During the nineties, Rwandan households had to cope with severe shocks of war and genocide. In addition, two major structural problems in Rwanda, land scarcity and declining soil fertility, remain unsolved. How do Rwandan households manage? This is an important question from a development...

The cocoa sector in Ghana is one of few examples of an export commodity sector in an African country that has withstood the pressure to fully liberalize. Despite substantial government control over internal and external marketing via the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), the current institutional...

The predominance of rain-fed agricultural cultivation in Malawi, makes income and consumption to be highly seasonal for more than 80 percent of the population that largely derive their livelihoods from agriculture. Seasonality of livelihoods for the poor is bound to affect their consumption at...