Evans School Policy Analysis & Research Group (EPAR)

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

This report investigates the potential environmental and socio-economic benefits and costs of glyphosate resistant cassava.  Glyphosate resistant crops (also referred to as glyphosate tolerant) have been rapidly adopted by a number of crop producers because they simplify and/or reduce the cost of weed management. Glyphosate resistant crops also provide external environmental benefits by promoting reduced tillage agriculture, decreasing erosion and increasing soil health. However, glyphosate resistant crops also have some environmental costs, potentially leading to increased use of herbicides and environmental contamination. Because transgenic glyphosate resistant cassava is not currently in use, literature on its potential environmental and socioeconomic costs and benefits is limited. Therefore, this report draws on the literature for glyphosate resistant crops that are in current use, including maize, soybeans, sugar beets and canola (rapeseed). We find that socioeconomic and environmental impacts of glyphosate resistant crops differ by crop-type, agroecological conditions, production systems and local regulatory structure. Therefore, some benefits and costs associated with other glyphosate resistant crops may not be applicable to glyphosate resistant cassava. 

This brief present our analysis of maize cultivation in Tanzania using data from the 2008/2009 wave of the Tanzania National Panel Survey (TZNPS), part of the Living Standards Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). We find that Maize was the most commonly grown crop in Tanzania – cultivated by 83% of farming households. Eighty-two percent of agricultural households reported consuming maize flour during the week prior to being surveyed. About half of those households grew nearly all of the maize they consumed, making maize production an integral part of the farming household diet. A separate appendix includes details on our analyses.

This brief presents our analysis of legume cultivation in Tanzania using data from the 2008/2009 wave of the Tanzania National Panel Survey (TZNPS), part of the Living Standards Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). We find that Tanzanian farmers reported growing eight different varieties of food legumes: beans, groundnuts, cowpeas, mung beans, chickpeas, bambara nuts, field peas, soya beans, and pigeon peas. Fifty-seven percent of households in Tanzania grew at least one of these crops during the long and/or short rainy seasons.  A separate appendix includes details on our analyses.