"We examine access to, use of, and participation in decisions on improved water supply in the Volta basin of Ghana, one of the first countries to introduce a community-based approach to rural water supply on a large scale. While 71 percent of the households interviewed have access to improved...

"In many parts of the world, increased agricultural growth will play a key role in addressing the current world food crisis, in contributing to overall economic growth, and in helping to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of poor and hungry people by 2015...

Economic development transforms an economy from one that is largely agricultural to one that is largely manufacturing and services. Since agriculture currently dominates Ethiopia's economy and employment, however, there is an issue as to what its role should be in getting from here to there. In...

In this technical guide we describe the Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (SAKSS) concept developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute in response to the capacity gaps typically found in many African countries for generating and translating evidence into action....

This study assesses the future growth prospects of Rwanda. The report first focuses on broad economic growth using a rather aggregated 18-sector dynamic general equilibrium model to display the trade-off between rapid growth and structural change. The analysis shows that with the current...

Drawing on a household survey collected in eight woredas in seven Ethiopian regions in 2009, as well as on qualitative fieldwork in four of the eight woredas, this paper provides analysis of agricultural extension delivery in Ethiopia. While overall extension services are relatively accessible...

The government of Ethiopia is investing significant public resources to increase overall national production of teff, wheat, and maize. To better understand the likely economywide effects of increases of between 12 and 14 percent in the national production of these cereals, a set of production...

The evidence of improved performance of agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) in recent years has indeed been quite striking when compared with the past. For the first time, the sector has maintained a real growth rate of 3.4 percent per year, well above the population growth rate of...

This study assesses the patterns of agricultural intensification in 40 African countries looking at the role fertilizer plays in the process. We propose a set of indicators that uses information on available agricultural land and land suitability to measure intensity of land use in agricultural...

The authors identify a set of development priorities for agriculture that cut across West Africa at both the country and regional levels to achieve economywide growth goals in the region. To do this we adopt a modeling and analytical framework that involves the integration of spatial analysis to...