Post-emergency planning in sub-Saharan Africa: The agricultural sector

When their current food emergencies have ended, many African countries will face very difficult choices as they move from relief to rehabilitation and then hopefully to development. At the same time, they should be taking steps to protect themselves against possible future disasters. Resources to accomplish all this and to meet other problems (the settlement of refugees, for example) will be severely limited. It is a situation calling for ‘post-emergency planning’ to be undertaken as soon as possible. This article looks at some of the issues involved.     

After the famine: food aid policy and management issues in sub-Saharan Africa

The large amount of food aid that was required to meet Africa's emergency food situation resulted in the postponement of some fundamental decisions that were being taken about food aid use in sub-Saharan Africa. Now the donor community and recipient governments are again giving priority to integrating food aid with other available resources in order to meet longer-term food policy and wider development objectives. This paper looks at some of the policy and management issues which need to be addressed if the effectiveness of food aid assistance is to be improved in the current African context. Shortages of locally qualified personnel to administer project food aid have proven to be a major bottleneck in most sub-Saharan countries. Most sub-Saharan states receive food aid from a variety of sources: multilateral, bilateral and a few private-voluntary organizations. As a result, countervailing priorities are set by the donors themselves and give rise to conflicts. The recent drought and famine conditions have compounded an image problem in which food aid is narrowly identified by recipient governments as a project resource to be used primarily for nutrition interventions and for the rural sector. The image problem often limits project selection and overlooks innovative uses of food aid. Many sub-Saharan countries are starting to acquire considerable amounts of counterpart funds from program food aid. However, their use is not coherently integrated with the total aid flow. Multi-year programming has emerged as a management issue which has unnecessarily divided the food aid donor community. The fundamental issue is flexibility in programming, not multi-year programming. The major policy objective now facing the food aid donor community and recipient countries is how to lower emergency allocations while simultaneously increasing project and program aid. Most nonfood-aid donor agencies and their constituent bodies do not treat food aid as a valid economic resource, thereby undermining its effectiveness. The eventual success of food aid use in Africa may be a function of the recipient governments and other major donor and financial organizations.     

Alleviating rural poverty in sub-Saharan Africa

This analysis of rural poverty and hunger in Africa discusses the intertemporal and cross-sectional dimensions of poverty as an aid to policies and programs to alleviate hunger. Since nutritional adequacy of diets varies according to season, seasonality is an important cause of poverty especially in countries with 1 major harvest. In agricultural communities the wet season brings on food shortages and high prices, requiring assistance programs to concentrate on alleviating hunger at this time of year. Drought places a similar demand on resources. People may be poorer in 1 section of a country than another if they have no access to the existing power system, depriving them of services and assistance. There are forgotten regions of Africa where people are poor due to physical isolation, increasing the risk of drought and impeding emergency relief. Production in these areas may be low because there are no consumer goods to buy with surplus. It is important to identify target groups for financial assistance which will change with time and environmental conditions.     

Emerging trends in China's financial sector

This paper reviews the trends which emerged in the financial system in China over the period 1979 to 1987. Economic and social reforms, which began in late 1978, have produced some far-reaching and significant effects on the growth of the Chinese economy. These reforms have prompted changes in the financial system, including banking reforms to handle the flow of funds to finance domestic expansion, international trade, the foreign debt and other domestic and international financial and finance-related transactions. The paper reviews the developments and focuses on some of the problems with respect to balance of payments, imbalances and inflationary pressures.Cecil R. Dipchand is a Professor of Finance in the School of Business Administration, Dalhousie University, Halifax; J. Colin Dodds is a Professor of Finance and Dean of Commerce at Saint Mary's University, Halifax; Patricia McGraw is an Administrator in the Canada-China Management Education Programme, School of Business Administration, Dalhousie University; and Keng Chen is a Lecturer in the Economics College, Xiamen University, Fujian Province, PR China. The financial assistance of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is greatly appreciated.     

Emerging issues in white space regulation

The secondary use of vacant television channels (TV white spaces) and the reallocation of the digital dividend to provide wireless broadband services are in the final stages of implementation in some countries. Originally seen as a once in a generation opportunity to better allocate UHF spectrum, further digital dividends are now underway as regulators and industry strive to meet exponential increases in demand for mobile data services. Concurrent developments suggest that TV white spaces may be rapidly exploited by global networks with billions of supported devices. The potential for sub-optimal outcomes is identified if the prospect of further digital dividends is not taken into account as technical and regulatory arrangements are put in place to allow productive use of TV white spaces. The importance of considering the potential interaction between further digital dividends and the use of TV white spaces is discussed and technical and regulatory approaches to support optimal outcomes are identified.     

Internet diffusion in sub-Saharan Africa: A cross-country analysis

In this paper, the notions of digital inequality and digital divide have been employed to describe two levels of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) access. On the one hand is the inequality of access to the cluster of technology measured by Internet use and on the other are the confluence of skills and other resources that differentiate countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Using cross-country data, hypotheses are tested within a simultaneous equation system. The paper confirms the vital importance of telecommunications infrastructure represented by the high correlation of telephone density with Internet irrespective of per capita income level of the country.     

Social protection for enhanced food security in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper identifies several positive synergies between social protection programmes and enhanced entitlements to food. One function of social protection is to manage or reduce vulnerability. Several instruments are reviewed – weather-indexed insurance, public works programmes, emergency food aid and buffer stock management – which aim to stabilise income and access to food across good and bad years, or between the harvest and the hungry season. Other social protection instruments aim to raise household income and crop production, for instance agricultural input subsidies or input trade fairs, as well as public works projects that construct or maintain physical infrastructure such as rural feeder roads. This paper also argues that entitlements to food can be strengthened if social justice principles are introduced to the design and delivery of social protection programmes. Examples reviewed include rights-based approaches such as employment guarantee schemes, community-based targeting and demand-driven accountability mechanisms. The paper concludes by arguing for a comprehensive approach to social protection that will achieve sustainable food security, by combining interventions that stabilise income or food production with those that raise income or food production, and are designed and delivered in ways that enhance social justice.     

Non-farm entrepreneurship in rural sub-Saharan Africa: New empirical evidence

We report on the prevalence and patterns of non-farm enterprises in six sub-Saharan African countries, and study their performance in terms of labor productivity, survival and exit, using the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study - Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). Rural households operate enterprises due to both push and pull factors and tend to do so predominantly in easy-to-enter activities, such as sales and trade, rather than in activities that require higher starting costs, such as transport services, or educational investment, such as professional services. Labor productivity differs widely: rural and female-headed enterprises, those located further away from population centers, and businesses that operate intermittently have lower levels of labor productivity compared to urban and male-owned enterprises, or enterprises that operate throughout the year. Finally, rural enterprises exit the market primarily due to a lack of profitability or finance, and due to idiosyncratic shocks.     

Food in sub-Saharan Africa : Trends and policy challenges for the 1990s

The food situation in Africa can be expected to become increasingly serious as the end of the century approaches. The gap between domestic supply and food needs in rapidly widening. Yield-increasing technology becomes essential in view of land scarcity in high-potential areas and sustainability problems in marginal zones. The concern of governments for food self-sufficiency, however, must not divert attention from the primary objective of household food security, which is essentially a question of households' real income. Accelerated rural growth and improved rural health and sanitation services accessible to the poor are central elements for household food security improvement.     

Linking agricultural development to school feeding in sub-Saharan Africa: Theoretical perspectives

This paper takes as a starting point the proposition that social protection interventions involving food can be used to promote transformational change in family farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. The purpose is to highlight the complexity of pathways to agricultural transformation associated with the seemingly simple idea of home-grown school feeding (HGSF), an idea that is increasingly held up as “win–win”. By reviewing the HGSF literature and the main theories underpinning it – structured demand, localism, family farmer development – we expose areas of inconsistency across the literature and programmes as well as possible tensions that may arise in attempting to pursue both market and social objectives in the same initiative. The arguments presented herein aim to provide a basis for moving towards clarity on (1) a theory of change for HGSF programmes; (2) the conditions under which HGSF programmes are more able to yield positive agricultural development outcomes and; (3) an agenda for moving forward on research and impact evaluation. This research agenda also speaks more broadly to important under-researched areas within the general social protection and agricultural development discourse.     

积极有效地推进水利行业认证认可工作--水利部国科司陈明忠副司长在北京中水源禹质量体系认证中心2005年度认证工作沟通/研讨会上的讲话

北京中水源禹质量体系认证中心一年一度的认证工作沟通研讨会今天召开。这不仅是中水源禹的一次重要会议,也是我们水利行业贯彻《中华人民共和国认证认可条例》,落实部《关于加强水利认证认可工作的若干意见》,整体推进管理体系认证工作的一次盛会。首先请允许我代表水利部国科司对前来参加会议的代表表示欢迎,对组织和承办这次会议的水规总院、北京中水源禹质量体系认证中心以及黑龙江省水利水电勘测设计研究院的同志们表示感谢。     

The impact of agricultural research on productivity and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa

While it is widely recognized that agricultural research is a key driver of broad-based technological change in agriculture that benefits the poor in many different ways, little is known about its aggregate impacts on productivity growth and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using a polynomial distributed lag structure for agricultural research within a simultaneous system of equations framework, this paper first demonstrates that agricultural research contributes significantly to productivity growth in SSA. Productivity growth is again shown to raise per capita incomes, with income increases finally having significant poverty-reducing effects. With an aggregate rate of return of 55%, the payoffs to agricultural research are also impressive. Agricultural research currently reduces the number of poor by 2.3 million or 0.8% annually. While the actual impacts are not large enough to more than offset the poverty-increasing effects of population growth and environmental degradation, the potential impacts of agricultural research are far greater. Apart from low research investments, SSA faces several constraints outside the research system that hinder realization of potential research benefits. The results show that doubling research investments in SSA would reduce poverty by 9% annually. However, this would not be realized without more efficient extension, credit, and input supply systems.     

The geographic and sectoral patterns of large-scale farmland investments in sub-Saharan Africa

Following the food and energy price crises of the mid 2000s, sub-Saharan Africa has become one of the largest recipients for large-scale farmland investments. While much has been written on the phenomenon, scant reliable empirical evidence is available as to the precise geographic and sectoral patterns and underlying drivers. Employing strict data quality requirements, this paper addresses these knowledge gaps by analyzing 563 farmland projects that have been established between 2005 and 2013 in sub-Saharan Africa. Findings show that the investment intensity and associated risks are not geographically uniform. Moreover, the study highlights a number of popular misconceptions regarding investor origin and their sectoral interests and motives.     

Fertilizers to support agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa: what is needed and why

Substantial growth in inorganic fertilizer use is a prerequisite for sustained agricultural growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Increased fertilizer use can lead to modest but immediate and important increases in yields, while the profitability of other technologies will be stifled without adequate plant nutrients. Average fertilizer application rates in sub-Saharan Africa need to increase from 10 kg/ha to 50 kg/ha within 10 years to prevent mining of soil nutrients. That implies an 18% annual growth rate. This is substantially higher than trends in the region, but within a reasonable range of historically observed levels from other parts of the world. While over-use of fertilizers can create environmental problems, this is not a widespread problem in sub-Saharan Africa, and should not become one as a result of applying 50 kg/ha of inorganic fertilizers. Rather, near-term environmental concerns in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa will stem from the lack of intensification. Farmer demand for fertilizers and the physical capacity to make fertilizers available are the two key issues that determine whether a 50-kg/ha goal will be attained. However, demand-side incentives cannot be separated from fertilizer supply possibilities. Several studies document that the simple physical availability of fertilizers to farmers, in the appropriate quantity, packages and at the appropriate time of year, remains a main constraint on increased fertilizer use in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Sizing up information and communication technologies as agents of political development in sub-Saharan Africa

It is widely speculated that the emergence of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) will boost political development in the developing world. This expectation anchors on solid foundation since, presumably, the ICT revolution would radically alter access to information, dislodge entrenched social cleavages, and unleash new patterns of citizen consciousness and civic engagement by hitherto marginalized mass publics, and orchestrate new and decisive political equilibriums. This research provides an empirical assessment of the impact of ICTs on political development in sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis suggests that speculation about the potential for ICTS to enhance political development in the sub-Sahara is not unrealistic. The levels of phone, computer, and Internet diffusion are associated with political development, although only the effect of the phone remains once other variables are specified. The phone is the most robust of all individual factors explaining variations in political development. However, the effect of ICTs on political development can neither be certified as revolutionary, nor can they be codified as panacea.     

Farming fish for profits: A small step towards food security in sub-Saharan Africa

In addition to volatile fluctuations due to seasonal or regional factors, food security has two main components; access and availability. This paper presents a diagrammatical model to indicate how aquaculture, particularly private sector aquaculture, can contribute to these components of food security in sub-Sahara Africa. Food accessibility is increased when commercial aquaculture generates employment. Without such employment the poor might never translate their need for food into effective demand. Food availability is increased, either immediately when aquaculture output is sold in the domestic market, or later when the foreign exchange earned from aquaculture exports is used to import food.     

水利工程质量监督工作中若干问题的探讨

水利工程质量监督是保证工程质量,确保工程安全,发挥投资效益的重要手段。笔者根据从事水利工程质量监督工作的实践,总结了水利工程质量监督工作的经验,并提出了质量监督工作中的若干问题及其见解。     

已实施的部分水利行业标准简介

水文基础设施及技术装备管理规范(SL415-2007) 本规范规定了水文基础设施及技术装备管理对象的范围,编制了管理对象的分类目录;明确了实行分级管理的原则,规定了各级管理机构的设置和职责;明确规定了在水文基础设施及技术装备建设项目管理中推行法人负责、项目招标、工程监理、建设项目效益后评估制度和水文技术装备的政府采购制度;加强了项目建设中的质量监控措施,规定各级水文技术装备管理机构参与建设项目立项审批、建设质量监督、项目验收的职责;规定了在运行管理中实行定期检查、检修维护,规定了检修维护的内容、周期、取费标准和将运行维护经费纳入部门财政预算的原则;规定了为保证正常工作及应急需要,水文技术装备实行定额分级储备制度;明确规定了水文基础设施及技术装备实行定期更新、报废的制度,规定了报批程序和审批权限;规范还根据水文监测工作的特殊性,规定了为保证水文监测工作质量,推行水文技术装备质量认证管理的制度;规范中还就水文监测工作中非常重要的安全生产问题做了较详细的规定,特别是首次加入了水文基础设施及技术装备防雷的内容,明确了实行分级防护的原则,规定了项目建设与操作运行的防雷技术细则,提出了切实有效的防雷操作要求;规范中首次提出了建设全国统一的水文基础设施及技术装备计算机档案管理系统的要求,规定了集中控制、分级管理的工作模式.     

承担起质量体系认证中心的职责促进水利行业质量管理水平的提高

1 中水源禹质量体系认证中心的成立及职责 　　北京中水源禹质量体系认证中心,是全国水利行业唯一从事ISO9000质量体系认证的第三方认证机构.中心去年经水利部和原国家质量技术监督局批准和工商注册后,依据国家认可规范,先后按94版和2000版标准编写了两套体系文件(包括质量手册、质量计划、程序文件和审核作业指导书)及对外公开文件、内部各项管理规章制度,并按规定完成了内部管理运作和外部培训等.今年初,中心一次通过了国家认可委对两套文件的审查、两个审核项目现场见证评审及现场评审,3月18日,国家认可委正式批准中心认可注册,取得了颁发带有国际互认和国家认可标志认证证书的正式资格.……     

Agricultural productivity and natural resource use in southern Africa

This paper examines the natural resource status of southern Africa and analyzes the critical linkages between the performance of southern African agriculture and natural resource use patterns. The implication of on-going natural resource use trends on poverty, food insecurity, and environmental degradation are also analyzed. The challenges that must be addressed including, how best to intensify agricultural production, the types of technologies to promote and the imperatives of production efficiency and intra-regional trade are examined. The paper concludes with some suggestions on how best to proceed in the future to be able to successfully address the challenges identified.