agricultural development

“Towards an improved framework for measuring the effects of agricultural development interventions on household and individual nutrition” is a one-year research project by Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) and collaborating partners. »

This book by UNU-WIDER comprehensively evaluates trends in living conditions in 16 major sub-Saharan African countries, corresponding to nearly 75% of the total population. An important message from ten of the countries they looked at is that there are potentially high returns to policies that take agriculture seriously. Countries that place a particular emphasis on upgrading the capabilities of small-scale farmers are more likely to achieve broad-based development objectives. »

This paper in the World Development Journal, introduces a Special Section on Chinese and Brazilian engagements in African agriculture. The paper asks if a new paradigm for development cooperation is emerging, and argues that we must move beyond the simplistic narratives of either “South–South” collaboration or “neo-imperial” expansion of “rising powers” to look at the dynamic and contested politics of engagement, as new forms of capital and technology enter African contexts. »

This article elaborates on how ownership of assets by women could positively influence the development outcomes at the household and individual levels. The research draws lessons out of eight mix-methods projects that evaluated the impacts of agricultural development projects on individual and household assets. The results show that assets both affect and are affected by projects, indicating that it is both feasible and important to consider assets in the design, implementation, and evaluation of projects. »

This article discusses the extend to which competing and conjoined interests in agricultural modernization reshape the right to food since actors, norms and practices change. This is partly due to economic globalization that has transformed the politics regarding the right to food. The authors use the concept of interlegality, which considers dynamic perspectives of plural legal orders. »

This working paper scrutinizes to what extend agricultural development interventions have had a sustainable impact on the poorest rural households. The paper argues that conventional agronomic interventions, focused on raising land productivity through intensification often exclude the poorest households. The authors describe five factors that play a key role in allowing the rural poor to escape poverty. »