Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia are likely to hold large numbers of very poor rural people into the foreseeable future. Although both history and theory suggest a preeminent role for agricultural growth in poverty reduction in poor agrarian economies, such growth today faces new...

The belief in occult forces is still deeply rooted in many African societies, regardless of education, religion, and social class of the people concerned. According to many Africans its incidence is even increasing due to social stress and strain caused (among others) by the process of...

It is widely agreed that smallholder-led agricultural growth would contribute most to improved food security and reduced poverty. Yet, how to achieve broader and more sustainable access by smallholder farmers to productivity-enhancing inputs for food crop production remains a largely unsolved...

Empirical evidence from comparative studies on the impact of structural adjustment on Sub-Saharan African agricultural performance remains largely inconclusive. To illuminate this debate, we estimate the impact of liberalization on productivity, acreage, and production while controlling for...

Summary If labor markets operate with only minor frictions, productivity premiums associated with worker characteristics should equal the corresponding wage premiums. We evaluate this for labor market experience, schooling, job tenure, and training using matched employer-employee data from the...

We used baseline data, collected in July–September 2009, from a randomized controlled trial of a cash transfer program for vulnerable children in eastern Zimbabwe to investigate the effectiveness, coverage, and efficiency of census- and community-based targeting methods for reaching vulnerable...

Small-scale assemblers are both the most vilified and least understood actors in food value chains in Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on data from Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique, this article explores how maize assemblers influence the market access conditions of small-scale farmers. Assembly...

This paper examines whether shareholder-owned MFIs financially and socially perform better than NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We also investigate the role of institutional quality in altering MFIs’ incentives and behavior in determining outreach. Our results indicate that NGOs are more...

This paper addresses the relevance of agricultural seed systems in terms of the production and dissemination of seed in the context of adaptation to climate change. Using nationwide household level data from Malawi, we examine the hypothesis that climatic shocks increase small-scale farmers’...

Maternal mortality remains high because of low use of skilled delivery care. While governments try to lower access barriers, little is known about women’s preferences. This study combines data from a survey and a choice experiment in Tanzania to compare women’s preferences with real choices...