Ethiopia’s economy is rapidly transforming. However, the extent to which this is affecting off-farm income and labor markets in rural areas is not well understood. Based on a large-scale household survey in high potential agricultural areas, we find that total off-farm income (defined as wage and enterprise income) makes up...

A nationwide programme to transfer government-owned forest land to local communities is changing lives in The Gambia while promoting the sustainable management of its forests. As communities manage forest affairs and benefit from the proceeds from forest resources, more forest-friendly livelihoods such as beekeeping and soap making are boosting incomes...

Malawi is a small country located in southern Africa with only 119,000 km2 for a population of about 16.7 million people. With agriculture as the mainstay of the economy, Malawi’s high population density of 140 people/km2 requires that agricultural productivity and other ecosystem services must be optimized. As part of...

Despite strong per capita income growth, the structure of sub-Saharan Africa’s economies has not changed markedly in recent decades. In spite of a rapidly growing labour force and urbanizing populations, employment growth in rural areas in general and in non-farm sectors in particular has been slow, and poverty levels in...

We use qualitative and quantitative information from a number of datasets to study the adoption patterns and labor productivity impacts of herbicide use in Ethiopia. We find a four-fold increase in the value of herbicides imported into Ethiopia over the last decade, primarily by the private-sector. Adoption of herbicides by...

Burkina Faso ranks as the sixth poorest country in the world according to the 2015 UN Human Development Report. Recent studies estimate that 46.4% of the population in the Eastern Region lives below the poverty line. These people are caught in a vicious cycle of degrading natural resources, declining soil...

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Global Soil  Partnership (GSP) have jointly released ‘Boosting Africa’s soils: From the Abuja Declaration on Fertilizers to a sustainable soil management framework for food and nutrition security in Africa by 2030’, a booklet published on the occasion of the 29th Session of...

Convened by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Dutch development organisation Hivos, and led from Bolivia, the network set out to generate and integrate its own knowledge on smallholders and globalisation. Their work has also been complemented by a series of debates in Europe on some of the core...

The Conference builds on the political momentum gathered at the Climate Change Summit in Paris, December 2015, where world leaders renewed their commitment to the Great Green Wall initiative, pledging USD 4 billion over the next 5 years for the restoration of Africa’s landscapes. During the Conference, partners will define a roadmap for...

Dryland areas cover more than half of sub-Saharan Africa and are home to nearly 50 percent of its populations, who depend on agriculture (including livestock, crops and fisheries) as their main livelihood strategy. Sporadic and irregular rainfall patterns are the most important environmental driver for these regions and water, in...

In the last two decades, food security policy in Malawi has focused on enhancing the maize productivity of smallholder farmers, primarily through the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) (Chirwa and Dorward 2013). While this has raised maize yields, production shocks, such as droughts and floods, continue to result in wide-spread...

Women have always had an important role in Eritrean society. During the struggle for independence they helped transform Eritrean society, and today rural women contribute substantially to the agriculture sector and provide income for their households. Like women around the world and especially those in developing countries, the women in...

Malawi is a small country located in southern Africa with only 119,000 km2 for a population of about 16.7 million people. With agriculture as the mainstay of the economy, Malawi’s high population density of 140 people/km2 requires that agricultural productivity and other ecosystem services must be optimized. As part of...

Water is precious in Eritrea, where farmers have to cope with droughts and crop failures. With support from the government and an IFAD-funded project, farmers and herders are expanding spate irrigation, an ancient form of water management. By harnessing floodwaters and collecting run-off, farmers can provide enough water for the...

This paper uses panel data on 46 African countries from 2001 to 2014 to estimate the impacts of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), an agriculture-led integrated framework of development priorities in Africa, on agricultural expenditure and productivity, income, and nutrition. A difference-in-difference treatment-effects model (based on when a...

The ten-year efforts of the Kaydara Agroecology School Farm, in Senegal, led to concrete benefits for the community and for the environment. Gora Ndiaye, founder of the "African Gardens" association, summarizes the some important features of the project.

Agriculture and social protection are fundamentally linked in the context of rural livelihoods in Africa. Poor and food-insecure families depend primarily on agriculture and partly on non-farm income and private transfers for their livelihoods, and are the main target of social protection interventions (FAO, 2015a). When embedded within a broader...

Cattle of the Sudanese Hamerenya breed have some special qualities, including docility and a high milk yield. Through an IFAD-supported programme, farmers in the Adi Quala subdistrict in Eritrea were able to take out small loans to invest in the purchase of Hamerenya cattle. The programme also helps the farmers...

Produit dans le cadre du projet Mécanismes de reddition des comptes dans la gouvernance foncière, ce rapport examine la redevabilité dans les transactions foncières au Sénégal. Il passe au crible le cadre juridique national qui régit les investissements fonciers et explore les occasions de reddition de comptes et la manière dont...

East Africa could be the lucky exception to the disastrous effects of climate change as scientists predict increased precipitation as temperatures rise. Scientists working with the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) — Kizito Kwena, William Ndegwa, Imad Ali-Babiker and Hezron Mogaka— say the flipside...