The diversity of urban areas presents substantial challenges to the validity of information from rapid assessments, yet CARE’s experiences in Bangladesh and Tanzania suggest a number of ways that rapid assessment procedures can be strengthened to address these concerns.
Using the case of Zambia, this paper examines whether structural change translates into reduced poverty and improved social welfare through an empirical and systematic analysis of the country’s growth trajectory during 1991–2010. We find that growth after 2002 was accompanied by positive structural change, but most new jobs were in the low-wage, insecure informal sector in urban areas.
Book chapter
In the past 20 years Ghana has significantly advanced economic development and reduced poverty. Between 1984 and 2004, the country’s real gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.8 percent a year. By 2015 the government aims to raise Ghanaians’ per capita income above US$1,000 and to achieve GDP growth rates of more than 8 percent a year. Agriculture is central to the government’s efforts to achieve these objectives; it accounts for a third of the country’s GDP and employs nearly 60 percent of the workforce.
Research report
Zambia is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Despite substantial reform during the 1990s, the economy has remained heavily dependent on urban-based mining. Copper's long-standing dominance led to a strong bias against agriculture, which undermined the sector's growth and export potential. Consequently poverty has remained concentrated within marginalized rural areas. Recent volatility in copper exports and growing foreign debt indicate the need for further economic diversification and pro-poor growth.
This paper investigates empirically the factors that influence real agricultural wage rates in Ghana, based on 1957 to 1991 data. The Johansen cointegration framework is used to examine long-run relationships among agricultural and urban wage rates, the domestic terms of trade between agriculture and non-agriculture, urban unemployment, capital stock in agriculture and the size of the rural population. An error correction model is then used to investigate short-run dynamic relationships among the variables.
Over the past several years, the Ethiopian government has committed a substantial portion of the public budget to expanding public services and infrastructure in rural areas. This paper assesses who exactly is benefiting from this public spending. To do so, this paper undertakes a public expenditure benefit incidence analysis across gender and wealth groups of three public services/programs in rural Ethiopia: (1) selected components of the Food Security Program (FSP), (2) drinking water supply, and (3) agricultural extension services.
Project paper
A wide range of issues are captured and reiterated in the 12 briefs contained in this collection. These include: the prevalence and importance of customary tenure; the prevalence and importance of common property arrangements; constraints to women’s access under both customary and statutory tenure; the need to secure common property and other forms of tenure; and the importance of broad based participation to secure broad consensus among multiple actors in order to enhance the efficiency, equity and sustainability objectives of land tenure reforms.
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