feed the future learning agenda annotated bibliography ... · was prepared by jill t. w. bernstein...
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Feed the Future Learning Agenda
Annotated Bibliography:
Improving Resilience of
Vulnerable Populations
July 2013 This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by Jill T. W. Bernstein for the Feed the Future FEEDBACK project. The author’s views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or of the United States Government.
Prepared for the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID Contract Number GS-23F-
8144H/AID-OAA-M-12-00006, Feed the Future FEEDBACK
Contact:
Detra Robinson, Chief of Party
Westat
1600 Research Boulevard
Rockville, MD 20850
Tel: 301-738-3653
Email: [email protected]
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 1
This annotated bibliography is a compilation of sources regarding the concept of resilience, and
is meant to address the following questions from the Feed the Future Learning Agenda on
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations:
1) What interventions improve the ability of vulnerable households to withstand (stable
consumption and protected assets) common and extreme shocks affecting their economic
activities? In what ways?
2) What interventions strengthen the ability of vulnerable households to recover (regain
consumption levels and rebuild lost assets) from common and extreme shocks?
3) To what extent do different interventions to promote market access (such as promoting
access to markets with lower risks and lower entry barriers) generate the participation of
poorer households?
4) What interventions on both the “Push” (social protection) and “Pull” (value chain deepening)
sides improve the participation of the poor in value chain activities?1
5) Do safety net programs promote greater participation of poorer households in prudent risk
taking and more remunerative economic activities?
6) Have interventions changed risk-reduction strategies pursued by men and women to cope
with shocks (health-related, agro-climatic, economic, socio-political)?
7) Have FTF strategies to generate overall economic growth improved livelihoods of the
poorest and most vulnerable populations? What are the most effective economic growth
strategies for incorporating the poor and vulnerable?
1 Please see the Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography on Expanded Markets, Value Chains, and Increased
Investment for a more thorough treatment of this topic.
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 2
2013
Cousin, E., da Silva, J. G., & Nwanze, K. F. (2013). Principles and practice for resilience, food
security, and nutrition. Huffington Post.
In this article, Ertharin Cousin, United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Agencies for Food and Agriculture, along with Jose Graziano da Silva and Dr. Kanayo
Nwanze, state that, “The world is becoming a less predictable and more threatening
place for the poorest and most vulnerable,” and they urge the international community
to work towards the increased resilience of food-insecure communities. They provide a
list of six principles to guide this shift towards resilience-building: 1.) People,
communities and governments must lead resilience-building for improved food security
and nutrition; 2.) Building resilience is beyond the capacity of any single institution; 3.)
Planning frameworks should combine immediate relief requirements with long-term
development objectives; 4.) Ensuring protection of the most vulnerable is crucial for
sustaining development efforts; 5.) Effective risk management requires integration of enhanced monitoring and analysis into decision-making; and 6.) Interventions must be
evidence-based and focus on long-term results. The authors provide brief explanations
of each of these principles and include examples of successful resilience-building efforts.
2012
ACCRA. (2012). The ACCRA local adaptive capacity framework. (An ACCRA Brief).
http://www.careclimatechange.org/files/adaptation/ACCRA%20Local_Adaptive%20Policy.
In the context of the challenges that local communities face due to climate change, the
Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance (ACCRA) developed the Local Adaptive
Capacity (LAC) framework. Adaptive capacity is described in the following way:
“Broadly speaking, adaptive capacity denotes the ability of a system to adjust, modify or
change its characteristics and actions to moderate potential, future damage; take
advantage of opportunities; and to cope with the consequences of shock or stress
(Brooks, 2003).” The framework describes five characteristics of adaptive capacity: the
asset base; institutions and entitlements; knowledge and information; innovation; and
flexible, forward-looking decision-making and governance. Although the LAC framework
was originally designed for the sake of evaluating adaptive capacity to climate change, the
authors state that the framework is general in nature and can be applied to other types
of shock or change.
Barrett, C. B., & Carter, M. R. (2012). The economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty: Policy
and empirical implications. Cornell University, School of Applied Economics and
Management, Ithaca, NY. Unpublished manuscript.
Barrett and Carter explain what is meant by persistent poverty and poverty traps and
identify some of the possible mechanisms that can generate poverty traps. The authors
provide examples of single and multiple equilibrium poverty traps and describe in detail
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 3
the multiple financial market failures (MFMF) poverty trap model. Under the MFMF
poverty trap model, it is assumed that individuals do not have access to credit or to any
type of insurance. Whether or not they fall into a poverty trap depends on both their
assets and intrinsic abilities. According to the model, those with abilities below a certain
level will fall into a long-term poverty trap regardless of how high their assets are, and
those with abilities above a certain level will not fall into a long-term poverty trap
regardless of how low their asset levels are. Whether or not individuals with medium
asset levels fall into poverty traps depends on their assets. Thus, according to the
authors, the MFMF poverty trap model contains both single and multiple equilibrium
poverty traps. The authors identify several implications of the MFMF poverty trap
model, including behavioral implications of the model. The authors describe the many
challenges of direct empirical testing of poverty traps, and suggest that indirect tests for
poverty traps’ behavioral effects can be conducted. They provide examples of this type
of analysis that have been conducted to date, and although analyses of this type have
been rare, the examples identified by the authors tend to point to the existence of
poverty traps. The authors conclude with a discussion of the importance of correctly determining whether poverty traps exist and the policy implications.
Béné, C., Wood, R. G., Newsham, A., & Davies, M. (2012). Resilience: New utopia or new tyranny?
Reflection about the potentials and limits of the concept of resilience in relation to vulnerability
reduction programmes. IDS Working Papers, 2012(405), 1-61.
Béné et al. describe the growing use of the concept of resilience and seek to “review
and expose the potential benefits and limits of this concept.” The authors state that in
the literature, the concept of resilience is generally described as a dynamic concept, an
‘ability’ to recover from shock rather than a steady-state ‘outcome.’ They discuss the
advantages of the concept of resilience, such as the possibility for resilience to be
applied in a systematic way and the potential for the concept to create a unifying
language in conversations and work between representatives of different fields. A
disadvantage of the concept is “its inability to appropriately capture and reflect social
dynamics in general and consider issues of agency and power.” The authors also discuss
the issue of resilience versus well-being, and argue that increasing resilience does not
necessarily increase well-being, particularly if increasing one’s ability to respond to shock
means lowering one’s expectations. Another issue is the lack of attention to
distributional issues inherent in the concept of resilience. The authors compare and
contrast the concepts of vulnerability and resilience, and caution against neglecting the
concept of vulnerability. Then, the authors describe the characteristics of a resilient
system, and develop the “3D resilience framework” including the concepts of absorptive
coping capacity, adaptive capacity, and transformative capacity, which the authors argue
are complementary traits rather than competing traits as characterized by some. The
authors conclude with a discussion and summary of the advantages and disadvantages of
using the concept of resilience, drawing upon examples from earlier sections of the
paper.
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 4
Frankenberger T. R, Spangler, T., Nelson, S., & Langworthy, M. (2012). Enhancing resilience to
food insecurity amid protracted crisis. Paper prepared for the High Level Expert Forum on
Addressing Food Insecurity in Protracted Crises, Rome, Italy, 13–14 September, 2012.
Frankenberger et al. provide an overview of guiding principles for developing resilience
to crises, targeted at donor agencies. For the sake of the paper, the authors define
resilience in the following way: “The ability of countries, communities, and households
to efficiently anticipate, adapt to, and/or recover from the effects of potentially
hazardous occurrences (natural disasters, economic instability, conflict) in a manner that
protects livelihoods, accelerates and sustains recovery, and supports economic growth.”
The authors emphasize the importance of integrating humanitarian responses to crises
with longer-term development programs, so as to increase the ability of households to
prepare for future crises. They point to the importance of empowering local actors to
direct change, rather than taking a top-down approach. They also point to the
importance of developing multi-sectoral coordination in order to build resilience. The
authors provide some examples of programs that have been successful in building resilience, if not in terms of tried and tested results on the ground, at least in terms of
laying the groundwork for future success.
Levine, S, Pain, A., Bailey, S., & Fan, L. (2012). The relevance of resilience? ODI, Humanitarian
Policy Brief 49.
This policy brief, which addresses the question of the relevance of the concept of
resilience, was prepared by Levin and colleagues and is a summary of the results of
research efforts undertaken by the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian
Policy Group between 2011 and 2013. The authors describe the proliferation of
resilience frameworks that have been developed, but argue that although these
frameworks are thought to have the potential to bring together practitioners from
different disciplines, it is not clear that this will occur. The authors also argue that
although resilience is supposed to bridge the gap between humanitarian and
development efforts, there is little guidance regarding how to undertake humanitarian
work so as to build resilience. Levine et al. offer three key messages regarding resilience:
“1. The concept of resilience is at the centre of current debates in development, climate
change adaptation and humanitarian aid. However, it is not clear what resilience is, or
how it can or should be promoted during and after crises. 2.) Although it seems self-
evident that opportunities to build people’s resilience should be seized, a strong case
would be needed to justify diverting humanitarian resources to that end. 3.) Far more
understanding is needed about what kind of support is most effective and how this can
best be delivered.”
Stephens, E. C., Nicholson, C. F., Brown, D. R., Parsons, D., Barrett, C. B., Lehmann, J., ... &
Riha, S. J. (2012). Modeling the impact of natural resource-based poverty traps on food
security in Kenya: The Crops, Livestock and Soils in Smallholder Economic Systems
(CLASSES) model. Food Security, 4(3), 423-439.
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 5
In this paper, Stephens et al. use the Crops, Livestock and Soils in Smallholder Economic
Systems (CLASSES) model to better understand the relationship between biophysical
assets and economic decisions and well-being of small farming households in highland
Kenya. By using the CLASSES model, the authors are able to analyze a wide variety of
data regarding farming techniques, soil quality, and household characteristics. The
authors summarize their findings in the following statement: “Using a system dynamics
bio-economic model of farming households in Kenya, we examine the interactions
among the farm’s biophysical (crop, livestock and soil nutrient) assets and their
economic well being as well as identify important asset thresholds that characterize
households that are unable to escape from poverty and associated food insecurity. We
show that the natural resource base has strong influence on poverty, livelihood choices
and consumption and that economic phenomena, such as the transactions costs of
market access, likewise affect biophysical phenomena. Natural resource base
degradation or insufficient levels of initial natural capital are associated with low levels of
accumulated surplus and growing insecurity in consumption of staple grains.”
Vaitla, B., Tesfay, G., Rounseville, M., & Maxwell, D. (2012). Resilience and livelihoods change in
Tigray, Ethiopia. Feinstein International Center. Somerville, MA.
Vaitla et al. describe the concept of resilience, and quote the following definition of
resilience from DFID: “the ability of countries, communities and households to manage
change, by maintaining or transforming living standards in the face of shocks or
stresses—such as earthquakes, drought or violent conflict—without compromising their
long-term prospects.” After laying out a conceptual framework of livelihoods change and
resilience, the authors describe the areas of Tigray, Ethiopia that have been the subject
of research regarding livelihood change over time (LCOT) using panel data collected in
August 2011 (during the hungry season) and February 2012 (in the post-harvest season).
In order to measure resilience, the authors develop a methodology whereby they
evaluate the change over time of seven indicators of livelihoods outcomes and
household well-being: the Household Food Insecurity and Access Scale (HFIAS); the
Coping Strategies Index (CSI); the Food Consumption Score (FCS); an illness score; a
measure of the value of productive assets (land, livestock, and tools); a measure of the
household’s net debt; and an approximation of income. In this paper, the authors
analyze the levels of each of these indicators at the two points in time when the surveys
were conducted and state their intention to examine the change over time when
additional data are available. The authors hope to ultimately determine what factors
determine household response to shock, i.e. whether and why households “bounce
back better”; “bounce back”; “recover, but worse than before”; or “collapse.”
Venton, C. C., Fitzgibbon, C., Shitarek, T., Coulter, L., & Dooley, O. (2012). The economics of
early response and disaster resilience: Lessons from Kenya and Ethiopia. DFID, London.
In this study, Venton et al. discuss the growing frequency of disasters, the increasing
rhetoric calling for resilience-building, and the lack of research regarding the cost-
effectiveness of resilience-building measures. Using a variety of data sources, the study
looks at the impact of drought and resilience-building initiatives on pastoralists in Kenya
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 6
and Ethiopia, by comparing the cost of drought under three scenarios: late
humanitarian/emergency relief, early/pre-planned response, and disaster resilience
activities. The authors also seek to identify what types of interventions have the highest
Value for Money. Based on their analysis using the Household Economy Analysis (HEA)
model, the authors reach the following conclusions: 1. “Early response is far more cost
effective than late humanitarian response.” 2.) “There is a great deal of uncertainty
around the cost of building resilience. Nonetheless, the estimates presented here
suggest that, while the cost of resilience is comparatively high, the wider benefits of
building resilience can significantly outweigh the costs, leading to the conclusion that
investment in resilience is the best value for money.” 3.) “Early response and resilience
building measures should be the overwhelming priority response to disasters.” 4.)
“There are many resilience-building measures that are likely to be value for money.” 5.)
“Drought recovery takes longer (or may be impossible) when a community is not
resilient.” 6.) “Destocking interventions alone are often not sufficient to meet deficit
levels faced by in-need households.” 7.) “Other intervention types, such as
supplementary feeding interventions, are required to have an impact on animal mortality, conceptions, abortions, births, and milk production rates.”
2011
Andersson, C., Mekonnen, A., & Stage, J. (2011). Impacts of the Productive Safety Net Program
in Ethiopia on livestock and tree holdings of rural households. Journal of Development
Economics, 94(1), 119-126.
Andersson et al. considered the question of how safety net programs affect households’
investment and disinvestment in productive assets, specifically livestock and trees. The
authors provided an empirical analysis of the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) in
Ethiopia with attention to the following: “We studied both ex ante risk behavior, by
examining whether risk aversion determines investments in assets, and ex post risk
behavior, by examining whether assets are sold in times of temporary shocks. We also
explored whether the potential role of productive assets as a safety net was affected by
the introduction of a public safety net.” The PSNP was introduced in Ethiopia in 2005
and is primarily a public works program that employs program participants for five days
per month with the goal of increasing food security. The authors considered the
possibility that participation in the program, by reducing food insecurity, could result in
participants reducing or discontinuing typical risk-reduction strategies such as investing
in livestock and trees. According to the authors, the extent to which this occurs
depends on several factors: the perceived riskiness and yields of the assets, the risk
aversion of the households involved, and their discount rates. The authors utilized a
panel dataset from surveys conducted in 2002, 2005, and 2007, in addition to a survey
conducted in 2008 that specifically looked at PSNP participation. The authors’
econometric analysis revealed the following: “We found no indication that participation
in PSNP leads households to disinvest in livestock or trees; in fact, the number of trees
increased for households that participated in the program…. We found no evidence
that the PSNP protects livestock in times of shock. Shocks appear to lead households to
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 7
disinvest in livestock, but not in trees.” Finally, the authors found that increased credit
access (through a program that is complementary to PSNP) did positively affect
livestock holdings. Overall, the authors concluded that because the PSNP did not lead to
disinvestment, but rather led to increased investment in trees, the program has the
potential to increase income in the long term. (Questions 5 and 6.)
Dercon, S., Hill, R. V., Outes-Leon, I., Bayrou, A., Clarke, D., & Seyoum-Taffesse, A. (2011).
Offering rainfall insurance to informal insurance groups: Evidence from a field experiment in
Ethiopia. Mimeo.
Dercon et al. provide an empirical study of the uptake of a rainfall-based insurance
product to groups of households in pre-existing informal insurance groups in Ethiopia.
As the authors point out, previous experiments with weather-based insurance in the
developing world have exhibited low uptake levels, and many have provided the
following explanations for these results: the role of trust, credit constraints or poor
understanding of the product(s). Another factor is basis risk, defined as such: “basis risk means that compared to the original risk distribution faced, there will be states of the
world in which the net loss is actually higher (as an actual loss is faced, but the trigger
shows that there is no rainfall failure) and states of the world in which gains are made
(as there is no loss incurred, but the trigger results in a payout).” The experiment
targeted informal insurance groups that self-insure the cost of funerals in Ethiopia, and
funeral society leaders were trained in the details of rainfall-based index insurance
products so that they could then pass on the information to other members of their
groups. The authors randomized the training of funeral society leaders, whereby some
were assigned to trainings that presented the insurance as a group-based product and
others were assigned to participate in trainings that presented the insurance as an
individual insurance product. The authors found that uptake was higher in groups that
had had a leader trained in the group-based approach, and find that a likely explanation
is that in these groups, subsequent training of and discussions amongst group members
was higher than in the other groups. One factor that the authors do not discuss is
whether the groups that were considering group-based insurance policies experienced
somewhat of a peer pressure or herd effect where they felt that their decision to
participate in the product was important for the welfare of their fellow group members,
thus positively influencing their decision to purchase the insurance product. (Questions
1 and 2.)
DFID. (2011). Defining disaster resilience: A DFID approach paper. DFID, London.
This approach paper lays out DFID’s working definition of disaster resilience: “Disaster
Resilience is the ability of countries, communities and households to manage change, by
maintaining or transforming living standards in the face of shocks or stresses - such as
earthquakes, drought or violent conflict – without compromising their long-term
prospects.” The paper describes a resilience framework, which includes analysis of the
following four elements: the context; the disturbance (shocks or long-term stresses);
the capacity to deal with the disturbance (which depends upon the extent of exposure,
sensitivity, and adaptive capacity); and the reaction to the disturbance. Regarding DFID’s
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 8
own disaster resilience programs, the paper states that the concept of resilience has
brought together efforts from different fields including disaster risk reduction, climate
change adaptation, and social protection. DFID recognizes that resilience can also be a
useful concept for dealing with conflict and fragility, in addition to natural disasters. The
paper sets forth the ‘assets pentagon’ from the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, and
states that resilience-enhancing activities often include the development of social/human,
technological/physical, financial/economic, natural/environmental, and political assets that
can be used to deal with stress or shock. Examples of several of DFID’s projects that
are designed to enhance resilience to disasters are provided. The paper states that
DFID is committed to embedding resilience in all its country programs by 2015, and lists
ways in which the organization plans to meet that goal. The paper concludes with a
discussion of ways in which DFID can contribute to promoting the disaster resilience
agenda amongst the international community.
Fraser, E. D., Dougill, A. J., Hubacek, K., Quinn, C. H., Sendzimir, J., & Termansen, M. (2011).
Assessing vulnerability to climate change in dryland livelihood systems: Conceptual challenges and interdisciplinary solutions. Ecology and Society, 16(3), 3.
In this introduction to the journal Ecology and Society’s special feature on ‘Resilience and
Vulnerability of Arid and Semi-Arid Social Ecological Systems,’ Fraser et al. discuss the
potential vulnerability of dryland livelihood systems to climate change and address the
following issues: “(1) how to conceptualize vulnerability to climate change in coupled
social-ecological systems; and (2) the methodological challenges of anticipating trends in
vulnerability in dynamic environments.” The authors also summarize several case studies
from the journal regarding dryland vulnerability to climate change. According to the
authors, each vulnerability assessment in the special feature includes the following: “an
analysis of the agroecological factors effecting the farming system vulnerability”, “an
explicit evaluation of the socioeconomic context based on a sustainable livelihoods
approach”, and “an institutional dimension that includes exploring what groups within a
society have power and are able to mobilize political attention.” The authors discuss the
various methodological approaches that are used to understand vulnerability to climate
change, and briefly describe the case studies in this issue of Ecology and Society.
Kida, M. (2011). Agriculture and inclusive growth—Key questions and diagnostic tools for country
economists. Accessed from:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTDEBTDEPT/Resources/4689801316457581843/T
PIGandAgriculture.pdf.
Kida considers the issue of what role agriculture can play in promoting inclusive growth
and questions the assumption that agriculture is necessarily the key to poverty
reduction. The author states that there are three mechanisms through which agriculture
can promote inclusive growth: “stimulating economic growth, reducing poverty, and
creating employment.” For each of these, the author considers the cross-country
evidence and suggests ways in which analysts can evaluate these relationships for
individual countries. Regarding agriculture and overall economic growth, Kida states that
while a clear correlation between agricultural growth and overall growth has been
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 9
identified, it has not been possible in cross-country studies to identify causation, i.e.
whether agricultural growth in fact drives broader economic growth. On a country by
country basis, the author suggests that it is informative to perform a sectoral
decomposition of growth, but still points out that this does not clearly establish
causation. Regarding the effect of agricultural growth on poverty reduction, Kida states
that while some studies such as Ligon and Sadoulet (2007) and Christiansen and Demery
(2007) have shown that agriculture plays an especially powerful role in reducing poverty,
several others have found that other sectors such as manufacturing and services play
more important roles in poverty reduction. Again, the author suggests that at the
individual country level, a sectoral decomposition of poverty reduction can be
conducted, and gives the examples of India where the service sector was most influential
in reducing poverty and China where agriculture was the key driver. Finally, regarding
the relationship between agriculture and employment, the author argues that the
assumption that rural people are predominantly engaged in farming is simplistic, and
suggests ways to understand the employment decisions and patterns within individual
countries. (Question 7.)
Torero, M. (2011). A framework for linking small farmers to markets. Paper presented at the IFAD
Conference on New Directions for Smallholder Agriculture 24-25 January, 2011.
In this paper, Torero describes the poverty trap that faces small farmers who rely on
subsistence farming or are limited to selling to local markets, and suggests that there are
two important instruments for enabling them to access markets where they can earn
more for their harvest: “one is physical infrastructure such as information technology,
roads, ports, etc. that connects smallholders to markets; and the other is the role of
accompanying institutions that can reduce the marketing risk and transaction costs in
the process of exchange between producers and consumers.” After providing a
theoretical framework of how infrastructure and institutions contribute to market
development, the author provides an overview of the literature regarding rural
producer organizations (RPOs) and contract farming. As Torero describes, the global
food market often requires high costs of participation because of necessary investments
in equipment and the importance of gaining knowledge about consumer demands. By
joining in RPOs, producers can overcome these barriers to entry. However, Torero
points out that there is limited empirical evidence of the effectiveness of RPOs for
small-scale, poor farmers. Regarding contract farming, Torero states the following: “This
institution has the potential to incorporate low-income growers (mostly small
landholders) into the modern agricultural sectors because it is a source of credit,
insurance, and information for the contracted farmers.” The potential for small-scale
producers is to lower the risks that they incur in what can be inherently risky crops,
particularly in subsectors such as horticulture where contract farming is common.
Despite the advantages that small-producers stand to gain from participation in contract
farming, according to Torero it has been mainly medium-sized farmers and better-
educated farmers who have benefited from contract farming. (Question 3.)
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 10
2010
Alinovi, L., D’Errico, M., Erdgin, M., & Romano, D. (2010). Livelihoods strategies and household
resilience to food insecurity: An empirical analysis to Kenya. In Conference on Promoting
Resilience through Social Protection in Sub-Saharan Africa, European Report on
Development, Dakar, Senegal.
In this paper, Alinovi et al. describe the concepts of resilience and livelihoods and
develop a model for analyzing the resilience levels of different livelihood clusters in
Kenya. The authors utilize data from the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey
2005-06. With this data, they conduct a cluster analysis to identify groupings of Kenyan
households based on the following variables: sector of employment, job classification,
income shares, income generating activities, owned land, owned livestock, and transfers.
Using this technique, the authors identify six livelihood clusters in Kenya: pastoralist
(6%), agro-pastoralist (14%), small-holder farmers (34%), large-holder farmers (3%),
entrepreneurs (19%) and wage-employees (24%). The authors then determine the household resilience to food insecurity for each group based on the following variables:
income and food access (IFA), agricultural assets (AA), non-agricultural assets (NAA),
agricultural practice and technology (APT), access to basic services (ABS), social safety-
nets (SSN), stability (S), and adaptive capacity (AC), each of which is an index derived
from a set of appropriate variables. Analysis of the resilience of each of the livelihood
clusters reveals the following: “large-holder farmers are the most resilient (0.22),
followed by wage-employees (0.15), entrepreneurs (0.08) and agro-pastoralists (0.03).
The worst-off are pastoralists (-0.26) and smallholder farmers (-0.13).” Furthermore,
the authors find that the determinants of resilience are different for each group. They
also analyze the resilience levels based on province, and find that Nairobi province is the
most resilient. Analysis based on gender shows that female-headed households are
much less resilient than male-headed households. The authors conclude with a summary
of policy implications.
Andersson, C. (2010). Can a social safety net affect farmers’ crop portfolios? A study of the
Productive Safety Net Programme in Ethiopia (No. 807). Umeå University, Department of
Economics.
Andersson describes the situation whereby farmers who face risky environments and do
not have access to tools such as credit, insurance, liquid assets, and off-farm income opt
for lower-return, lower-risk crops. The author uses data from Ethiopia’s Productive
Safety Net Programme (PSNP) to examine the question of whether a safety net program
can offset this effect and influence crop choice. The PSNP was implemented in 2005
with the goal of protecting the consumption and assets of vulnerable households in the
face of income shocks. Participants participate in public works programs in exchange for
income. The author develops a theoretical model to show how participation in the
program can affect the composition of the crop portfolio and the average risk and
return of crop production. The data for the empirical analysis are from household
surveys conducted in 1999, 2002, 2005, and 2007 in the Amhara region of Ethiopia,
supplemented by a survey specific to the PSNP conducted in 2008 that covered some of
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 11
the same households. Andersson’s econometric analysis shows that participation in the
PSNP did not affect the mean value or variance of the total crop portfolio. The author
finds that participation in the PSNP significantly increased the probability of growing
perennials and wheat and decreased the probability of growing zengada. Also, when
looking at the acreage allotted to different crops, the author found that participation in
the PSNP significantly increased the acreage allotted to perennials and decreased the
acreage in pulses and teff. The author offers this analysis, “Perennials have longer
planning horizons, have a higher value, and have higher variability than other crops
grown by the farmers in this sample. Hence, this result is in line with the findings in
previous studies, namely that increased possibilities to ex-post smooth consumption in
times of negative income shocks lead to less income skewing in favour of low-risk, low-
return activities.” Finally, the author offers possible explanations for the finding that
PSNP participation was not associated with a change in the mean value or variance of
the crop portfolio. (Questions 5 and 6.)
De Janvry, A., & Sadoulet, E. (2010). Agricultural growth and poverty reduction: Additional evidence. The World Bank Research Observer, 25(1), 1-20.
De Janvry and Sadoulet argue that compared to redistribution of income, pro-poor
growth is a preferable means to reduce poverty. Regarding agriculture, they show that
increasing land and labor productivity are associated with poverty reduction, but that
the extent of these relationships varies considerably. Comparing agricultural growth to
growth in other sectors, the authors find that the impact of agricultural growth on
poverty reduction is approximately three times that of growth of other sectors. They
highlight the example of China in recent decades. They show evidence from the
literature which indicates that investment in agriculture can generate sizable returns, but
emphasize that this is context dependent. They complement this analysis with a
household-level analysis of the effects of agricultural growth on household poverty,
using the example of Vietnam between 1992 and 1998, which experienced average
annual growth in real agricultural value added of 4.1% in that time period. The authors
found that market-oriented producers experienced the greatest reduction in the
incidence of poverty (42%), compared to market entrants (35%) and subsistence farmers
(28%). Based on this analysis, the authors draw the following conclusion: “This suggests
that a return to using growth in agriculture as an instrument for poverty reduction may
be warranted under many circumstances.” (Question 7.)
Maluccio, J. A. (2010). The impact of conditional cash transfers on consumption and investment
in Nicaragua. The Journal of Development Studies, 46(1), 14-38.
Maluccio evaluates Nicaragua’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program Red de
Proteccion Social (RPS) in terms of its effects on consumption and household investments
in productive activities. The author suggests that based on the evidence from similar
programs in other countries, it is conceivable that the program would stimulate
investment in productive activities, despite the fact that this is not one of the objectives
of the RPS. The author uses panel data collected before and after program
implementation (2000, 2001, 2002, and 2004) in treatment and control localities, and for
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 12
most variables uses double-difference methods to estimate the effects of the program.
He finds that in 2001 and 2002, “the estimated programme effects were large and
significant for all the expenditure categories considered.” He also finds that the
increased expenditures were directed predominantly towards food and education
expenses. The author finds little evidence that the program led to increased
expenditures on consumer durables or productive agricultural goods, no evidence of an
effect on investment in animal husbandry, and evidence in 2001 and 2002 that the
program had a negative effect on participation in non-agricultural micro-enterprise. To
further understand these findings, the author calculates the marginal propensity to
consume (MPC) and finds that this is not significantly different from 1 in the initial year
of program participation, but that this dropped below 1 after the first year. The author
contrasts his findings to similar research regarding PROCAMPO/Oportunidades in
Mexico which showed that that CCT did increase investment in productive activities.
(Question 5.)
Soares, F. V., Ribas, R. P., & Hirata, G. I. (2010). Impact evaluation of a rural conditional cash transfer programme on outcomes beyond health and education. Journal of Development
Effectiveness, 2(1), 138-157.
Soares et al. describe Tekopora, a piloted conditional cash transfer program
implemented in Paraguay in 2005, which includes education and health requirements as
well as regular visits from social workers who promote income-generating activities as
well as other potentially beneficial behaviors. They conduct a quasi-experimental study
of the program, based on data from a 2007 survey with beneficiaries compared to non-
beneficiaries using propensity score matching (PSM) and inverse probability weighted
regression (IPW) techniques. Because baseline data were available for some but not all
households, the authors use both difference-in-differences and single difference
estimators. The study focuses on the effects of the program on agricultural activities and
labor supply, social participation, access to credit and savings and identity cards. The
authors find the following: “Tekopora has had a positive effect on investment in
agriculture, savings, and on the possession of identity card, but did not have much
impact on access to credit and on social participation.” Specifically, in regard to the
program’s effects on agricultural activities, the authors found that a higher proportion of
beneficiaries invested in agriculture compared to non-beneficiaries, and that beneficiaries
invested more money overall than non-beneficiaries. In terms of the specific agricultural
activities, the authors report that beneficiaries were 6% more likely to acquire livestock
than non-beneficiaries (significant at the 5% level). Also, while all groups experienced a
reduction in vegetable gardens and crop diversity, program beneficiaries experienced
less of a reduction in these areas than non-beneficiaries. (Question 5.)
2009
Alinovi, L., Mane, E., & Romano, D. (2009). Measuring household resilience to food insecurity:
Application to Palestinian households. FAO‐ESA Working Paper. FAO, Agricultural and Development Economics Division, Rome.
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 13
In this paper, Alinovi et al. develop a methodology for measuring household resilience to
food insecurity. The authors describe the concept of resilience in the following way:
“Broadly speaking, resilience is a measure of a system’s ability to withstand stresses and
shocks, that is, its ability to persist in an uncertain world.” In attempting to measure
household resilience to food insecurity, the authors make the following assumption: “the
resilience of a given household at a given point in time, T0, depends primarily on the
options available to that household to make a living, such as its access to assets, income-
generating activities, public services and social safety nets.” The authors develop a
formula for measuring resilience, composed of indices of the following variables:
stability; social safety nets; access to public services; assets; income and food access; and
adaptive capacity. Data are from the 2007 Palestinian Public Perception Survey (PPPS),
which covered 2,087 households. Analysis of the results shows that of the five
Palestinian regions studied, East Jerusalem is the most resilient. Another interesting
observation made by the authors is that resilience in Gaza is highly dependent on access
to social safety nets such as food aid. The model is validated using the CART methodology. The authors conclude with a discussion of how this model can be used as
a tool for policy-makers to identify resilience-enhancing policies.
Asian Development Bank (ADB) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
(2009). Building climate resilience in the agriculture sector of Asia and the Pacific. ADB,
Manila.
This report outlines the challenges that climate change will present to the agricultural
sector in Asia. The report states that, “Developing countries in Asia and the Pacific are
likely to face the highest reductions in agricultural potential in the world due to climate
change. As a result, climate change will place an additional burden on efforts to meet
long-term development goals in Asia and the Pacific.” The report describes resilience as
an appropriate conceptual framework with which to consider climate change, in part
because of the recognition of the interconnectedness of human and environmental
systems. The report describes vulnerability as a function of one’s exposure, sensitivity,
and adaptive capacity. It suggests that climate change adaptation must include ongoing
development initiatives, as well as new and innovative measures: “(i) changes in
agricultural practices to improve soil fertility and enhance carbon sequestration; (ii)
changes in agricultural water management for more efficient water use; (iii) agricultural
diversification toward enhanced climate resilience; (iv) agricultural science and
technology development, agricultural advisory services, and information systems; and (v)
risk management and crop insurance.” Several measures are discussed that relate to
improved adaptation of the agriculture sector: focused investment; development of a
carbon trading system; improved property rights. Using the IMPACT model, the report
estimates that in order to reduce child malnutrition from the levels expected with
climate change to the levels expected without climate change, investment in agriculture
research, irrigation and roads in Asia and the Pacific would need to rise by $168 - $201
billion dollars between 2010 and 2050, over and above anticipated spending in these
areas. The report stresses the importance and challenge of financing the necessary
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 14
investments in climate change adaptation, as well as the importance of integrating
adaptation and mitigation.
Collier, P., & Goderis, B. (2009). Structural policies for shock-prone developing countries.
Oxford Economic Papers, 61(4), 703-726.
In this paper, Collier and Goderis discuss the types of structural policies that
governments can implement to help lessen the short term GDP growth reductions that
occur in response to adverse shocks such as commodity export price shocks and
natural disasters. The authors use data from 130 countries between 1964 and 2003.
They identify in the data episodes of significant drops in price of a country’s export
commodity, and then estimate the effects of these shocks on short-term growth. They
find that negative shocks do in fact decrease growth in the short term, with drops in
commodity prices having more of an effect on growth than natural disasters. They also
estimate the effects of other policy-related variables on growth to determine whether
any of these had shock-mitigating effects, but found that financial depth, financial openness, international reserves, and remittances did not. However, according to the
authors: “Our results show that regulations that delay the speed of firm closure
significantly and substantially increase the short-term growth loss from adverse price
shocks in commodity- exporting countries. In the case of natural disasters, on the other
hand, the negative effect on short-term growth is increased by labour market
regulations that prevent an efficient re-allocation of workers.” The authors find,
however, that the effects of price shocks on growth and the mitigating effect of ease of
firm exit apply only to minerals and not to agricultural commodities. The authors
conclude by suggesting that mineral-exporting countries or those prone to natural
disasters can implement the appropriate structural policies in advance of shocks, rather
than being forced to attempt to put measures in place during a crisis.
Dodman, D., Ayers, J., & Huq, S. (2009). Building resilience. Worldwatch Institute, State of the
world, 75-77.
Dodman et al. describe the growing risks from climate change and the importance of
adaptation and resilience. According to the authors, “Adaptation and resilience not only
can reduce the risks from climate change, they can also improve living conditions and
meet broader development objectives around the world.” The authors discuss the
meanings of vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience, and consider whether resilience is
desirable if it means returning the world to the same state where poverty and hardship
are so common. They suggest that resilience is best understood as a process allowing
individuals to ‘survive and thrive.’ They evoke the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework,
by emphasizing the importance of one’s assets in building resilience. The authors reflect
on the relationship between humans and the environment and the complex relationship
between social resilience and ecological resilience. They describe the particularly
vulnerable position of rural, small-holder farmers in developing countries, and discuss
the autonomous and institutional measures that have been and must be taken to
improve rural resilience. They also describe the vulnerability to climate change facing
urban dwellers, and provide examples of forward-thinking actions to build resilience that
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 15
have been taken in some cities. They provide an overview of the funding mechanisms
that currently exist for climate change adaptation and describe the challenge of achieving
the funding that is necessary for climate change adaptation worldwide. The authors
suggest that incorporating climate change mitigation into adaptation programs and
thinking will be to the benefit of developing countries. They conclude on an optimistic
note with a vision of the world “bouncing forward” to a better, more resilient state.
Fiszbein, A., Schady, N. R., & Ferreira, F. H. (2009). Conditional cash transfers: reducing present and
future poverty. World Bank Publications.
In this report, Fiszbein et al. provide a comprehensive overview of the literature
regarding conditional cash transfers (CCT). Of particular relevance to the Feed the
Future Learning Agenda on “Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations” is their
attention to the role and effectiveness of CCTs as a means of ameliorating the effects of
shocks on poor households. The authors point to examples of research that has shown
that CCTs have had consumption-smoothing effects in the face of shocks to poor households, including positive spillover effects for ineligible households that experience
a negative shock. However, they argue that CCTs are not the best instrument for
dealing with crises because of their long time frames and relatively high administrative
burdens that make it challenging to add new recipients who face transient poverty.
Regarding the effects of CCTs on households’ willingness to invest in higher-risk/higher-
return activities, the authors cite evidence from Mexico and Nicaragua that suggest that
CCTs have had the effect of increasing investment in productive activities. And with
regard to the effect of CCTs on human capital investments such as children’s schooling
and nutrition in response to negative shocks, the authors find evidence in the literature
that CCTs can help households continue to invest in these areas in the face of shocks,
but the effects differ depending on the circumstances. (Questions 1 and 5.)
Karlan, D. S., & Morduch, J. (2009). Access to finance. Ch. 2 in Handbook of Development
Economics, Volume 5. Eds. Dani Rodrick & Mark Rosenzweig.
In their chapter on financial services in the developing world, Karlan and Morduch
devote a section to insurance and risk management in which they provide a summary of
the literature regarding the risks and impact of shocks facing poor households and the
evidence regarding informal risk-sharing arrangements. Also, the authors provide an
overview of the literature regarding emerging formal insurance mechanisms in the
developing world, including partnership arrangements between insurance companies and
microfinance institutions and index-based insurance mechanisms. As an example of the
latter, the authors cite the study by Giné et al. (2007) from Andhra Pradesh, India,
where a rainfall-based insurance mechanism was offered but uptake was low amongst
farmers. Similar results were identified by Giné and Yang (2008) in Malawi. Also, the
authors discuss the evidence regarding a handful of health insurance programs available
to poor households in the developing world, and show also that uptake rates are low
and programs face extensive challenges. With many of the insurance mechanisms
described by the authors, moral hazard and adverse selection create challenges for
insurers (an exception being weather-based index insurance). It is clear from the
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 16
authors’ summary that formal insurance mechanisms have not yet developed to the
point where they provide for effective or widespread consumption-smoothing in the
face of shocks, however the authors remain optimistic that progress could be made with
further research and experimentation. (Questions 1 and 6.)
Markelova, H., Meinzen-Dick, R., Hellin, J., & Dohrn, S. (2009). Collective action for smallholder
market access. Food Policy, 34(1), 1-7.
Markelova et al. provide an overview of the literature, including the studies in the same
issue of Food Policy, regarding the growth of global agricultural markets, the challenges
facing smallholder farmers in accessing these markets, and the potential for collective
action and producer organizations to allow smallholders to overcome these challenges
and achieve market access. The authors provide examples of farmers banding together
in order to lower transportation costs and pooling resources to purchase needed
processing equipment. They suggest that the type of product matters in determining
whether collective action will be beneficial, e.g. high value horticultural products require storage or expertise that farmers can better achieve together, whereas collective action
in staple crops may not provide enough of an advantage to producers to justify the time
and effort needed to establish and maintain a producer group. The authors point out
that while they identify many successful examples of farmers achieving market access
through collective action, there is the possibility of publication bias whereby
unsuccessful efforts occur but are not written about as much. Furthermore, they point
out that while government and private entities can play an important role in promoting
farmer organizations, the argument has been made in the literature that to the extent
that governments and NGOs are involved in supporting producer organizations, the
priority must be the creation of successful business partnerships rather than the
reduction of poverty or else the enterprise will risk failure. (Question 3.)
Twigg, J. (2009). Characteristics of a disaster-resilient community: A guidance note. Version 2.
November 2009. DFID Disaster Risk Reduction Interagency Coordination Group. UK
Department for International Development: London.
This guidance note was developed by Twigg as a resource for governments and civil
society organizations, in order to demonstrate the characteristics of a disaster-resilient
community. It is based upon the Hyogo Framework for Action, which was created by
the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. Twigg begins by describing three
important concepts: disaster risk reduction, resilience and community. The author
emphasizes the role of the community in building resilience: “A focus on resilience
means putting greater emphasis on what communities can do for themselves and how to
strengthen their capacities, rather than concentrating on their vulnerability to disaster
or environmental shocks and stresses, or their needs in an emergency.” The Guidance
Note lays out the characteristics of a disaster-resilient community in a series of tables,
organized by the five thematic areas from the Hyogo Framework: governance; risk
assessment; knowledge and education; risk management and vulnerability reduction; and
disaster preparedness and response. Within each of these themes there are very
detailed descriptions of the characteristics of disaster-resilient communities, and the
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 17
guidance note provides suggestions for how to go about using this framework in a
manageable way. Finally, there are several case studies that illustrate the processes
various communities have undertaken to introduce/implement the Characteristics.
2008
Barrett, C. B. (2008). Smallholder market participation: Concepts and evidence from eastern
and southern Africa. Food Policy, 33(4), 299-317.
Barrett describes the economic benefits of market participation and considers the
reasons that smallholders opt out of markets. The paper focuses on the question of
“what it takes to ignite increased smallholder market participation, with a focus on
staple foodgrains (i.e., cereals) in eastern and southern Africa.” The author develops a
conceptual model of household market participation, and then examines the empirical
evidence from the literature. The author identifies the following themes in the literature: “that many farmers are not net staple crop sellers, that net sales are positively
associated with asset endowments and favorable geography, and that transactions costs
exert considerable influence on crop marketing patterns.” With regard to interventions
aimed at increasing market participation, the author points to the challenges of designing
empirical studies that document the effects of interventions on market participation, and
the lack of such studies in the literature. The existing studies, some of which are
described by Barrett, focus on reducing transportation costs and developing farmer
organizations (which he argues have been shown to mainly impact producers already
integrated into markets). The author reaches the following conclusion: “The conceptual
and empirical evidence suggests that interventions aimed at facilitating smallholder
organization, at reducing the costs of intermarket commerce, and, perhaps especially, at
improving poorer households’ access to improved technologies and productive assets
are central to stimulating smallholder market participation and escape from semi-
subsistence poverty traps.” (Question 3.)
Bezu, S., & Holden, S. (2008). Can food-for-work encourage agricultural production? Food Policy,
33: 541–549.
Bezu and Holden explore the question of whether food-for-work (FFW) programs lead
to a disincentive effect in terms of agricultural production, or if, on the contrary, FFW
can help to ease liquidity constraints and contribute to agricultural production. The
authors undertake an empirical analysis of a FFW program in Ethiopia to determine
whether the program encourages the adoption of fertilizer. The authors utilize data
from a household survey conducted in June/July 2001, covering a random stratified
sample of 400 households of which 234 were FFW participants. Baseline data were not
available, but respondents were asked to recall data from one year prior. The authors
describe the public works projects of the FFW programs as follows: “FFW projects in
the research area mainly focus on natural resource rehabilitation and involve such
activities as construction of ponds, soil and water conservation structures, rural access
roads, area enclosures and afforestation. Furthermore, FFW is also used as a method to
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 18
implement development projects like investments in irrigation dams.” Using a Heckman
Selection Model, the authors find that FFW income has a positive and statistically
significant impact on fertilizer use. Interestingly, the authors found that irrigated plots
were negatively associated with the intensity of fertilizer use. The authors point to the
value in the future of also evaluating the effects of the public works projects that are
undertaken as part of the FFW programs, specifically as they relate to agricultural
production. (Question 5.)
Devereux, S., Sabates-Wheeler, R., Guenther, B., Dorward, A., Poulton, C., & Al-Hassan, R.
(2008). Linking social protection and support to small farmer development. Paper
commissioned by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Rome: FAO.
In this synthesis paper prepared for the FAO, Devereux et al. describe the evolving
relationship between social protection policies (such as emergency relief measures and
food aid) and agricultural policies, and suggest that social protection programs are increasingly being designed such that they promote agricultural development. The
authors describe many aspects of the relationship between social protection programs
and agricultural development, including the following: “types of instruments (cash, food,
inputs, or vouchers) and their likely impacts (e.g. improving food security, alleviating
liquidity constraints, multiplier effects); timing (with regard to seasonal agricultural
activities and food and cash flows); scale (the size and number of transfers have
threshold and multiplier effects affecting social protection and agricultural outcomes in
rural economies); policy complementarities and sequencing (between food security,
poverty reduction, and rural economic growth); predictability and risk-taking (e.g.
predictable social transfers or guaranteed social insurance encourages moderate risk-
taking in agriculture); targeting (including gender targeting); political economy of national
and international relations; and conflicts and synergies with informal social protection.”
For each of the aforementioned issues, the authors provide an overview of the evidence
from the literature. The authors also provide three case studies to illustrate these
issues: the fertilizer subsidy program in Malawi, the Productive Safety Net Programme of
Ethiopia, and the ‘LEAP’ conditional cash transfer program of Ghana. The authors
conclude with a set of general lessons drawn from the literature and the case studies for
ways to best conceptualize and design social protection policies that contribute to
agricultural development. (Question 5.)
Gilligan, D. O., Hoddinott, J., & Taffesse, A. S. (2008). The impact of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety
Net Programme and its linkages. IFPRI Discussion Paper 839. Washington, DC:
International Food Policy Research Institute.
Gilligan et al. describe the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), a very large-scale
program implemented in Ethiopia in 2005 that consisted primarily of a public works
program with payment to participants for labor on public infrastructure projects.
Quoting documentation from the Ethiopian government, the authors state that the
objective of the PSNP is the following: “ ‘… to provide transfers to the food insecure
population in chronically food insecure woredas (districts) in a way that prevents asset
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 19
depletion at the household level and creates assets at the community level’ as well as
bridging the food gap that arises when, for these households, food production and other
sources of income are insufficient given food needs.” The PSNP is complemented by the
Other Food Security Programme (OFSP), through which participants receive at least
one of the following benefits: “access to credit, agricultural extension services,
technology transfer (such as advice on food crop production, cash cropping, livestock
production, and soil and water conservation), and irrigation and water harvesting
schemes.” The authors utilize data from household surveys conducted in 2006 that
covered 3,700 households in four regions of Ethiopia, including beneficiaries and non-
beneficiaries, matched using a Propensity Score Matching technique. Respondents were
asked to recall information from up to two years prior because baseline data from
before program implementation were not available. The authors found that there was
little benefit for the overall group of beneficiaries in the public works project; there was
more significant impact, particularly in terms of food security, for participants in the
public works program who had received at least half of the intended benefits; and that
the most significant impacts were found for beneficiaries of both the public works component of the PSNP and the OFSP. According to the authors, beneficiaries of both
programs were “more likely to be food secure, to borrow for productive purposes, use
improved agricultural technologies, and operate their own nonfarm business activities.
For these households, there is no evidence of disincentive effects in terms of labor
supply or private transfers. However, estimates show that beneficiaries did not
experience faster asset growth as a result of the programs.” The authors were unable to
analyze in detail which components of the OFSP were most effective, which is
unfortunate given that it was the combination of the PSNP and the OFSP that provided
the greatest benefits to recipients. (Questions 1 and 5.)
Hoddinott, J. (2008). Social safety nets and productivity enhancing investments in agriculture. Paper
presented at the international conference, Convergence between Social Service
Provision (SSP) and Productivity Enhancing Investments (PEI) in Development Strategies.
Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Hoddinott considers the question of what long-term impacts safety net programs have
on productive activities and investments. The author makes the argument “that policy
makers in finance, agriculture and other ministries should see investments in safety nets
and agriculture as complements, not competitors.” He argues that safety net programs
can contribute to agricultural development in the following ways: “by helping create
individual, household and community assets; helping households protect assets when
shocks occur; by helping households cope with risk, they permit households to use their
existing resources more effectively; and by reducing inequality, they directly raise
growth rates.” The author provides examples from the literature to illustrate how safety
net programs operate in the aforementioned pathways. The author also addresses the
potential negative side-effects of safety net programs, including the possibility that the
programs create disincentives to work (for which he argues the evidence is thin) or
crowd out informal safety net arrangements (for which he suggests the evidence is
mixed). The author concludes that while safety net programs are not guaranteed to lead
to agricultural development, “Safety net interventions can contribute to agricultural and
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 20
economic growth through their impact on asset creation, asset protection, resource
allocation, and redistribution.” (Questions 1, 5, and 6.)
Keil, A., Zeller, M., Wida, A., Sanim, B., & Birner, R. (2008). What determines farmers’
resilience towards ENSO-related drought? An empirical assessment in Central Sulawesi,
Indonesia. Climatic Change, 86(3-4), 291-307.
The authors describe the increased prevalence of drought and resulting declines in crop
yields in Indonesia during the years of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The
objectives of the paper are the following: “(1) to investigate the ex-ante and ex-post risk
response strategies taken by farm households in the case of ENSO-related drought in a
rainforest margin area in Indonesia, (2) to measure household resilience towards these
drought periods, and (3) to identify factors which influence drought resilience in order
to derive policy recommendations.” The study focuses on the Central Sulawesi province
of Indonesia, where rice, maize, coffee, and cocoa are grown. In January and February
2003, the authors conducted structured interviews of 228 farm households in the region that were selected using a two-stage, stratified random sampling technique. The authors
construct a drought-resilience index, and use an asset-based livelihood framework to
identify the determinants of resilience. The authors found that there was substantial
reduction in income and consumption during drought years, including cutbacks in food
expenditures. The authors highlight the following findings and policy implications:
“Households’ drought resilience is strengthened by the possession of liquid assets,
access to credit, and the level of technical efficiency in agricultural production. The
results suggest a number of policy recommendations, namely improvement of the
farmers’ access to ENSO forecasts, the provision of credit and savings products to
facilitate consumption smoothing, and the intensification of agricultural extension in view
of low levels of productivity found in agricultural production.” (Question 1.) (Note that
this paper is also cited in the FTF Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography on
Agricultural Productivity.)
2007
Boughton, D., Mather, D., Barrett, C. B., Benfica, R., Abdula, D., Tschirley, D., & Cunguara, B.
(2007). Market participation by rural households in a low-income country: An asset-
based approach applied to Mozambique. Faith and Economics, 50(1), 64-101.
Boughton et al. discuss the importance of market participation for the escape from
poverty for small-scale farmers in poor countries, and conduct an empirical analysis of
data from Mozambique to test the following questions: “(i) whether market access
depends fundamentally on households’ initial endowments, in which case market-based
development strategies may favor initially wealthier households unless policy
interventions simultaneously or previously provide asset transfers to poorer
households, and (ii) whether one can reasonably expect increased smallholder market
participation on the basis of increased provision of public goods and services, so that
even those with meager initial private asset endowments can be drawn into the market
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 21
through improved public goods provision.” They distinguish between participation in
spot markets, using the example of maize, where farmers face low barriers to entry but
high transactions costs (in identifying buyers, etc.) and relatively low returns, and
contract farming, with the examples of cotton and tobacco, which include higher
barriers to entry and higher risks for farmers, but higher returns. They use data from
the nationally representative rural household survey Trabalho do Inquerito Agricola (TIA),
which includes cross-sectional recall data from the 2001-2002 agricultural season.
According to the authors: “The paper's principal finding is that private household assets,
especially land, but also livestock, labor and equipment, are strongly positively associated
with crop market participation.” The authors also find that public assets are correlated
with market participation, as are the levels of household assets. The authors conclude
that this suggests that interventions seeking to increase market participation should
consider the interaction between public and private asset levels, and that policy-makers
should consider the effectiveness of seeking to incorporate the very (asset) poor into
markets versus focusing on those with somewhat higher asset levels who are closer to
being at the levels needed for market participation. The authors acknowledge that the data are such that they cannot determine causation, but only correlations. (Question 3.)
Frankenberger, T. R., Sutter, P., Teshome, A., Aberra, A., Tefera, M., Taffesse, A., ... &
Ejigsemahu, Y. (2007). Ethiopia: The Path to self-resiliency. Vol I: Final Report. CHF- Partners
in Rural Development, Canadian Network of NGOs in Ethiopia (CANGO).
Frankenberger et al. provide the final report on a study that sought to assess the factors
that contribute to the vulnerability and resilience of communities and households in
rural Ethiopia. According to the authors, “The overall purpose of this study is to provide
insights on how best to promote self-resiliency for the chronically food insecure, both at
the household and community levels. It is also intended to provide guidance on means of
improving the effectiveness and complementarity of the Productive Safety Net Program
(PSNP), Other Food Security Program (OFSP) and NGO interventions by employing a
sustainable livelihoods approach to examining the vulnerability and resilience of
beneficiary households and communities.” The authors use qualitative and quantitative
data from nine woredas (districts) in five regions of Ethiopia. The study also identifies
“livelihoods-specific criteria for PSNP and OFSP graduation, as well as thresholds for
achieving household resilience.” The report concludes with recommendations for
improving coordination of government and non-governmental food security programs.
Gilligan, D., & Hoddinott, J. (2007). Is there persistence in the impact of emergency food aid?
Evidence on consumption, food security and assets in rural Ethiopia. American Journal of
Agricultural Economics, 89: 1-18.
Gilliagan and Hoddinott consider the question of whether food aid can have long-term
welfare benefits by protecting assets and savings during a crisis, with a focus on the
programs instituted in Ethiopia in response to the 2002 drought. The response of the
Ethiopian government was the following: “the government expanded its two major food
aid programs, an emergency food-for-work program called the Employment Generation
Schemes (EGS) and free food distribution also known as ‘Gratuitous Relief’ (FFD).” To
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 22
study the impact of these programs, the authors use longitudinal data from household
surveys conducted in 1999 and 2004 from fifteen rural Ethiopian villages as part of the
Ethiopia Rural Household Survey (ERHS). In nine of the fifteen villages, more than 30%
of the respondents reported that they experienced the 2002 drought, and it was these
nine villages that received food aid. To estimate the impact of EGS and FFD (estimated
separately) on overall consumption, food consumption, and livestock holdings, the
authors use a difference-in-differences propensity score matching technique. The
authors find that between 1999 and 2004 consumption and food consumption did not
increase significantly for non-beneficiaries of the EGS program, but that increases in
consumption and food consumption were large and significant for those who
participated in the EGS program between 2002 and 2004. The authors also find that
participation in the EGS program had a negative effect on the growth rate of livestock
holdings relative to that of non-participants. The authors suggest this could be due to
the participants feeling that livestock holdings as a self-insurance mechanism are less
important. They also suggest that this is due to outliers, as the effect is no longer
significant after “trimming” the highest and lowest 2.5% of observations. Also, when disaggregating the data by income tertiles, the authors find that the benefits of the EGS
to consumption and food consumption are focused on the middle and highest income
tertiles. With regard to the FFD program, the authors find that FFD program recipients
show a significantly larger increase in food consumption relative to non-recipients
between 1999 and 2004, with the effect most pronounced for the poorest tertile.
Effects of FFD on general consumption and livestock assets were not significant. The
authors draw the following conclusion: “Overall, these results suggest that emergency
food aid played an important role in improving welfare, access to food, and food
security for many households following the drought in 2002. However, improved
targeting, especially in EGS, and larger, sustained transfers may be required to increase
benefits, particularly to the poorest households. The impacts of food aid identified here
indicate some persistence or accumulated effects of transfers on consumption growth
over time.” (Question 1.)
Skoufias, E. (2007). Poverty alleviation and consumption insurance: Evidence from PROGRESA
in Mexico. Journal of Socio-Economics, 36(4), 630-649.
In this empirical study of Mexico’s conditional cash transfer program, PROGRESA,
Skoufias examines the extent to which PROGRESA serves to insure household
consumption in the face of economic shock and whether the program displaces pre-
existing informal risk sharing arrangements. The author examines panel data collected
for the sake of program evaluation between 1997 and 1999, including both treatment
and control households. The author finds evidence of partial insurance and community
risk sharing (regarding food consumption but not non-food consumption) within the
communities, with no significant difference in the extent of this between treatment and
control villages. According to the author: “A comparison of the estimates between
villages covered and not yet covered by PROGRESA (treatment versus control villages)
suggests the program did not replace or reinforce any preexisting risk sharing among
households within villages or result in any substantial changes in how households cope
with shocks.” Finally, he shows that “The analysis also revealed that households eligible
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 23
for the PROGRESA benefits in the treatment villages were able to insulate their
consumption from fluctuations in income better than their counterparts in control
villages.” (Questions 1 and 6.)
World Bank. (2007). World development report 2008: Agriculture for development. New York:
Oxford University Press.
The World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development, addresses three primary
questions: 1.) What can agriculture do for development?, 2.) What are effective
instruments in using agriculture for development?, and 3.) How can agriculture-for-
development agendas best be implemented? In response to the first question, the report
states that “Agriculture has a strong record in development” and “Agriculture has
special powers in reducing poverty.” Regarding the second question, the report
recommends the following instruments or strategies for ensuring that agriculture
contributes to development and poverty reduction: “improving the asset position of the
rural poor, making smallholder farming more competitive and sustainable, diversifying income sources toward the labor market and the rural nonfarm economy, and
facilitating successful migration out of agriculture.” Finally, in response to the last
question regarding how to best implement an agriculture-for-development agenda, the
report suggests that each country develop an agenda including the following objectives,
developed specifically to address the existing level of agricultural development: “Improve
access to markets and establish efficient value chains; enhance smallholder
competitiveness and facilitate market entry; improve livelihoods in subsistence farming
and low-skill rural occupations; and increase employment in agriculture and the rural
nonfarm economy, and enhance skills.” (Question 7.) (This report is also cited in the
FTF Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography on Agricultural Productivity, although the
emphases of the summaries differ.)
2006
Alderman, H., & Haque, T. (2006). Countercyclical safety nets for the poor and vulnerable. Food
Policy, 31(4), 372-383.
Alderman and Haque provide an overview of the attributes needed in the design of
safety nets that serve an insurance function and help to maintain the purchasing power
of the poor in the face of negative shocks. They state that countercyclical safety nets
must have a flexible budget that can be increased when necessary; the targeting of
countercyclical safety nets must be such that those with transitory needs are targeted,
rather than simply the chronically poor; and they must have a flexible implementation
strategy. The types of programs considered by the authors include ex-post financing
from international donors, weather-based insurance mechanisms, food aid, and public
works programs. The authors provide examples of each of these types of programs;
however, in almost all cases they do not address the question of whether the programs
actually enable households to achieve asset or consumption smoothing in the face of
shock. This may be due in large part to the lack of available data to reflect these
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 24
outcomes. As the authors state in their conclusion: “from the point of view of risk
management, the efficacy of safety nets includes the degree to which assets are
protected or the speed at which the affected households return to the pre-shock level
of production or earnings. To be sure, the necessary data to evaluate a safety net from
this perspective often is not available.” (Question 1.)
Carter, M. R., & Barrett, C. B. (2006). The economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty:
An asset-based approach. Journal of Development Studies, 42(2), 178-199.
Carter and Barrett discuss the challenges of understanding the nature of poverty,
particularly whether and how individuals move in and out of poverty over time. Because
cross-sectional and even panel data of income and/or expenditures do not provide
sufficient insight into whether movements from poverty to non-poverty are structural
or stochastic, the authors develop an asset-based approach. With this, the authors
illustrate a model whereby movements in and out of poverty are considered stochastic
if the asset levels do not change but income or expenditure levels do change, and structural if movements in and out of poverty occur along with changes in asset levels.
To further understand the long-term persistence of structural poverty, the authors seek
to identify a dynamic asset poverty threshold. This is meant to provide insight into the
following questions: “how many of the structurally poor are likely to be structurally
mobile over the long term? Alternatively, how many are caught in a long-term trap of
persistent poverty? Similarly, how many of the structurally non-poor are actually in a
sustainable situation?” The authors conclude with a discussion of ways to empirically
study poverty traps, as well as the implications for poverty reduction strategies if
poverty traps are determined to exist.
De Janvry, A., Finan, F., Sadoulet, E., & Vakis, R. (2006). Can conditional cash transfer programs
serve as safety nets in keeping children at school and from working when exposed to
shocks? Journal of Development Economics, 79(2), 349-373.
De Janvry et al. consider the question of whether conditional cash transfer (CCT)
programs have the effect of keeping children in school and/or keeping children from
entering the workforce in the face of negative shocks, with a particular focus on
Mexico’s CCT program, Progesa. The authors analyze panel data from a census of
52,719 poor households conducted twice a year between November 1998 and May
2000, beginning after Progresa’s introduction to the surveyed localities in May 1998. The
authors find that unemployment or illness of the household head reduces the probability
of the child’s enrollment by 1.7%, but that Progresa fully or completely offsets this
reduction. Natural disasters reduce the probability of child enrollment by 3.2%, but this
is also completely offset by Progresa. Illness of siblings and droughts are not shown to
reduce child schooling, and the authors suggest that in the case of the latter this may be
because droughts occur frequently enough that households adjust their planning in
anticipation. Other shocks included in the analysis reduce child schooling less
substantially and are also offset by Progresa. For children in the control villages the
authors observe that shocks significantly reduce school enrollment and that this effect
can be long-lasting. Regarding children’s work, the authors find that children in the
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 25
Progresa villages are less likely to work, but in control villages children’s tendency to
work actually decreases in response to droughts, whereas children’s work is unaffected
by drought in the Progresa villages. For most other shocks, child labor tends to increase
and this is not offset by Progesa. The authors conclude that CCTs can have the effect of
protecting human capital development in the face of shocks, and thus their safety net
role as such should not be overlooked. (Question 1.)
Dorward, A., Sabates-Wheeler, R., MacAuslan, I., Buckley, C., Kydd, J., & Chirwa, E. (2006).
Promoting agriculture for social protection or social protection for agriculture: Policy and
research issues. Future Agricultures Consortium, Brighton: Institute of Development
Studies.
In this paper, the authors recognize the inherent riskiness of agriculture as well as the
importance of agriculture in overcoming poverty, and seek to describe the relationships
between social protection policies and agricultural development. The authors begin by
describing the risks and uncertainties facing the rural poor, and how these factors affect their decision-making. The authors identify three types of risks facing agricultural
producers: physical risk, price risks, and transactional risks. They describe the potential
for households to engage in low return activities in order to reduce risk, yet point out
that risk management interventions might not provide sufficient impetus for households
to engage in higher return activities if other conditions are not met. The authors
provide an extensive review of the various types of interventions that relate to social
protection and agricultural development, and describe what is known about their
effects, with acknowledgement of the point that interventions have different effects
depending on the context in which they are implemented. (Question 5.)
Gertler, P., Martinez, S., & Rubio-Codino, M. (2006). Investing cash transfers to raise long term
living standards. Policy Research Working Paper 3994. World Bank, Washington, D.C.
The authors describe Mexico’s conditional cash transfer program, Oportunidades, and
consider the question of whether the program leads to government dependency on the
part of program beneficiaries or if the income enables beneficiaries to overcome
liquidity constraints and engage in productive activities that they would not have
otherwise. The study focuses on the following: “the probability of engaging in micro-
enterprise, of using land for productive purposes, and of owning production and draft
animals.” The authors use data from the Encuesta de Evaluación (ENCEL), which is a
panel dataset covering over 24,000 households in treatment and control communities,
surveyed six times between 1998 and 2003. They also use data from a 1997 (pre-
intervention) census of the same households, and data from Oportunidades about the
size and timing of transfers that went to these households. The authors find that
treatment households are 33% more likely to engage in micro-enterprise than control
households (43% for “female-like” micro-enterprise activities). Furthermore, the authors
find that when comparing domestic work, which does not require substantial capital
expenditures, and handcrafts, which requires substantial capital upfront, treatment
households experience a more pronounced increase for handcrafts, suggesting that the
transfer worked to overcome liquidity constraints. Regarding agricultural production,
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 26
they find the following: “treatment households are 14.5% more likely to own draft
animals and 5% more likely to own production animals than control households. There
is no significant effect in the probability of land usage.” Overall, the authors conclude
that the transfer had the effect of increasing rather than discouraging productive activity.
The authors do not discuss the conditions in Mexico that enabled the cash transfers to
work in this way, however, attention to this question is critical before assuming that
cash transfers would have similar effects in different settings. (Question 5.)
Poulton, C., Kydd, J., & Dorward, A. (2006). Overcoming market constraints on pro-poor
agricultural growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Development Policy Review, 24(3), 243-277.
Poulton et al. review the challenges to pro-poor agricultural intensification in Sub-
Saharan Africa, including both supply- and demand-side constraints. The authors
describe the challenges to supply-chain development, whereby “thin” input, output, and
finance markets combine to create a risky environment, such that investment in one
element of the chain will fail unless coupled with investments and development throughout the chain. They describe ways to increase efficiency of African agricultural
commodity markets, including national and regional markets. They also discuss
important steps that can be taken to encourage small-scale farmers to invest in
agricultural intensification: “reducing the fluctuations in the prices that producers
receive for their produce; stimulating the markets for indigenous food products;
improving the quality of support services offered to producers; and giving producers
greater security in their access to remunerative output marketing channels.” (Question
3.)
2005
Maluccio, J. A. (2005). Coping with the ‘coffee crisis’ in Central America: The role of the Nicaraguan
Red de Protección Social. Discussion Paper 188, Food Consumption and Nutrition
Division, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.
Maluccio conducts an empirical analysis of the effects of a conditional cash transfer
program, the Red de Protección Social (RPS), in Nicaragua during the downturn in coffee
prices known as the “coffee crisis.” The objectives of the paper were to address the
following questions: “How have households in coffee-growing areas without the
program fared over the period 2000–2002? Were households in coffee-growing areas
with the program better able to protect household expenditures (particularly on food)
and educational and nutritional outcomes than their counterparts in coffee-growing
areas without the program? That is, how effective was RPS as a social safety net during
the downturn? Were labor supply and the mix of coffee, noncoffee agricultural, and
nonagricultural activities within the household different among households in coffee-
growing areas with and without the program? That is, did RPS enable different labor
responses to the downturn?” The authors use data from a household survey conducted
for the sake of RPS program evaluation, that covered beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries
in 2000 (baseline), 2001, and 2002. For administrative reasons, the 2000 survey was
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 27
conducted in August/September, whereas the follow-ups were conducted in October,
presenting some challenges of seasonality. The authors use difference-in-differences
techniques, and find that the RPS did serve a safety net function by protecting
beneficiaries from downturns in expenditures. Interestingly, Maluccio considers the
coffee crisis to be an example of an economic downturn rather than a “shock” per se.
(Question 1.)
Pingali, P., Alinovi, L., & Sutton, J. (2005). Food security in complex emergencies: Enhancing food
system resilience. Disasters, 29(s1), S5-S24.
Pingali et al. describe the Twin Track Approach taken by the FAO’s Anti-Hunger
Programme (AHP): “one track creates opportunities for the hungry to improve their
livelihoods through policy reform and investment in agricultural and rural development.
The other track equips the poor and hungry to take advantage of these opportunities by
enhancing immediate access to food thereby increasing their productive potential.” The
authors argue that this approach can be applied to crisis or post-conflict situations in order to rebuild the resilience of food systems. According to the authors, this sort of
effort should be based on the following principles: “strengthening diversity; rebuilding
local institutions and traditional support networks; reinforcing local knowledge; and
building on farmers’ ability to adapt and reorganise.” The authors provide
recommendations for actions to be taken in the short-term and in the long-term when
looking to rebuild food systems in response to crises.
Yamano, T., Alderman, H., & Christiaensen, L. (2005). Child growth, shocks, and food aid in
rural Ethiopia. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 87(2), 273-288.
Yamano et al. consider the notion that food aid is often provided in response to shocks
such as drought, with the hopes of preventing child nutrition - the effects of which can
be significant and long-lasting. The authors provide an empirical analysis of food aid in
Ethiopia and analyze the effects of food aid that is allocated to the community (not the
household per se) on child growth. Data for the study were merged from three
different surveys: the Welfare Monitoring Survey (which covered information on
children’s anthropometrics), the Food Security Survey (covering receipts of food aid),
and the Annual Agricultural Sample Survey (which includes information on plot sizes and
crop damage due to drought). Their analysis reveals the following: “while harvest failure
leads to child growth faltering, food aid affected child growth positively and offset the
negative effects of shocks in communities that received food aid. However, many
communities that experienced shocks did not receive food aid.” (Question 1.)
2004
Barrett, C. B., Holden, S. & Clay, D. C. (2004). Can food-for-work programs reduce
vulnerability? In S. Dercon (ed.) Insurance Against Poverty. UNU-WIDER Studies in
Development Economics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 28
Barrett et al. describe food-for-work programs as potentially able to respond to both
short-term crises and longer-term development and consider the following points: “The
central question about FFW is therefore whether it helps individuals, households and
communities in times of stress and whether it (also) facilitates the desired transition
from relief to development, i.e. whether FFW reduces vulnerability in the short-term,
the long-term, both, or neither.” To evaluate these questions, the authors synthesize
the evidence from previous research, with a focus on FFW programs in Ethiopia and
Kenya. The authors point to evidence that supports the following: “FFW commonly
generates pro-poor transfers; FFW relieves liquidity constraints; and FFW projects can
produce valuable public goods.” However, they also point to shortcomings that suggest
that successful implementation of FFW programs are not a foregone conclusion: there
can be targeting errors; timing errors; inappropriate levels of compensation; poor
choice, quality or upkeep of public works investments; crowding-out of private
transfers; or disincentives to labor or own-farm production. The authors conclude with
lessons for design of FFW programs, and suggest that FFW should be part of a broader
portfolio of government actions and that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is not feasible. While the paper provides a useful overview of the factors that lead to success (or not)
of FFW programs, the authors point to a lack of evidence regarding “the extent to
which accurately timed and targeted FFW transfers prove sufficient to pre-empt
potentially injurious coping behaviours, including liquidation of productive assets,
longdistance migration, and sharply reduced food consumption that increases the risk of
irreversible injury, illness or death,” which is of particular relevance to the FTF Learning
Agenda. (Question 6.)
Dorward, A., Fan, S., Kydd, J., Lofgren, H., Morrison, J., Poulton, C., ... & Wobst, P. (2004).
Institutions and policies for pro-poor agricultural growth. Development Policy Review,
22(6), 611-622.
The authors report the findings of a study that sought to identify the critical
components of policies to promote pro-poor agricultural growth. The methodology
included a literature review of historical experiences with attempts to stimulate pro-
poor agricultural growth, including case studies from Malawi, Zimbabwe, and India;
empirical analysis of the effects of government spending on poverty and growth in India;
and modeling of the effects of policies on the poor in Malawi and Zimbabwe. Based on
the literature review, the authors conclude that a set of conditions were needed for
green revolutions in the past: “appropriate and high-yielding agricultural technologies;
local markets offering stable output prices that provide reasonable returns to
investment in ‘improved’ technologies; seasonal finance for the purchase of inputs;
reasonably secure and equitable access to land, with attractive returns for operators
(whether tenants or owners); and infrastructure to support input, output and financial
markets.” They propose a three-step process beginning with the establishment of the
initial conditions needed for agricultural growth, then government intervention to
enable a broad-based section of the farming population to participate in the process,
followed by withdrawal of the government from direct intervention in the market. The
authors suggest that even in countries or areas where the agro-ecological conditions are
too poor to support pro-poor agriculture-led growth, the government should support
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 29
the agricultural sector enough to prevent the collapse of rural livelihoods and the
natural resource base. (Question 7.)
Dorward, A., Kydd, J., Morrison, J., & Urey, I. (2004). A policy agenda for pro-poor agricultural
growth. World Development, 32(1), 73-89.
Dorward et al. examine the role of agriculture in poverty reduction and economic
growth by reviewing the empirical evidence in the literature. Based on existing
literature, the authors argue that compared to non-farm growth, growth in the
agricultural sector (particularly cereal cultivation) has higher potential for poverty
reduction. However, the authors compare the current conditions, particularly in Sub-
Saharan Africa and Asia, with the conditions that faced the Green Revolution countries.
They find that many of the conditions that were in place during the Green Revolution
are not currently met, and that some of these conditions are not being pursued given
the current trends toward liberalization. While acknowledging the challenge of
successfully achieving conditions conducive to pro-poor agricultural growth, the authors suggest that the cost of not pursuing these conditions must be considered. (Question 7.)
2003
Dercon, S., & Krishnan, P. (2003). Food aid and informal insurance. World Institute for
Development Economics Research. Discussion Paper No. 2003/09.
Dercon and Krishnan provide an empirical study of the impact of food aid on poor
households in Ethiopia, addressing the questions of how food aid is allocated and how it
impacts consumption, with particular attention paid to the interaction with informal
risk-sharing arrangements. The authors utilize three rounds of panel data collected in
1994 and 1995 as part of the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey, which covered 1450
households in 15 villages. They report that during the time period covered by the
survey, negative shocks were common amongst the households. The descriptive
statistics suggest that more than half of the households receiving food aid were not poor
and that the households affected most by shocks were less likely to receive food aid.
They find using regression analysis that there is some evidence of targeting free food aid
within the villages, but weak evidence of targeting food-for-work. The authors also find
that the amount of food received both as free food aid and food-for-work is higher for
the better off households. The authors develop a theoretical framework that suggests
that if there is risk sharing amongst village households, then poor targeting will have less
of an effect since food aid even to the “wrong” households would be shared with other
households in need. However, the authors do not address the possibility that risk
sharing arrangements exist between households of similar economic status, which would
lessen the extent to which food aid to wealthier households would reach poorer
households in the village. In the authors’ empirical test of the effects of food aid on
consumption, they find that food aid does have a positive effect on consumption both at
the individual and village levels, suggesting that food aid is shared in risk-sharing
arrangements to some extent. However, by testing the interaction variable between
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 30
food aid and idiosyncratic shocks, the authors find that the following: “the coefficient on
the interaction term of crop shocks with food aid is positive and significant at 7 percent,
i.e. that there is a larger effect of idiosyncratic crop shocks in these communities than in
those without food aid… This supports the proposition that food aid crowds out local
arrangements for insuring idiosyncratic risk.” The authors conclude with suggestions for
ways to design food aid or safety net policies more generally to reduce the extent to
which they crowd out informal risk-sharing arrangements. (Questions 1 and 6.)
Page, S., & Slater, R. (2003). Small producer participation in global food systems: Policy
opportunities and constraints. Development Policy Review, 21(5‐6), 641-654.
Page and Slater address the obstacles to participation in agricultural markets facing small
producers and discuss possible routes to market access. The authors identify four
important conditions that enable producers to achieve market access (adequate
understanding of the market, proper organization of the firm, sufficient communication
and transportation links, and an appropriate policy environment), and suggest that
interventions to enable market access for small producers should address deficiencies in
any or all of these areas. The nine types of interventions identified by the authors that
can enable market access are the following: foreign direct investment, interventions by
large direct private buyers, initiatives by developing country producers, alternative trade
companies, export promotion agencies, import promotion agencies, aid programs,
targeted technical research, and agencies promoting small production. However, the
authors do not provide specific details about the extent to which these types of
programs in fact benefit small-scale producers. And while the authors begin the paper’s
abstract with the following statement: “Access to markets is increasingly seen as an
essential element in providing a route out of poverty, especially for small producers of
food crops in rural areas,” they do not discuss the extent to which these types of
initiatives affect the well-being of the poor. (Question 3.)
Ravallion, M. (2003). Targeted transfers in poor countries: Revisiting the tradeoffs and policy options.
Policy Research Working Paper, 3048, Washington DC: World Bank.
Ravallion considers the negative perceptions about income transfers in poor countries,
such as the assumptions that they create labor or savings disincentives, leak to non-
target groups, and carry excessive administrative costs. On the other hand, the author
considers the argument that “certain redistributive policies may then be good for
growth, by providing insurance or helping credit-constrained poor people be productive workers or take up productive opportunities for self-employment.” He also questions
the presumption that there is a trade-off between economic growth and lower
inequality. In reviewing the evidence on the effects of uninsured risk on the poor,
Ravallion finds the following: “Some of the evidence suggests large long-term costs to
the poor from uninsured risk, but some does not. Of course, there are still welfare
costs of uninsured risks facing poor people; the classic risk-aversion case for insurance
remains even if risk is not a cause of chronic poverty.” He then provides an overview of
the evidence regarding the effects of transfer programs, and concludes that there is
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 31
evidence that suggests that these programs can help to overcome market failures that
contribute to chronic poverty. (Question 5.)
Skoufias, E. (2003). Economic crises and natural disasters: Coping strategies and policy
implications. World Development, 31(7), 1087-1102.
In this article, Skoufias provides an introduction to and an overview of twelve papers
presented at a 2001 conference entitled “Crises and Disasters: Measurement and
Mitigation of their Human Costs.” The topics of the papers include ex ante and ex post
strategies that households undertake to deal with crises and disasters, as well as ex ante
and ex post actions that governments can take to reduce the impacts of crises and
shocks on their populations. The author describes several strategies employed at the
household level such as income diversification, participation in informal insurance
groups, and sale of assets in response to shocks. Skoufias argues that a solid
understanding of the actions that households take in response to crises is critical for
well-designed government responses. Regarding government actions, the author discusses several issues which are covered in the conference papers and in the broader
literature, such as targeting, choice of recipient (e.g. women versus men), and the
possibility of undertaking government action ex ante rather than ex post. The author
concludes with recommendations for the design of effective government policies to
respond to crises and disasters. (Question 6.)
2002
Dercon, S. (2002). Income risk, coping strategies, and safety nets. The World Bank Research
Observer, 17(2), 141-166.
Dercon provides a review of the strategies that households use to smooth consumption
in the face of risk, based on the author’s data from Ethiopia and empirical evidence from
the literature with a focus on households in Africa and Asia. The author describes the
distinctions between idiosyncratic and common shock, as well as ex ante risk
management strategies versus ex post risk coping strategies, with examples of each.
According to the author, the accumulation of assets such as livestock as a means of self-
insurance is common, yet because of the lumpiness of this type of asset and the
common covariance of incomes and asset prices, this strategy is problematic. Dercon
suggests that policies such as development of savings accounts and sound
macroeconomic policies can help facilitate this process. He describes income-smoothing
strategies such as income diversification and income skewing (favoring low risk, low
return activities) that can lower productivity and average income. He also describes
risk-sharing arrangements such as informal risk-sharing networks, as well as the possible
crowding out effect that state-sponsored safety nets could have on informal
arrangements, if for example some members of an informal group decided to opt out of
the informal arrangement to the detriment of remaining members, who may not be able
to access the public program. In conclusion, Dercon summarizes what is known about
the strategies households take to manage risk, the challenges and shortcomings to these
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 32
strategies, and the subsequent implications for public policies to improve well-being in
the face of risk. (Question 6.)
Devereux, S. (2002). Can social safety nets reduce chronic poverty? Development Policy Review,
20(5), 657-675.
Devereux describes the common perception that social safety nets are unaffordable and
ineffective, and argues that “the potential of safety-net transfers to the poor to raise
living standards is greater than is generally acknowledged.” The article looks specifically
at the effects of social safety net programs on asset creation and investment behaviors
and the subsequent effects on poverty. The author provides the example of the
Employment Guarantee Scheme in Maharashtra, India, where the insurance effect of the
program has been shown to enable farmers to plant higher-yielding crop varieties,
rather than favor lower risk, drought tolerant varieties. He develops case studies that
illustrate these effects by reviewing the previous research on “three social safety-net
interventions in Southern Africa – cash transfers in Namibia (social pensions) and Mozambique (cash payments to urban destitutes), and public works in Zambia.” In the
cash-for-work program in Zambia, he cites findings from the literature that showed that
beneficiaries used income from the program to hire labor for weeding and plowing on
their farms. He also shows that in Zambia, beneficiaries who received higher payments
used the income to buy productive assets such as “farm tools and fertiliser, livestock,
even an ox-cart.” It should be noted that the program in Zambia also resulted in
unintended negative consequences for women and male/female relationships. Devereux
reports that there was some evidence of the safety net programs “crowding out”
informal transfers to program recipients, but characterized this development as
generally positive given that the informal transfers tend to come from individuals or
households that are also poor, and thus they are relieved of this burden. (Questions 5
and 6.)
2001
Barrett, C. B., Bezuneh, M., & Aboud, A. (2001). Income diversification, poverty traps and policy
shocks in Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya. Food Policy, 26(4), 367-384.
Barrett et al. consider the question of whether policy shocks to poor households
contribute to income diversification and whether this subsequently constitutes “an
important means by which smallholders self-insure against risk, seize income earning
opportunities, or accumulate capital for investment.” The authors examine the effects of
a currency devaluation in Côte d’Ivoire as well as a food for work (FFW) program in
Kenya. The data from Côte d’Ivoire are from the farm management and household
survey (FMHS) conducted by the West African Rice Development Association
(WARDA). The authors’ analysis of the longitudinal data from 1993, 1994, and 1995
show that a 1994 currency devaluation had the effect of increasing returns to tradable
products, including some agricultural goods. They found that income diversification
decreased, with more households engaging in agriculture, but with the gains mainly going
Improving Resilience of Vulnerable Populations 33
to relatively well-endowed, well-educated and well-positioned (in terms of market
access) farmers. In Kenya, the authors use their own cross-sectional data from the
Baringo district, where most people are agropastoralists, with high poverty rates. The
wealthier households tend to engage in more livestock trade, whereas the poorer
households depend more upon consumption of their own crops and unskilled wage
labor. The authors found that participation in the FFW program reduced livestock sales
amongst poor households, suggesting that households were able to maintain rather than
deplete livestock kept as a means of self-insurance. They also found that farm and skilled
non-farm income of poorer households that participated in FFW increased, suggesting
that FFW reduced liquidity constraints and allowed households to invest in higher
return activities. For all but the second income quartile, the increased income of FFW
households was significantly higher than the value of the received food. The authors
conclude that in order to contribute to poverty alleviation, policies must address
liquidity constraints and low asset endowments, as occurred in Kenya but as was
neglected in Côte d’Ivoire. (Questions 1, 5, and 6.)
Sadoulet, E., de Janvry, A., & Davis, B. (2001). Cash transfer programs with income multipliers:
PROCAMPO in Mexico. World Development, 29(6), 1043-1056.
In this paper, Sadoulet et al. consider the question of whether cash transfers have the
effect of relieving liquidity constraints in poor households and lead to investments in
productive activities, thus creating an income multiplier effect. The authors examine the
effects of Mexico’s program PROCAMPO, which was instituted to offset the declining
prices for agricultural goods that negatively affected farmers in the wake of NAFTA.
They use panel data covering 958 ejido households collected in 1994 and 1997. Based on
their analysis of income changes experienced by different segments of the ejido
population, the authors find that PROCAMPO effectively compensated “larger
landholders and households with low labor, education, and migration assets” but was
not successful in “compensating for the fall in income in the North-Pacific region, where
agriculture is more technological and diversified.” Regarding income multipliers, they
find that there is an income multiplier effect valuing between 1.5 and 2.6, with the effect
varying amongst different sectors of the population. This corresponds with survey
results which showed that the majority of respondents reported using PROCAMPO
income for agricultural inputs. However, it should be noted that the multiplier effect
mainly occurred for medium and large landholders, particularly in the Center and Gulf
regions, but not small landholders. The authors point out that for the income multiplier
effect to occur, certain conditions must be met such as pre-existing liquidity constraints
as well as capacity to utilize the program funds productively. The authors conclude that
the important indirect effects of the program should not be overlooked in analyses of
the program’s benefits. (Question 5.)
2000
Lustig, N. (2000). Crises and the poor: Socially responsible macroeconomics. Economia, 1(1), 1–
19.
Feed the Future Learning Agenda Annotated Bibliography 34
In this article, Lustig considers the effects of macroeconomic crises on the poor in Latin
America and the Caribbean, and argues that because macroeconomic crises can have
disproportionate and lasting effects on the poor, efforts to avoid such crises and to
mitigate their impacts are important for poverty alleviation. She discusses three types of
responses to macro-economic crises and considers ways in which they can be designed
to best benefit the poor: adjusting the macroeconomic policy mix, changing the
composition of fiscal adjustment, and implementing safety nets. With regard to
macroeconomic policy adjustments, the author argues that if the solution that is optimal
for the economy as a whole is not the same as that which is optimal for the poor, then
this should be acknowledged and the poor should be compensated via safety nets. Also,
regarding fiscal decisions, the author argues that during macroeconomic crises, spending
on the poor should be protected. Finally, with regard to safety nets, the author states
the following: “There are examples inside and outside Latin America of good practices
in the case of safety nets that can work well. The ideal safety nets are those which
provide a consumption floor and, at the same time, protect the human capital accumulation of the poor or contribute to expanding the social and physical
infrastructure for the poor.” Interestingly, the author uses the example of conditional
cash transfers, which others have argued are not the most effective means of responding
to crises given that that is not what they are designed to do. The author also provides
the example of workfare programs to provide income to the poor during downturns.
Finally, the author argues that an important feature of counter-cyclical safety nets is that
they be implemented before crisis occurs. (Question 1.)