Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been rapidly urbanizing for many years. Current estimates from the UN are that urban population growth in East Africa is over 4% per year, while in Southern Africa, which has higher urbanization levels, the growth is estimated at 2%. Overall in East and Southern...

The surge in basic food commodity prices in 2007/08 and again in 2011, have led to a renewed focus among governments and donors on agricultural growth, especially in staple food production in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is widely agreed that smallholder-led agricultural growth would contribute most...

This study examines the impact of the World Food Program’s (WFP) Local and Regional Procurement of food aid (LRP) on households and markets. It focuses on four countries and commodities where WFP LRP has had a meaningful share of the market: maize in Uganda and Mozambique, beans in Ethiopia,...

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) is an important staple in Burkina Faso as well as many other countries in West Africa. Among the major cowpea pests affecting the crop are the legume pod borer (Maruca vitrata), flower thrips (Megalurothrips sjostedti), bruchids (Callosobruchus maculatus), and...

This paper provides a micro-level foundation for discussions of income and asset allocation within the smallholder sector in Eastern and Southern Africa, and explores the implications of these findings for rural growth and poverty alleviation strategies in the region. Results are drawn from...

This paper provides a micro-level foundation for discussions of income and asset allocation within the smallholder sector in Eastern and Southern Africa, and explores the implications of these findings for rural growth and poverty alleviation strategies in the region. Results are drawn from...

This paper demonstrates that income survey data can be very informative in explaining the variation across households in the incidence and severity of absolute poverty using a rural household income data set for Mozambique. Results from regression analysis of the sources of variation are used to...