day Month Year> from https://epar.evans.uw.edu/sites/default/files/epar_283_shg_evidence_review_brief_10.23.20.pdf

EPAR Research Brief #228
Publication Date: 04/18/2014
Type: Literature Review
Abstract

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a widely-grown staple food in the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In this brief we examine the environmental constraints to, and impacts of, smallholder cassava production systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA), noting where the analysis applies to only one of these regions. We highlight crop-environment interactions at three stages of the cassava value chain: pre-production (e.g., land clearing), production (e.g., soil, water, and input use), and post-production (e.g., crop storage). At each stage we emphasize environmental constraints on production (poor soil quality, water scarcity, crop pests, etc.) and also environmental impacts of crop production (e.g., soil erosion, water depletion and pesticide contamination). We then highlight good practices for overcoming environmental constraints and minimizing environmental impacts in smallholder cassava production systems. Evidence on environmental issues in smallholder cassava production is relatively thin, and unevenly distributed across regions. The literature on cassava in South Asian smallholder systems is limited, reflecting a crop of secondary importance (though it is widely found elsewhere in Asia such as South East Asia), in comparison to cassava in much of SSA. The majority of the research summarized in this brief is from SSA. The last row of Table 1 summarizes good practices currently identified in the literature. However, the appropriate strategy in a given situation will vary widely based on contextual factors, such as local environmental conditions, market access, cultural preferences, production practices and the policy environment.

EPAR Technical Report #254
Publication Date: 03/20/2014
Type: Literature Review
Abstract

This overview introduces a series of EPAR briefs in the Agriculture-Environment Series that examine crop-environment interactions for a range of crops in smallholder food production systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA). The briefs cover the following important food crops in those regions; rice (#208), maize (#218), sorghum/millets (#213), sweet potato/yam (#225), and cassava (#228).

Drawing on the academic literature and the field expertise of crop scientists, these briefs highlight crop-environment interactions at three stages of the crop value chain: pre-production (e.g., land clearing and tilling), production (such as water, nutrient and other input use), and post-production (e.g., waste disposal and crop storage). At each stage we emphasize environmental constraints on crop yields (including poor soils, water scarcity, crop pests) and impacts of crop production on the environment (such as soil erosion, water depletion and pest resistance). We then highlight best practices from the literature and from expert experience for minimizing negative environmental impacts in smallholder crop production systems.

This overview (along with the accompanying detailed crop briefs) seeks to provide a framework for stimulating across-crop discussions and informed debates on the full range of crop-environment interactions in agricultural development initiatives.

A paper based on this research series was published in Food Security in August 2015.

EPAR Research Brief #242
Publication Date: 01/08/2014
Type: Data Analysis
Abstract

The purpose of this analysis is to provide a measure of marketable surplus of maize in Tanzania. We proxy marketable surplus with national-level estimates of total maize sold, presumably the surplus for maize producing and consuming households. We also provide national level estimates of total maize produced and estimate “average prices” for Tanzania which allows this quantity to be expressed as an estimate of the value of marketable surplus. The analysis uses the Tanzanian National Panel Survey (TNPS) LSMS – ISA which is a nationally representative panel survey, for the years 2008/2009 and 2010/2011. A spreadsheet provides our estimates for different subsets of the sample and using different approaches to data cleaning and weighting. The total number of households for Tanzania was estimated with linear extrapolation based on the Tanzanian National Bureau of Statistics for the years 2002 and 2012. The weighted proportions of maize-producing and maize-selling households were multiplied to the national estimate of total households. This estimate of total Tanzanian maize-selling and maize-producing households was then multiplied by the average amount sold and by the average amount produced respectively to obtain national level estimates of total maize sold and total maize produced in 2009 and 2011.

EPAR Research Brief #113
Publication Date: 12/20/2010
Type: Portfolio Review
Abstract

This brief analyzes the indicators used by the World Bank in its Project Appraisal Documents (PAD) to measure the outputs and outcomes of 44 Water, Sanitation and Hygiene projects in Africa and Asia from 2000-2010.  This report details the methods used to collect and organize the indicators, and provides a brief analysis of the type of indicators used and their evolution over time. A searchable spreadsheet of the indicators used in this analysis accompanies this summary. We find that some patterns emerge over time, though none are very drastic. The most common group of indicators used by the World Bank are “management” oriented indicators (28% of indicators). Management indicators are disproportionately used in African projects as compared to projects in Asia. Several projects in Africa incorporate indicators relating to legal/regulatory/policy outcomes, while projects in Asia do not. In recent years, the World Bank has used fewer indicators that measure service delivery, health, and education and awareness.