agricultural productivity

This article provides an overview and analysis of youth employment in Sub-Saharan Africa. While many refer to the youth employment problem as the ‘youth unemployment problem’, unemployment is not high in low-income sub-Saharan Africa (3%) or in middle-income countries outside of Southern Africa. Since jobs remain elusive in the formal wage sector, youth have found innovative ways to express and exploit their talents and capabilities in the agriculture and household enterprises (informal sector). »

This toolkit is a collection of instructions, tools and stories to help develop and scale mobile agriculture products by applying a user-centered design approach. The toolkit is a collection of instructions, tools and stories to help develop and scale mobile agriculture products by applying a user-centered design approach. It provides guides for different stages in a product development cycle elaborating on the tools and displaying stories from the field. »

This brief (PDF) of the International Livestock Research Institute elaborates solutions for the dairy value chain in Tanzania. Since demand for milk in Tanzania increases, there is a need for new mechanisms to increase productivity and market orientation. »

This concise report by UNWomen estimates the monetary value of the gender gap, its associated costs and the effectiveness of certain policies and interventions in agricultural productivity. The report focuses on the countries Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. However, the analysis can be replicated by policy makers from other countries since the methodology and data used to quantify the costs of the gender gap and to determine to what extend different factors contribute to the gender gap are aptly presented in two Appendices. »

This report highlights five major constraints that can limit women’s productivity and inclusion into the agricultural economy in Africa: lack of access to assets, lack of access to financing, limited training, gender-neutral government policy, and time constraints due to heavy domestic responsibilities. Women make up almost 50% of the agricultural labour force in Sub-Saharan Africa. A total of 62% of economically active women in Africa work in agriculture, making it the largest employer of women. »

In this article in the Agricultural Economics Journal, the authors argue that policy makers should focus on differences across countries when trying to combat low productivity and formulating global strategies and national policies for agricultural development. They showed how different components of an agricultural innovation system interact, to determine levels of technical inefficiency in developing-country agriculture. »