Year Published

EPAR TECHNICAL REPORT #411
Publication Date: 09/09/2022
Type: Research Brief
Abstract

Climate change is predicted to have increasingly dire effects on the largely rainfed agriculture of sub-Saharan agriculture, a livelihood that also contributes to climate change. Within this context, multilateral funding institutions are increasingly funding projects devoted to the adaptation to or mitigation of climate change. Data from the Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) provide an overview of climate-related project data, but the intersection of climate-related projects and projects intended to develop rural and agricultural economies is less explored. This paper focuses on climate-related projects in sub-Saharan Africa in the context of rural and agricultural project funding. We use a custom dataset from three separate multilaterals (the World Bank, African Development Bank, and International Fund for Agricultural Development) to answer the following research questions:

  1. What proportion of agriculture-related lending across the three multilaterals of interest has a climate component?
  2. Which countries are borrowing most for climate-related agricultural projects? Is the amount of borrowing correlated with a country’s climate risk?

 

Of all financing projects in our dataset (N = 1,846), we identified 203 as being climate-related (11%) and 505 as being related to rural agricultural economies (27%). Of the $26.5 billion annualized project funding, rural and agricultural financing accounts for $6.5 billion (24.6%) while climate projects receive $1.97 billion (7.4%). The World Bank funds approximately half of all agriculture projects in the dataset, with the AfDB funding just under 30% and IFAD just over 20%.

Annual average borrowing amounts from multilaterals for climate-related rural/agricultural economies projects varies widely across sub-Saharan Africa. The major borrowers include Ethiopia ($150 million), Nigeria ($105 million), and Kenya ($102 million). The proportion of multilateral borrowing for climate-related projects among all rural agricultural borrowing also varies substantially across sub-Saharan Africa; the Seychelles and Eswatini devote the largest proportions of rural agricultural borrowing toward climate work (100% and 69.8%, respectively). Fourteen SSA countries devote between 15% and 30% of rural agricultural borrowing to climate-related projects and fifteen have not received any multilateral financing for climate-related rural/agricultural economies projects.

We do not find a statistically significant relationship between a country’s Climate Risk Index and the proportion of annual rural/agricultural economies borrowing focused on climate.

 

Suggested Citation:

Financing for Climate Change in Africa: A View of Sovereign Borrowing in Agriculture from Multilateral Funding Institutions . EPAR Technical Report #411 (2022). Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, University of Washington. Retrieved <Day Month Year> from https://epar.evans.uw.edu/research

EPAR TECHNICAL REPORT #411
Publication Date: 05/24/2021
Type: Data Analysis
Abstract

In this dataset, we compile current project data from three major international financial institutions (or IFIs) - the World Bank, African Development Bank, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development - to understand

  1. how much countries are borrowing from each institution. and
  2. how much of that funding is devoted to small scale producer agriculture.

We begin by gathering publicly accessible data through downloads and webscraping Python and R scripts. These data are then imported into the statistical software program, Stata, for cleaning and export to Excel for analysis. This dataset contains rich information about current projects (active, in implementation, or recently approved), such as project title, project description, borrowing ministry, commitment amount, and sector. We then code relevant projects into two categories: On Farm (projects pertaining directly to small scale producer agriculture) and Rural/Agricultural Economies (inclusive of On Farm, but broader to include projects that impact community livelihoods and wellbeing). Finally, we annualize and aggregate these coded projects by IFI and then by country for analysis. Bilateral funding, government expenditures on agriculture, and development indicators are also included as supporting data to add context to a country's progress towards agricultural transformation.

The primary utility of this dataset is having all projects collected in a single spreadsheet where it is possible to search by key terms (e.g. commodity, market, financial, value chain) for lending by IFI and country, and to get some level of project detail.  We have categorized projects by lending category (e.g. irrigation, livestock, agricultural development, research/extention/training) to aggregate across IFI so that the total funding for any country is easier to find. For example, Ethiopia and Nigeria receive the most total lending from these IFIs (though not on a per capita basis), with each country receiving more than $3 billion per year on average. Ethiopia receives the most lending devoted to On Farm projects, roughly $585 million per year.  Overall, these data provide a snapshot of the magnitude and direction of these IFI's lending over the past several years to sub-Saharan Africa. 

 

Suggested Citation: 

Figone, K., Porton, A., Kiel, S., Hariri, B., Kaminsky, M., Alia, D., Anderson, C.L., and Trindade, F. (2021). Summary of Three International Financial Institution (IFI) Investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. EPAR Technical Report #411. Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, University of Washington. Retrieved <Day Month Year> from https://epar.evans.uw.edu/research/tracking-investment-landscape-summary-three-international-financial-institutions-ifis

Code
EPAR Research Brief #360
Publication Date: 02/05/2018
Type: Research Brief
Abstract

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. 

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 #317
Publication Date: 11/16/2017
Type: Data Analysis
Abstract

In this report we analyze three waves nationally-representative household survey data from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia to explore sociodemographic and economic factors associated with mobile money adoption, awareness, and use across countries and over time. Our findings indicate that to realize the potential of digital financial services to reach currently unbanked populations and increase financial inclusion, particular attention needs to be paid to barriers faced by women in accessing mobile money. While policies and interventions to promote education, employment, phone ownership, and having a bank account may broadly help to increase mobile money adoption and use, potentially bringing in currently unbanked populations, specific policies targeting women may be needed to close current gender gaps.

Code
EPAR Technical Report #269
Publication Date: 05/21/2014
Type: Literature Review
Abstract

The commercial alcohol industry in Africa may provide opportunities to increase market access and incomes for smallholder farmers by increasing access to agriculture-alcohol value chains. Despite the benefits of increased market opportunities, the high costs to human health and social welfare from increased alcohol use and alcoholism could contribute to a net loss for society. To better understand the tradeoffs between increased market access for smallholders and societal costs associated with harmful alcohol consumption, this paper provides an inventory of the societal costs of alcohol in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We examine direct costs associated with addressing harmful effects of alcohol and treating alcohol-related illnesses, as well as indirect costs associated with the goods and services that are not delivered as a consequence of drinking and its impact on personal productivity. We identified resources using Google Scholar and the University of Washington libraries, and utilized the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) database by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and the World Health Organization’s Global Information System on Alcohol and Health (GISAH) database. We also utilized FAOSTAT to retrieve raw data on national-level alcohol production and export statistics. We find that hazardous alcohol use contributes to early mortality and morbidity, loss of productivity, property damage, and other social costs and harms for drinkers and those around them. Drinking also affects vulnerable segments of the population disproportionately. Policymakers, local authorities, and donor agencies can use the information presented in this paper to plan and prepare for the higher consumption levels and subsequent social costs that may follow through agricultural development and economic growth in the region.  

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.