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12822. The changing context for small farms and implications for their future
- Author:
- Peter Hazell
- Publication Date:
- 06-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- The majority of farms in the developing world are small (less than 2 hectares) and they are home to the majority of the rural poor. Their future will have an important bearing on whether poverty and hunger can be halved by 2015. However, small farms are seriously challenged today in ways that make their future precarious. Globalization and rising per capita incomes in many countries are changing the nature and composition of demand for agricultural products. At the same time, marketing chains are changing and are becoming more integrated and more demanding of quality and food safety. This is creating new opportunities for higher value production for farmers who can compete and link to these markets, but for many other small farms the risk is that they will simply be left behind. In developing countries, small farmers also face unfair competition from rich country farmers in many of their export and domestic markets, and they no longer have adequate support in terms of basic services and farm inputs. And the spread of HIV/AIDS is further eroding the number of productive farm family workers, and leaving many children as orphans with limited knowledge about how to farm. Left to themselves, these forces will curtail opportunities for small farms, overly favor large farms, and lead to a premature and rapid exit of many small farms. If most small farmers are to have a viable future, then there is need for a concerted effort by governments, NGOs and the private sector to create a more equitable and enabling economic environment for their development. This must include assistance in forming effective marketing organizations, targeted agricultural research and extension, revamping financial systems to meet small farm credit need s, improved risk management policies, better education and training for nonfarm jobs and where all else fails, targeted safety net programs. These interventions are possible and could unleash significant benefits in the form of pro-poor agricultural growth. For many countries, the alternative is a dramatic increase in rural poverty and waves of migrants to urban areas that could overwhelm available job opportunities, urban infrastructure and support services.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Globalization, and Third World
12823. Staff Management and Organisational Performance in Tanzania and Uganda: Public Servant Perspectives
- Author:
- Ole Therkildsen and Per Tidemand
- Publication Date:
- 03-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- How can a government in a poor country with a limited budget increase the performance of its public sector organizations through better Human Resources Management practices (HRM)? And how may donors assist? These questions are addressed in this comparative study of HRM practices and organisational performance in public sector organizations in Tanzania and Uganda. Specifically, as stated in the terms of reference (appendix D), the study aims to: Enhance knowledge about the rules and practices of hiring, firing, transfers and promotion. (HFTP) in central and local government, including executive agencies, in the two countries – as seen from the perspective of public servants themselves. Assess how and how much HFTP-practices affect motivation at individual and organisational level. Contribute to inform policy making on non-pay incentives among development partners. Suggest relevant further work.
- Topic:
- Development, Regional Cooperation, and Third World
- Political Geography:
- Uganda and Africa
12824. Geostrategies of the European Neighbourhood Policy
- Author:
- Christopher S. Browning and Pertti Joenniemi
- Publication Date:
- 05-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- The debate about the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has, in essence, been about borders and bordering. Such departures often contribute to rather fixed geopolitical visions of what the EU is about and how it aims at running and organising the broader European space. In contrast, this paper aims at retaining space for viewing the ENP as a developmental and somewhat fluid process. A conceptual framework, based on the outlining of three geopolitical models and a series of different geostrategies employed by the EU in regard to its borders, is hence utilized in order to tell a more dynamic story regarding the developing nature of the ENP and the EU's evolving nature more generally. The complexity traced informs that various geostrategies may be held at the same time at the external border. Moreover, the dominance of one geostrategy may be replaced by another or a different combination of them with regard to the same neighbourhood. It is, more generally, argued that if anything it is precisely this dynamism that should be championed as a valuable resource and as such avoiding the tendency to close off options through the reification of particular visions of the nature of the EU and its borders.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Development, and Regional Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- Europe
12825. The Spice Industry in Tanzania: General Profile, Supply Chain Structure, and Food Standards Compliance Issues
- Author:
- Evelyne Lazaro and Adam Akyoo
- Publication Date:
- 03-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- The fall in the agricultural sector's contribution to Tanzanian export earnings since the early 1990s has increased attention toward new crops with the potential of supplementing the country's traditional export crops. Particular attention has been focused upon identifying crops enjoying price stability, high demand elasticity and low substitutability. Spices fall into this category. Consequently there have been efforts by public agencies and private exporters, both on the mainland and on Zanzibar, to promote the crop. However, access to high value export markets raises issues of supply chain dynamics and conformity with international standards. This paper focuses upon the recent history of the spice industry in Tanzania with reference to these issues. The main conclusions are that Certified Organic standards are the only international standards complied with, and that a very loosely coordinated chain exists alongside a more coordinated one. Macro- and micro-institutional weaknesses need attention if the full potential of the sub-sector is to be realized.
- Topic:
- Economics, Health, and Industrial Policy
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Zanzibar, and Tanzania
12826. Harmonisation and alignment: The double-edged swords of budget support and decentralised aid administration
- Author:
- Ole Therkildsen and Ole Winckler Anderson
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- The Paris declaration of 2005 on aid effectiveness is now part of the international consensus. It holds that increased use of budget support combined with decentralised aid administration will lead to transaction costs reductions (through better donor harmonisation of aid) and to enhanced local ownership (through better alignment of donor policies and practices with those of recipients). Both improvements are assumed to enhance aid effectiveness.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Government, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Paris
12827. The economics of certified organic farming in tropical Africa: A preliminary assessment
- Author:
- Simon Bolwig and Peter Gibbon
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- The paper examines the relative profitability of certified organic and conventional farming operations in tropical Africa as well as differences between organic and conventional farmers in rates of adoption of farming practices and in household factor endowments. The paper is based on three surveys in Uganda of smallholder farmers of respectively, organic coffee, cocoa, and pineapple and of matching control groups of conventional farmers. Organic production was in all cases organised on a contract farming-type basis, in schemes operated by the firm exporting the organic product. The central conclusion from the study is that farms that engaged in certified organic export production were significantly more profitable in terms of net farm income earnings than those that engaged only in conventional production. This was the result of generally significant differences between organic and conventional farmers' gross farm incomes, although these differences were further amplified by differences in costs. Income differences related partly to differences between organic and conventional farmers' factor endowments. Preliminary analyses indicted that, among factor endowments, area under crops subject to organic certification (CSC) and numbers of CSC plants had the strongest relations to farmers' sales volume and incomes,. Labour availability and average age of CSC plants had a much lower level of importance. As for other factors, yields were strongly related to sales volumes, but average price received was of lesser importance. The precise relative contribution of these different factors to sales volumes and incomes remains to be established in a further paper, however. The results for average net income also show enormous differences in profitability between organic farmers of different cash crops, with pineapple farmers earning three and five times more than cocoa and coffee farmers, respectively. It is worth underlining that, in contrast to the experience in developed countries, we found that organic conversion in tropical Africa is associated with increases rather than reductions in yield, which relates to the low-input characteristics of conventional farming on the continent. Focus group interviews suggest that organic farmers enjoyed higher yields due to more effective farm management technique, but the survey results on rates of adoption of yield-enhancing farming practices could not verify this.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Uganda and Africa
12828. The extraterritorialisation of asylum and the advent of "protection lite"
- Author:
- Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- When does the refugee encounter the State? The straightforward and traditional answer to this question would be, when arriving at the border and surrendering herself to the authorities uttering the magical word, “asylum”. Reality, however, only seldom conforms to this picture. Today, the person seeking asylum in the EU is much more likely to encounter the State before reaching the EU border – at the visa consulate, through the EU Immigration Liaison Officers posted at the airports of key migration transit and origin countries, during passage over the Mediterranean where navy vessels are patrolling. Alternatively, the refugee may not meet EU in persona, but through delegation, either in the form of an airline company bound by EU regulations to carry out migration control or as a third State having in EU cooperation to perform exit border control or provide alternative protection in the region.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Development, and Government
12829. Local stakeholders' use of forest reserves in Kasyoha-Kitomi forest landscape, Uganda and Nguru south forest landscape, Tanzania
- Author:
- Kim Raben, Michael Kidoido, David Loserian, Johnson Nyingi, and Zarupa Akello
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- Tropical forests are characterised by stakeholders with multiple and often conflicting interests. This paper identifies and analyses local stakeholders in the Participatory Environmental Management (PEMA) programme in the Kasyoha-Kitomi forest landscape in Uganda and the South Nguru forest landscape in Tanzania. The overall objective of the PEMA programme is to pilot and promote an approach to the management of natural resources in two high-biodiversity Forest Reserves and surrounding landscapes that reconciles the conservation and development interests of multiple stakeholders at local, national and international levels. The Danish Institute for International Studies had as one of its task to carry out an analysis of local stakeholders i.e. the rural people in the forest landscapes, who directly or indirectly benefit from services provided by the forests. The image of stakeholders and interests in forest management is complex and stakeholder analysis provides a means to start understanding it. Based on the stakeholder identification methodology (Ravnborg and Westermann 2002) the paper investigates stakeholders and the interdependencies among them with regard to the management of natural resources. Point of departure is taken in individuals’ interests, and previous and current uses of services provided by the Kasyoha-Kitomi Forest Reserve and Nguru South Forest Reserve are documented. These services are for instance the provision of agricultural land, wood products, NTFP, hunting, fishing, grazing and the less tangible services such as climate regulation, water quantity and quality. Where possible, interests are distinguished according to social groups. It is concluded that local inhabitants’ stakes in the forest reserves are determined by their access to technology, capital, markets, skills, as well as their locality, gender, age, ethnicity and (lack of) alternative livelihood strategies. In addition, the context of inter-related demographic and socio-economic processes that influence patterns of resource use and determine (and change) local inhabitants’ interests in and use of the forests are described and conflicting interests and interdependencies identified. The stakeholder analysis provides a start to understanding the complex picture of interests attached to the forests and the potential for involving local stakeholders in the PEMA programme. The paper concludes, among other things, that activities such as cultivation within the forest reserves, labouring in logging activities, collection of material for thatch and sambu oil seeds are mainly the interests of the poor local inhabitants. Findings from both forest landscapes show that NTFP such as weaving and thatch material constitute important sources of income for the local inhabitants including the poor and should thus be considered when negotiating use rights to resources in the forest reserve. In general, it is recommended that profound attention is given in the PEMA programme to improving the local stakeholders’ access rights to the forest reserves and not just meet the interests of more powerful non-local stakeholders
- Topic:
- Economics and Environment
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Africa, Tanzania, and Southeast Asia
12830. Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in China, 1995-2002
- Author:
- Renwei Zhao and Shi Li
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- This paper investigates some major changes in the wealth distribution in China using the data from two national household surveys conducted in 1995 and 2002. The surveys collected rich information on household wealth and its components, enabling a detailed analysis of changes in wealth distribution among Chinese households. Our analysis indicates that the wealth distribution in China as a whole became much more unequal in 2002 than it was in 1995. The housing reform, in which public apartments were sold to urban households at extremely low prices, has accelerated the accumulation of wealth among urban households on the one hand, and widened the wealth gap between urban and rural areas on the other.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Development, and Economics
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia