Year Published
- 2008 (0)
- 2009 (0)
- 2010 (0)
- 2011 (1) Apply 2011 filter
- 2012 (0)
- 2013 (0)
- 2014 (0)
- 2015 (1) Apply 2015 filter
- 2016 (2) Apply 2016 filter
- 2017 (2) Apply 2017 filter
- 2018 (0)
- 2019 (0)
- 2020 (0)
- 2021 (0)
Research Topics
Populations
- (-) Remove Countries/Governments filter Countries/Governments
- Rural Populations (1) Apply Rural Populations filter
- (-) Remove Smallholder Farmers filter Smallholder Farmers
- Women (4) Apply Women filter
Types of Research
Geography
- East Africa Region and Selected Countries (9) Apply East Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
- Global (5) Apply Global filter
- (-) Remove South Asia Region and Selected Countries filter South Asia Region and Selected Countries
- Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries (1) Apply Southern Africa Region and Selected Countries filter
- Sub-Saharan Africa (9) Apply Sub-Saharan Africa filter
- (-) Remove West Africa Region and Selected Countries filter West Africa Region and Selected Countries
Dataset
Current search
- (-) Remove Market & Value Chain Analysis filter Market & Value Chain Analysis
- (-) Remove Household Well-Being & Equity filter Household Well-Being & Equity
- (-) Remove Technology filter Technology
- (-) Remove West Africa Region and Selected Countries filter West Africa Region and Selected Countries
- (-) Remove South Asia Region and Selected Countries filter South Asia Region and Selected Countries
- (-) Remove Global & Regional Public Goods filter Global & Regional Public Goods
- (-) Remove Smallholder Farmers filter Smallholder Farmers
- (-) Remove Countries/Governments filter Countries/Governments
Previous research has shown that men and women, on average, have different risk attitudes and may therefore see different value propositions in response to new opportunities. We use data from smallholder farm households in Mali to test whether risk perceptions differ by gender and across domains. We model this potential association across six risks (work injury, extreme weather, community relationships, debt, lack of buyers, and conflict) while controlling for demographic and attitudinal characteristics. Factor analysis highlights extreme weather and conflict as eliciting the most distinct patterns of participant response. Regression analysis for Mali as a whole reveals an association between gender and risk perception, with women expressing more concern except in the extreme weather domain; however, the association with gender is largely absent when models control for geographic region. We also find lower risk perception associated with an individualistic and/or fatalistic worldview, a risk-tolerant outlook, and optimism about the future, while education, better health, a social orientation, self-efficacy, and access to information are generally associated with more frequent worry— with some inconsistency. Income, wealth, and time poverty exhibit complex associations with perception of risk. Understanding whether and how men’s and women’s risk preferences differ, and identifying other dominant predictors such as geographic region and worldview, could help development organizations to shape risk mitigation interventions to increase the likelihood of adoption, and to avoid inadvertently making certain subpopulations worse off by increasing the potential for negative outcomes.
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 brief reviews the evidence of realized yield gains by smallholder farmers attributable to the use of high-quality seed and/or improved seed varieties. Our analysis suggests that in most cases, use of improved varieties and/or quality seed is associated with modest yield increases. In the sample of 395 trials reviewed, positive yield changes accompanied the use of improved variety or quality seed, on average, in 10 out of 12 crops, with rice and cassava as the two exceptions.
This research brief synthesizes evidence on the effects of policy incentives on agricultural productivity. The evidence discussed is primarily drawn from documents provided to EPAR by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We review the role of policy and institutions in the Asian Green Revolution, a detailed case study on how policy changes have removed smallholder productivity constraints and contributed to growth, and the theory on the connection of policy incentives to productivity growth.