Smart investment in global childcare requires local solutions and a coordinated research agenda

Submitted by Vicentia Quartey on
  • The COVID-19 pandemic has re-emphasised the critical role of accessible, affordable and quality childcare to reduce and redistribute the gender unequal distribution of unpaid care work as an investment towards the well-being of children, women, families and society.

  • Smart investment in childcare and care systems in Africa requires context-specific and culturally appropriate local solutions driven by national stakeholders—including commitment by national governments to resource and build systems of public provision.

Covid-19, Gender

Domestic savings in sub-Saharan Africa

Submitted by Vicentia Quartey on

One essential condition of economic progress in any society is an ample supply of savings, which depends on the growth of real capital. Economists agree that higher investment rates will lead to higher growth. Thus, domestic savings is considered an important determinant of growth in developing countries. However, Ghana has one of the poorest savings performances in the world. There are many reasons for the low savings rates in Ghana.

Structural Transformation in Rural Ghana: The Trends and Drivers

Submitted by Vicentia Quartey on

Structural transformation in rural spaces in developing economies remains elusive. Although the agricultural sector in Africa has often been viewed as a critical sector with the potential to provide productive employment to spur sustained growth, the sector is yet to experience the much-needed boost required to propel the transformation of rural areas. Ghana’s extensive historical data makes it ideal for understanding transformation within developing country contexts.

Unconditional cash transfers and safe transitions to adulthood in Malawi

Submitted by Vicentia Quartey on

As national social safety nets are expanding in Africa and globally, evidence on the impact of programs on youth transitions can help guide future investment and program design decisions. This paper examines the effects of Malawi’s flagship cash transfer program on safe transitions to adulthood among youth living in households experiencing ultra-poverty. The evaluation was a cluster-randomized control trial implemented over three years using panel data on youth aged 13 to 19 at baseline.

Does combining traditional and information and communications technology–based extension methods improve agricultural outcomes? Evidence from field experiments in Mali

Submitted by Vicentia Quartey on
EfD Authors:

AbstractAdequate flow of appropriate information to farmers is vital for accelerating the uptake of modern agricultural technologies and improving access to markets, all of which are important for the transformation of African economies. Yet there is limited evidence regarding how information should be disseminated to farmers to achieve the needed impact. Should ICT‐based approaches be used together with traditional methods, or should they be used alone?

Agriculture

Heterogeneous market participation channels and household welfare

Submitted by Vicentia Quartey on
EfD Authors:

This paper uses panel data and qualitative interviews from southwestern Ghana to analyse farmers’ heterogeneous oil palm marketing decisions and the effect on household welfare. We show that despite the supposed benefits that smallholders could derive from participation in global agribusiness value chains via formal contracts, such arrangements are rare although two of Ghana’s ‘big four’ industrial oil palm companies are located in the study area. In the absence of formal contracts, farmers self-select into four main oil palm marketing channels (OPMCs).

Agriculture

A review of machine learning and satellite imagery for poverty prediction: Implications for development research and applications

Submitted by Vicentia Quartey on
EfD Authors:

AbstractThe field of artificial intelligence is seeing the increased application of satellite imagery to analyse poverty in its various manifestations. This nascent but rapidly growing intersection of scholarship holds the potential to help us better understand poverty by leveraging big data and recent advances in machine vision. In this study, we statistically analyse the literature in the expanding field of welfare and poverty predictions from the combination of machine learning and satellite imagery.

Analysing the socioeconomic characteristics of fisheries-dependent communities in the context of the blue economy in Ghana

Submitted by Vicentia Quartey on
EfD Authors:

For centuries resource economists have persistently debated and discussed the potential of the green economy and how it should be protected and used sustainably. Most studies to date on the economic value of natural resources have thus concentrated on the green economy and how countries could harness its resources to achieve growth and development. However, perhaps the blue economy (i.e., ocean resources) could also help achieve growth and development. Studies on the blue economy are concept notes, reports and literature reviews on the evolving definition of the concept.

Fisheries

Achieving food security in Ghana: Does governance matter?

Submitted by Vicentia Quartey on
EfD Authors:

AbstractThis study complements the extant literature by assessing the role of governance dynamics in food security in Ghana for the period 1980–2019. The empirical evidence is based on the fully modified ordinary least squares technique and governance is categorized into political (entailing political stability and voice and accountability), economical (consisting of regulatory quality and government effectiveness), and institutional (entailing corruption‐control and the rule of law) governance dynamics. The study finds that the engaged governance dynamics improve food security in Ghana.

Agriculture