Crop diversification is often promoted as a strategy to achieve climate resilience. However, the benefits to crop diversification may vary depending on household resource endowments. For farm households with few resources, as shown by studies of Burkina Faso, Malawi and Zambia, crop diversification is likely to be an important strategy...

This paper helps to fill an important gap that exists in gender responsive fish value chains by analysing the factors that influence women’s participation in fish value chains and value chain governance in Malawi. The study was based on the premise that there is limited information on how fish trade...

Cash transfer programmes in sub-Saharan Africa impact the productive activities of both beneficiary and non-beneficiary households in the communities where they are implemented. These programmes have led to an increase in agricultural activities in beneficiary households, including greater use of agricultural inputs, more land area in crop production and higher...

This is the policy brief drawn from a longer review that analyses and summarizes impact evaluation findings that focus on the interaction between agricultural interventions (including rural extension services, rural development, natural resource management, access to markets, subsidized credit, investment grants, access to improved seeds and fertilizer subsidies), and social...

Using panel data econometric techniques, this paper evaluates how public expenditure influences agricultural performance at the district level in Malawi by empirically estimating localized expenditure multipliers for the districts. The results of the analysis show that public expenditures in agriculture have generally positive but variable impacts on agricultural growth at...

Many African countries rely on sporadic land transfers from customary to statutory domains to attract investment and improve agricultural performance. Data from 15,000 smallholders and 800 estates in Malawi allow exploring the long-term effects of such a strategy. The results suggest that (i) most estates are less productive than smallholders;...

To amplify the development impact of the African Agriculture Fund, the International Fund for Agricultural Development actively promoted a Technical Assistance Facility to work alongside its investments. Blending development finance with technical assistance can be a powerful tool to achieve business growth and development outcomes. After five years of implementation,...

This study used cross sectional data from the government of Malawi’s Farm Income Diversification Programme (FIDP) to examine the impact of FIDP on household welfare. Total annual household income, food security, and the wealth status of households were used as measures of household welfare. A propensity score matching procedure was...

A fall armyworm outbreak, the first emergence of the pest in southern Africa, is causing considerable crop damage in some countries. If the pest damage aggravates, it could dampen prospects for good crop harvests that is anticipated in the current farming season. Maize, a staple food in the region has...

The programme’s goals were to increase the food security of smallholder farm households in southern Africa and enhance their livelihoods while conserving and improving the natural resources used for agriculture. The focus of the programme was on developing productive farming systems for smallholder farmers who managed maize-based systems, based on...

El Niño conditions have caused the lowest recorded rainfall between October and December across many regions of Southern Africa in at least 35 years. Short-term forecasts from January to March indicate the high probability of continuing below-normal rainfall in the south, signaling that this could become one of the worst...

As countries design climate change adaptation policies, it is important to understand how workers alter behavior in response to changes in temperature. Nonetheless, the impact of temperature on labor markets is poorly documented, especially in Africa. We address this gap by analyzing panel surveys of labor choices by sector, contractual...

Land degradation and soil erosion have emerged as serious challenges to smallholder farmers throughout southern Africa. To combat these challenges, conservation agriculture (CA) is widely promoted as a sustainable package of agricultural practices. Despite the many potential benefits of CA, however, adoption remains low. Yet relatively little is known about...

The Regional Initiative seeks to strengthen the programmes, mechanisms, capacity and delivery of actions needed to operationalize commitments to end hunger by 2025, and to support mapping exercises that identify gaps and determine requisite interventions to enhance policy dialogue on food security and nutrition, both at regional and country levels....

The Africa Solidarity Trust Fund (ASTF) is an innovative Africa-led fund to support Africa for African development initiatives. Its main goal is to strengthen food security across the continent by assisting countries and their regional organizations to eradicate hunger and malnutrition, eliminate rural poverty and manage natural resources in a...

The SADC Consultative Meeting on Preparedness and Response to the Impact of the 2015/16 El Niño on Agriculture and Food and Nutrition Security in Southern Africa was held from 25th to 26th February 2016 in Johannesburg, South Africa, with support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations...

About 60 million people across Southern Africa and the Horn, Central America, and the Pacific face worsening hunger and poverty due to droughts and crop failures in 2014/5 that have been exacerbated by the El Niño weather system in 2015/6. This number is likely to rise. This short report gives...

This article presents findings on the local economy impacts of seven African country SCT programmes evaluated as part of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) “From Protection to Production” (PtoP) project. The countries are Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The PtoP project has facilitated expansion of...

  This paper investigates how household agricultural involvement affects food consumption and dietary diversity in rural Malawi. Ceteris paribus, a 10 per cent increase in on-farm income share increases food consumption per capita by 2.9 per cent, calorie intake per capita per day by 1.7 per cent, and leads to small...

This report evaluates the productive impact of the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP). The report uses data collected from a randomized experimental design impact evaluation to analyse the impact of the SCTP on household decision-making over agricultural production, labour supply, the accumulation of private assets and other income generating...