Project Papers and Briefs

The recently introduced PROGRESA program in Mexico can be interpreted as having multiple objectives, namely, (i) the alleviation of current poverty through the transfer of cash payments to poor households, and (ii) encouraging the accumulation of ...

The aim of PROGRESA is to provide support for families living in conditions of extreme poverty in small communities in rural Mexico in order to broaden their opportunities and capabilities to attain higher levels of well-being. The Program ...

This study is aimed at outlining the policies and issues of crop diversification that are likely to influence the growth and sustainabi1ity of agricultura1 production in Bangladesh. Crop agriculture currently accounts for more than one-fourth of ...

“Following two decades of increasing investments, growth in public agricultural research spending (adjusted for inflation) largely stagnated in Sub-Saharan Africa during the 1980s and 1990s, at an average rate of about 1 percent per year. ...

Progresa aún se encuentra en su fase inicial, por lo que poco se conoce acerca de su impacto sobre las familias que reciben sus beneficios. Uno de los retos de Progresa es evaluar su eficacia en el logro de los objetivos establecidos. Para tal ...

Contents: Chapter 1: The Importance of Improving Nutrition for Sustainable Development in Ethiopia by Todd Benson Chapter 2: The Basic Causes of Malnutrition in Ethiopia by Solomon Bellete Chapter 3: Food Security and Malnutrition in Ethiopia by ...

One of the major components of the PROGRESA program has been directed toward improving the nutritional status of small children in poor rural communities in Mexico. Results suggest that PROGRESA may be having fairly substantial effects on ...

This report focuses on the evaluation of the operational performance of PROGRESA. Essentially well conceived and designed programs, in the sense of having a good understanding of the outputs, can fail due to poor implementation resulting in poor ...

Debates around Common Property Resources and Intellectual Property Rights fail to consider traditional and indigenous rights regimes that regulate plant resource exploitation, establish bundles of powers and obligations for heterogeneous groups ...

This brief is based on the results of a research project funded under the competitive grants program of the 2020 Vision Network for East Africa. A research report with the same title is available upon request.

This paper examines the performance of rural groups in Kenya and addresses the methodological issues and challenges faced in doing this, and presents the empirical evidence regarding various hypothesized explanatory factors for relative ...

The present paper analyzes the role of discourse in conflicts concerning nature conservation in tropical countries. We focus on the contested question as to whether and to which extent local communities should be allowed to live and use resources ...

This paper leverages datasets and results from two separate studies carried out across eight Kajiado group ranches and offers a unique opportunity to look at emergent pre and post subdivision trends from an interdisciplinary framework that ...

The System-wide Program for Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) sponsored a workshop on Watershed Management Institutions, March 13-16, 1999 in Managua, Nicaragua. The workshop focused on methodologies for undertaking research on ...

“This paper examines the experiences of children affected by HIV/AIDS in three provinces of South Africa. By combining findings from two studies that focus on households at different stages of impact, the paper looks at the conditions of ...

In this paper, we develop an empirical model of an agro-pastoral system subject to high climatic risk to test the impact of rainfall variability on livestock densities, land allocation patterns and herd mobility observed at the community level. ...

While much attention has been given to examining various aspects of poverty, a number of studies have shown that institutional environment in which the poor exist conditions welfare outcomes, thus highlighting the inherently crucial importance of ...

Collective action can help individuals, groups, and communities achieve common goals, thus contributing to poverty reduction. Drawing on longitudinal household and qualitative community data, the authors examine the impact of shocks on household ...

The role of well-functioning markets for development is now widely recognized, however the challenge remains to make these markets benefit the poor and the environment. Increasing attention is being given to the potential role markets can play ...

Water and watersheds are difficult to separate for management purposes. Providing irrigation as a supplement to rainfall for crop production requires considerable collective action at the watershed level to mobilize labor and other resources, as ...

This paper develops and applies a new approach for analyzing the spatial aspects of individual adoption of a technology that produces a mixed public-private good. The technology is an animal insecticide treatment called a “pouron” ...

This study presents an approach to analyzing decentralized forestry and natural resource management and land property rights issues, and catalyzing collective action among villages and district governments. It focuses on understanding the current ...

This paper evaluates the competition between cash crop and food crop production and its effects on income and nutrition in developing countries. Aggregate country data are used for a rough assessment of the scope and development of that ...

This report examines the competitiveness of the food processing sector in Viet Nam, focusing on four subsectors: rice milling, coffee processing, seafood processing, and fruits and vegetables. The rationale for the study is that Viet Nam, as a ...

This paper presents a detailed description of the applied methodology used to study collective action in natural resource management (NRM). Data were collected in 48 villages in northeastern Burkina Faso, at the community, institutional, ...

Although several institutional and management approaches that address the degradation of the rangelands have been tested in the dry areas of Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA), impact has been limited. Nonetheless, the development of ...

Decentralized approaches to development are gaining increasing prominence. Land tenure reform policy has been affected by many different types of decentralization. However, the literature on land tenure reform rarely explicitly addressed the ...

“The role of various stakeholders in the management of natural resources is not clear in the West African countries. This paper discusses the historical changes in power delegation from central origins to peripheral institutions. The ...

Este documento presenta un análisis del impacto que tiene Progresa sobre el gasto de los hogares. En particular, se enfoca en la forma en que la participación en Progresa afecta la adquisición de alimentos de los hogares pobres. El presente ...

El presente documento analiza el impacto de Progresa sobre el trabajo y la distribución del tiempo de los beneficiarios. En Progresa, la mayoría de los beneficios están relacionados con la asistencia regular de los niños a la escuela. El hecho de ...

Este informe intenta responder las siguientes preguntas: · ¿Cómo se siente la gente en las comunidades Progresa acerca del sistema de identificación de beneficiarios? ¿Se considera que es justo en cuanto a su concepto y aplicación? · ¿Cómo se ...

El objetivo de este informe es examinar el impacto de Progresa sobre la condición de la mujer, y en las relaciones al interior del hogar. El Programa proporciona apoyos en efectivo vinculados a la asistencia regular de los niños a la escuela, así ...

The role of local and external institutions in natural resource management (NRM) is gaining attention in the literature, fostering greater understanding of the relationship between collective action and poverty, collective action and equity, and ...

This paper introduces and applies an analytical framework to study how formal and informal institutions influence socio-economic change and poverty reduction in rural Cambodia, giving specific reference to property rights and collective action. ...

En el presente documento se hace un resumen sobre la evaluación del desempeño operativo de Progresa. Programas bien concebidos y diseñados, basados en un amplio conocimiento de las relaciones técnicas entre los recursos y los resultados, podrían ...

One of the major components of the PROGRESA program has been directed toward improving the nutritional status of small children in poor rural communities in Mexico. Results suggest that PROGRESA may be having fairly substantial effects on ...

Watershed projects play an increasingly important role in managing soil and water resources throughout the world. Research is needed to ensure that new projects draw upon lessons from their predecessors’ experiences. However, the technical ...

2006 年12 月，笔者被选为国际食物政策研究所（International Food Policy Research Institute, 简称IFPRI）理事会的理事2。上任伊始，就碰上IFPRI 所属 “国 际农业研究磋商组织” 3的管理机制改革。此后，理事会每次开会都要商讨改革 事宜。一遇紧急决策，还要通过国际电话会议研究。鉴于其中涉及的不少问题对 科研机构管理具有普遍意义, 笔者拟将这一国际组织的由来、改革的缘起和正在 磋商之中的改革方案扼要介绍如下。

The global agricultural economy is changing. Commodity prices are declining, and producers increasingly supply complex value chains. There is growing interest in how farmers can benefit from emerging market opportunities. Farmers are encouraged ...

The Agroforestry Tree Seeds Association of Lantapan (ATSAL) in Bukidnon province, southern Philippines was organized in 1998, facilitated by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). Farmers were trained on germplasm collection, processing and ...

The last decade has seen the emergence of a number of innovative community level initiatives in Asia, Africa and Latin America for agrobiodiversity development and conservation. Traditional knowledge systems form and integral part of many of ...

This paper presents a framework for investigating the intersection of collective action and gender; i.e. how gender-oriented analysis can foster more effective collective action in the context of agriculture and natural resource management and ...

Men and women participate in collective action for different purposes in northern Nigeria. Field work conducted in six villages show that while men engage in community activities such as road repairs, maintenance of schools and hospitals, refuse ...

TA mixed-methods, multiple-stage approach was used to obtain data on how gender and wealth affected participation in community groups in Meru, Kenya, and how men and women farmers obtain and diffuse agricultural information. Research techniques ...

This paper explores the determinants of group membership and social networks of rural households using a unique longitudinal data set from the rural Philippines. We investigate two types of social capital: membership in groups (production, ...

Biofortification is increasingly seen as an additional tool to combat micronutrient malnutrition. This paper presents, for the first time, evidence on the costs and potential benefits of biofortification for a large number of countries in Africa, ...

In 1998 IFPRI and its collaborators in Africa established two regional research networks, one for East Africa and one for West Africa. Unlike most research-based entities, these networks include not only researchers, but policymakers and leaders ...

References

Food security has deteriorated since 1995 and reductions in child malnutrition are proceeding too slowly to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for halving hunger by 2015. Three major challenges threaten to drastically complicate ...

Increasing human capital investments in children is considered to be among the most effective ways of alleviating poverty and encouraging growth in developing countries. One possibly important channel through which such investments may have such ...

Este estudio evalúa la forma en que el Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación de México, Progresa, ha afectado la tasa de asistencia de los niños mexicanos inscritos en la escuela durante el primer año de su operación 1998-1999. Las tasas de ...

The forest management strategy of Nepal is based on people’s participation, which is known as community forestry. This approach was formally introduced in 1978 to encourage active participation of local people in forest management ...

This research is stimulated by the preliminary insight that rural households, even if they are poor and/or located in so-called subsistence-oriented regions, are dependent on a variety of farm, nonfarm, and nonagricultural income sources. The ...

Dimensions of the nature, scope, and complexity of collective action in Kenya have evolved over many years. In studying collective action, the aim is to understand why and how people participate in networks of trust. The purpose of this study was ...

The System-wide Program for Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) sponsored an International Conference on Policy and Institutional Options for the Management of Rangelands in Dry Areas, May 7-11, 2001 in Hammamet, Tunisia. The conference ...

In early 1998, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) was asked to assist the PROGRESA administration to “determine if PROGRESA is functioning in practice as it is intended to by design.” This document summarizes ...

This paper characterizes and measures the contribution of social capital to the performance of 50 agroenterprises in Colombia. Using qualitative analysis we document how social capital performs a variety of functions in firms, including providing ...

This paper explores statistically the implications of the shift from communal to individualized tenure on the distribution of land and schooling between sons and daughters in matrilineal societies, based on a Sumatra case study. The inheritance ...

There has long been an active debate in Haiti - as in many other developing countries - over whether or not the customary tenure system constrains technology adoption and agricultural development, and whether cadaster and land titling should be ...

In 1987, an improved resource management system that incorporates velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens var. utilis) to address soil fertility and weed (Imperata cylindrica) infestation was introduced to the small-scale farmers in a densely populated area ...

Conventional conceptions of property rights focus on static definitions of property rights, usually as defined in statutory law. However, in practice there is co-existence and interaction between multiple legal orders such as state, customary, ...

Payments for environmental services (PES) are increasingly discussed as appropriate mechanisms for matching the demand for environmental services with the incentives of land users whose actions modify the supply of those environmental services. ...

With renewed recognition of the importance of collective action in many aspects of agriculture, natural resource management, and rural development programs in developing countries, there is a need for research on the factors that affect its ...

“The HIV epidemic has created over 10 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa and countless other children are affected by the disease, whether by living with a parent who is chronically ill or living in a household that is hosting orphans. ...

In Bangladesh, the majority of the people suffer from a lack of food security. As a short-run solution to the problem, a targeted intervention of transferring income can be an efficient way of increasing real incomes of the poor. Distributing ...

“The present study employs Deaton’s outlay equivalence approach to analyze potential discrimination in resource allocation within households against children who are not the biological descendant of the household head in Mozambique. ...

The main objectives of the Phase I Technical Report are to: i) review past performance and current status of the agricultural sector; and ii) review the impact of the Asian Development Bank’s Agricultural Sector Program of 1995-98. In ...

Worldwide, more than 14 million children have lost a parent to HIV/AIDS. In South Africa, the current epicentre of the epidemic, it is estimated that by 2010, 16% of children will be orphaned by AIDS. The implication of the term “AIDS ...

The objectives of this workshop were to familiarize key policy makers and other stakeholders in Ethiopia with the objectives and activities of the project; review the progress and findings of the project so far; and consider key policy issues ...

Annex B: Definitions of terms In Vietnam, where regional disparities in poverty are large, information about the spatial distribution of poverty is especially important because it helps policymakers and program designers understand the ...

In early 1998, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) was asked to assist the PROGRESA administration to “determine if PROGRESA is functioning in practice as it is intended to by design.” PROGRESA is one of the ...

Genetic erosion in animal genetic resources (AnGR) is of concern where livelihoods of the poor are affected and option values for society are being lost. The poor often live in marginal areas and their livestock maintain adaptive characteristics. ...

This paper presents a conceptual framework on how institutions of property rights and collective action can contribute to poverty reduction, including through external interventions and action by poor people themselves. The first part of the ...

Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have liberalized markets to improve efficiency and enhance market linkages for smallholder farmers. The expected positive response by the private sector in areas with limited market infrastructure has however ...

To promote development, there is increasing need for activities and policies which generate and diversify income in rural areas. The starch industry in Viet Nam provides a good example of rural industrialization whereby low-value agricultural ...

In spite of its oil wealth, poverty plagues Nigeria. The Federal Government of Nigeria has recognized that improved agricultural performance is critical to poverty reduction, since the majority of the nation’s poor depend on agriculture for ...

This paper discusses the internal processes and decisions that characterized the transition from collectively held group ranches to individualized property systems among the Maasai pastoralists of Kajiado district in Kenya. It addresses the ...

Uganda’s rapid urbanization, particularly in the capital city Kampala, offers new market opportunities for organized farmers to supply higher value produce for emerging growth markets such as multinational supermarket chains and fast food ...

In August 1997 the Mexican government introduced a key component of its overall development and poverty alleviation strategy, the PROGRESA program, in the most marginal rural areas of the country. The expansion of the program across localities ...

This policy brief summarizes interim findings of part three of a three-part quantitative and qualitative research study into the dynamics of poverty, which was collaboratively undertaken by researchers of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, the ...

Research and policy on property rights, collective action and watershed management requires good understanding of ecological and socio-political processes at different social-spatial scales. On-farm soil erosion is a plot or farm-level problem ...

Overview of ESSP The Ethiopia Strategy Support Program, the first major IFPRI country strategy support program managed by the Development Strategy and Governance Division (DSGD), has been undertaken in close collaboration with the Ethiopian ...

This report presents an examination of the impact of PROGRESA on household expenditures. In particular, we focus on how participation in PROGRESA affects the acquisition of food by poor households. This analysis has been based largely on the ...

The purpose of this study is to assess how the PROGRESA Program (Education, Health, and Food Program of Mexico) has affected the schooling of Mexican youth. PROGRESA is designed to increase school enrollment among youth in poor families in poor ...

This report analyzes the impact of PROGRESA on work and time allocation of its beneficiaries. In PROGRESA, the majority of benefits are linked to children’s school attendance. The fact that benefits are conditioned to children’s ...

At its inception, Bangladesh faced a serious foreign and domestic resource imbalance. To overcome the foreign exchange cri sis and to promote rapid industrialization, the country opted to pursue a strategy that placed heavy emphasis on saving ...

Collective action in agriculture and natural resource management is all too often perceived of in terms of the mere number of participants, with little consideration given to who participates, why, and the outcomes of inequitable participation. ...

The relation between rice prices and wage rates, particularly wage rates of unskilled laborers, is of immense practical relevance to the food policy debates of Bangladesh. The ultrapoor in Bangladesh earn most of their income from wages, and they ...

Climate change and land degradation are major threats to the survival and livelihoods of millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Major new opportunities exist to help improve the livelihoods of African smallholder farmers, pastoralists, ...

Suggest and evaluate ways to improve agricultural economics training capacity in the region. The main objective of the stakeholder workshop was to discuss the consultants’ report and to pave the way forward. In addition, a number of ...

The major economic activity for pastoralists is animal husbandry. The harsh environment in which herders raise their livestock requires constant mobility to regulate resource utilisation via a common property regime. In contrast to the mobile way ...

Arid shrub-lands in Syria and elsewhere in West Asia and North Africa are widely thought degraded. Characteristic of these areas is a preponderance of unpalatable shrubs or a lack of overall ground cover with a rise in the associated risks of ...

Social capital is a resource, a propensity for mutually beneficial collective action that communities possess to different extents. Communities with high levels of social capital are able to act together collectively for achieving diverse common ...

Many watershed development projects around the world have performed poorly because they failed to take into account the needs, constraints, and practices of local people. Participatory watershed management-in which users help to define problems, ...

The study of collective action requires an understanding of the individual incentives and of the institutional constraints that guide people in making choices about cooperating or defecting on the group facing the dilemma. The use of local ...

Brief prepared for the USAID meeting on Women in Science: Meeting the Challenge. Lessons for Agricultural Sciences in Africa, Washington, D.C., June 21, 2006.