Determinants of Successful Collective Management of Forest Resources: Evidence from Kenyan Community Forest Associations

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on

Participation of local communities in management and utilization of forest resources through collective action has become widely accepted as a possible solution to failure of centralized, top-down approaches to forest conservation. Developing countries have thus resorted to devolution of forest management through initiatives such as Participatory Forest Management (PFM) and Joint Forest Management (JFM). In Kenya, under such initiatives, communities have been able to self-organize into community forest associations (CFAs).

Forestry

Do safety net transfers improve household diets and reduce under nutrition? Evidence from rural Ethiopia

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

The paper examines the impact of the Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program on household dietary diversity and child nutrition using both waves of the Ethiopian Socio-economic Survey.
Key messages
• The Productive Safety Net Program is not found to have any impact on dietary diversity or child nutrition, however, it does help reduce household food insecurity.
• A nutrition-sensitive social protection program should be implemented.
• To improve child nutrition, social benefits can be made conditional on parents’ participation in nutrition education programs.

Agriculture

Securing benefits for local communities from international visitors to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Submitted by Felicity Downes on

This article estimates the visitation demand function for Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP) in
order to determine the scope for raising fees charged to international tourists in order to fund
revenue-sharing schemes for local communities. International and Southern African Development
Community tourists account for approximately 25% and 2% of the total number of visitors to
South African national parks, with domestic visitors making up the remaining portion. Although

Forestry

Livestock predation in South Africa: The need for and value of a scientific assessment

Submitted by Felicity Downes on

Predation of livestock in South Africa has been estimated to cost in excess of ZAR1 billion in losses per
year and has complex social, economic and ecological drivers and consequences. In this context, livestock
can be broadly defined as domesticated animals and wildlife (the former excluding poultry and the latter
including ostrich, Struthio camelus) managed for commercial purposes or human benefit in free-ranging (or
semi-free ranging) circumstances that render them vulnerable to predation. This conflict between livestock

Agriculture

Impact of Smoking on Nutrition and the Food Poverty Level in Tanzania

Submitted by Salvatory Macha on

This study considers the effect of household cigarette expenditure on food poverty indicators in Tanzania. We first compare expenditure patterns as well as the household size of non-smokers and smokers. We find that the majority of non-smokers and smokers have low incomes, and that the mean total per capita expenditure (proxy for income) of non-smokers is slightly higher than those of smokers.

Agriculture, Health

Improved Biomass Cooking to Fight Climate Change and Poverty

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on

Inefficient firewood and charcoal usage contributes massively to global greenhouse gas emissions and causes four million mortal diseases a year. Relative to other climate protection measures, public investments in the dissemination of improved biomass cooking stoves provide a very effective low cost measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More than three billion people in developing countries rely on inefficient cooking stoves fuelled by firewood and charcoal.

Energy, Policy Design

How can Tanzania move from poverty to prosperity?

Submitted by Salvatory Macha on

The idea for this book first originated in 2012 when writing a paper for a workshop for the University of Dar es Salaam Mwalimu Nyerere Chair on Development. More recently, it has been driven by the fact that, despite making some progress, the country continues to struggle in the seemingly never-ending cycle of poverty, disease, aid dependency, the dearth of infrastructure and corruption. These are challenges that policy-makers and the government grapple with day in day out.

Policy Design

International Remittances and Private Inter-household Transfers Exploring the Links

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on

We investigate the effect of remittances from migrated family members on informal inter-household transfers, an issue that has received limited attention in the literature. Using rich panel data from urban Ethiopia, we show that receiving international remittances increases the value of private domestic inter-household transfers, whereas receiving domestic remittances does not have any e ect.

Policy Design