Year Published
- 2008 (3) Apply 2008 filter
- (-) Remove 2009 filter 2009
- 2010 (9) Apply 2010 filter
- 2011 (7) Apply 2011 filter
- 2012 (3) Apply 2012 filter
- 2013 (1) Apply 2013 filter
- 2014 (3) Apply 2014 filter
- 2015 (2) Apply 2015 filter
- 2016 (5) Apply 2016 filter
- 2017 (5) Apply 2017 filter
- 2018 (1) Apply 2018 filter
- (-) Remove 2019 filter 2019
- 2020 (0)
- 2021 (0)
Research Topics
Populations
- Countries/Governments (1) Apply Countries/Governments filter
- Rural Populations (0)
- Smallholder Farmers (1) Apply Smallholder Farmers filter
- Women (0)
Types of Research
Geography
- East Africa Region and Selected Countries (1) Apply East Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
- Global (0)
- South Asia Region and Selected Countries (0)
- Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries (0)
- Sub-Saharan Africa (1) Apply Sub-Saharan Africa filter
- West Africa Region and Selected Countries (0)
Dataset
- ASTI (1) Apply ASTI filter
- FAOSTAT (1) Apply FAOSTAT filter
- Farmer First (0)
- LSMS & LSMS-ISA (0)
- Other Datasets (1) Apply Other Datasets filter
Current search
- (-) Remove Food Security & Nutrition filter Food Security & Nutrition
- (-) Remove Health filter Health
- (-) Remove Education & Training filter Education & Training
- (-) Remove Research & Development filter Research & Development
- (-) Remove 2009 filter 2009
- (-) Remove 2019 filter 2019
Much literature discusses the importance of investing in human capital—or “the sum of a population’s health, skills, knowledge, experience, and habits” (World Bank, 2018, p. 42)—to a country’s economic growth. For example, the World Bank reports a “chronic underinvestment” in health and education in Nigeria, noting that investing in human capital has the potential to significantly contribute to economic growth, poverty reduction, and societal well-being (World Bank, 2018). This research brief reports on the evidence linking investment in human capital—specifically, health and education—with changes in economic growth. It reviews the literature for five topic areas: Education, Infectious Diseases, Nutrition, Primary Health Care, and Child and Maternal Health. This review gives priority focus to the countries of Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Tanzania. For each topic area, we report the evidence in support of a pathway from investing in human capital to economic growth.
Studies of improved seed adoption in developing countries almost always draw from household surveys and are premised on the assumption that farmers are able to self-report their use of improved seed varieties. However, recent studies suggest that farmers’ reports of the seed varieties planted, or even whether seed is local or improved, are sometimes inconsistent with the results of DNA fingerprinting of farmers' crops. We use household survey data from Tanzania to test the alignment between farmer-reported and DNA-identified maize seed types planted in fields. In the sample, 70% of maize seed observations are correctly reported as local or improved, while 16% are type I errors (falsely reported as improved) and 14% are type II errors (falsely reported as local). Type I errors are more likely to have been sourced from other farmers, rather than formal channels. An analysis of input use, including seed, fertilizer, and labor allocations, reveals that farmers tend to treat improved maize differently, depending on whether they correctly perceive it as improved. This suggests that errors in farmers' seed type awareness may translate into suboptimal management practices. In econometric analysis, the measured yield benefit of improved seed use is smaller in magnitude with a DNA-derived categorization, as compared with farmer reports. The greatest yield benefit is with correctly identified improved seed. This indicates that investments in farmers' access to information, seed labeling, and seed system oversight are needed to complement investments in seed variety development.
On July 10, 2009 at the Italy G8 summit, attendees issued a joint statement pledging to contribute $20 billion towards agricultural development and food security in the developing world over the next three years. This research brief notes the status of the contributions made to the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative and whether any of the $20 billion will be allocated to agricultural research. We conclude that no declarations have been made as of September 2009 on how much of the $20 billion will be allocated to agricultural research, and which types of research will be funded by the initiative.
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/
This brief presents an in depth analysis of the FAO’s methodology behind their calculations for hunger. The analysis includes a review of the key assumptions made by the FAO in their calculations, critiques of their methodology, and recommendations for future research. The critiques include opinions from the literature on the subject as well as from the authors of the request.
This brief presents an initial examination of the possibility of using Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) as a way to evaluate agricultural interventions. We review DALYs, their formulation, and the data necessary to compute values. A review of relevant literature suggests that to use DALYs as an evaluative tool, an agricultural intervention must be tied to a specific disease, and from there, impacts on DALYs can be assessed.