Which Way to Livable and Productive Cities?

Which Way to Livable and Productive Cities? PDF Author: Kirsten Hommann
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464814058
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 59

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Book Description
For African cities to grow economically as they have grown in size, they must create productive environments to attract investments, increase economic efficiency, and create livable environments that prevent urban costs from rising with increased population densification. What are the central obstacles that prevent African cities and towns from becoming sustainable engines of economic growth and prosperity? Among the most critical factors that limit the growth and livability of urban areas are land markets, investments in public infrastructure and assets, and the institutions to enable both. To unleash the potential of African cities and towns for delivering services and employment in a livable and environmentally friendly environment, a sequenced approach is needed to reform institutions and policies and to target infrastructure investments. This book lays out three foundations that need fixing to guide cities and towns throughout Sub-Saharan Africa on their way to productivity and livability.

Which Way to Livable and Productive Cities?

Which Way to Livable and Productive Cities? PDF Author: Kirsten Hommann
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464814058
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 59

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Book Description
For African cities to grow economically as they have grown in size, they must create productive environments to attract investments, increase economic efficiency, and create livable environments that prevent urban costs from rising with increased population densification. What are the central obstacles that prevent African cities and towns from becoming sustainable engines of economic growth and prosperity? Among the most critical factors that limit the growth and livability of urban areas are land markets, investments in public infrastructure and assets, and the institutions to enable both. To unleash the potential of African cities and towns for delivering services and employment in a livable and environmentally friendly environment, a sequenced approach is needed to reform institutions and policies and to target infrastructure investments. This book lays out three foundations that need fixing to guide cities and towns throughout Sub-Saharan Africa on their way to productivity and livability.

Growing Greener Cities in Africa

Growing Greener Cities in Africa PDF Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
The Second Global Plan of Action addresses new challenges, such as climate change and food insecurity, as well as novel opportunities, including information, communication and molecular methodologies. It contains 18 priority activities organized in four main groups: In situ conservation and management; Ex situ conservation; Sustainable use; and Building sustainable institutional and human capacities.

Cities and agricultural transformation in Africa

Cities and agricultural transformation in Africa PDF Author: Vandercasteelen, Joachim
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 37

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Book Description
Due to the rapid growth of cities in Africa, many more farmers are now living in rural hinterlands in relatively close proximity to cities where many provide food to urban residents. However, empirical evidence on how urbanization affects these farmers is scarce. To fill this gap, this paper explores the relationship between proximity to a city and the production behavior of rural staple crop producers. In particular, we analyze data from teff producing farmers in major producing areas around Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. We find that farmers located closer to Addis Ababa face higher wages and land rental prices, and because they receive higher teff prices they have better incentives to intensify production. Moreover, we observe that modern input use, land and labor productivity, and profitability in teff production improve with urban proximity. This urban proximity has a strong and significant effect on these aspects of teff production, possibly related to the use of more formal factor markets, lower transaction costs in crop production and marketing, and better access to information. In contrast, we do not find a strong and positive relationship between rural population density increases and agricultural transformation – increased population density seems to lead to immiserizing effects in these settings. Our results show that urban proximity should be considered as an important determinant of the process of agricultural intensification and transformation in developing countries.

Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa

Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa PDF Author: Valerie Mueller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192587315
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Sub-Saharan Africa's rural population is growing rapidly, and more young people are entering the labour market every year. This raises serious policy questions. Can rural economies absorb enough job seekers? Could better-educated youth transform Africa's rural economies by adopting new technologies and starting businesses? Are policymakers responding to the youth employment challenge? Or will there be widespread unemployment, social instability, and an exodus to cities and abroad? Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa: Beyond Stylized Facts uses survey data to build a nuanced understanding of the constraints and opportunities facing rural youth in Africa. Addressing the questions of Africa's rural youth is currently hampered by major gaps in our knowledge and stylized facts from cross-country trends or studies that do not focus on the core issues. Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa takes a different approach, drawing on household and firm surveys from selected African countries with an explicit focus on rural youth. It argues that a balance between alarm and optimism is warranted, and that Africa's "youth bulge" is not an unprecedented challenge. Jobs in rural areas are limited, but agriculture is transforming and youth are participating, adopting new technologies and running businesses. Governments have adopted youth employment as a priority, but policies often do not address the specific needs of rural populations. Youth and Jobs in Rural Africa emphasizes that by going beyond stylized facts and drawing on more granular analysis, we can design effective policies to turn Africa's youth problem into an opportunity for rural transformation.

Cities Feeding People

Cities Feeding People PDF Author: Axumite G. Egziabher
Publisher: IDRC
ISBN: 1552501094
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
Cities Feeding People examines urban agriculture in East Africa and proves that it is a safe, clean, and secure method to feed the world's struggling urban residents. It also collapses the myth that urban agriculture is practiced only by the poor and unemployed. Cities Feeding People provides the hard facts needed to convince governments that urban agriculture should have a larger role in feeding the urban population.

Transforming Agriculture in Southern Africa

Transforming Agriculture in Southern Africa PDF Author: Richard A. Sikora
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429686633
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
This book provides a synthesis of the key issues and challenges facing agriculture and food production in Southern Africa. Southern Africa is facing numerous challenges from diverse issues such as agricultural transformations, growing populations, urbanization and climate change. These challenges place great pressure on food security, agriculture, water availability and other natural resources, as well as impacting biodiversity. Drawing on case studies from Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the chapters in this book consider these challenges from an interdisciplinary perspective, covering key areas in constraints to production, the most important building blocks of good farming practices, and established and emerging technologies. This book will be a valuable support for informing new policies and processes aimed at improving food production and security and developing sustainable agriculture in Southern Africa. This informative volume will be key reading for those interested in agricultural science, African studies, rural studies, development studies and sustainability. It will also be a valuable resource for policymakers, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and agricultural practitioners. This title has been made available as Open Access under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CCBY-NC-ND) license and can be accessed here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429401701

Agricultural Transformation in Africa

Agricultural Transformation in Africa PDF Author: David William Seckler
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description


Africa's Cities

Africa's Cities PDF Author: Somik V. Lall
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9781464810442
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing rapid population growth. Yet their economic growth has not kept pace. Why? One factor might be low capital investment, due in part to Africa's relative poverty: Other regions have reached similar stages of urbanization at higher per capita GDP. This study, however, identifies a deeper reason: African cities are closed to the world. Compared with other developing cities, cities in Africa produce few goods and services for trade on regional and international markets To grow economically as they are growing in size, Africa's cities must open their doors to the world. They need to specialize in manufacturing, along with other regionally and globally tradable goods and services. And to attract global investment in tradables production, cities must develop scale economies, which are associated with successful urban economic development in other regions. Such scale economies can arise in Africa, and they will--if city and country leaders make concerted efforts to bring agglomeration effects to urban areas. Today, potential urban investors and entrepreneurs look at Africa and see crowded, disconnected, and costly cities. Such cities inspire low expectations for the scale of urban production and for returns on invested capital. How can these cities become economically dense--not merely crowded? How can they acquire efficient connections? And how can they draw firms and skilled workers with a more affordable, livable urban environment? From a policy standpoint, the answer must be to address the structural problems affecting African cities. Foremost among these problems are institutional and regulatory constraints that misallocate land and labor, fragment physical development, and limit productivity. As long as African cities lack functioning land markets and regulations and early, coordinated infrastructure investments, they will remain local cities: closed to regional and global markets, trapped into producing only locally traded goods and services, and limited in their economic growth.

The Agricultural Transformation

The Agricultural Transformation PDF Author: C. Peter Timmer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agricultural development projects
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
Research paper, agricultural development, role in economic development, structural change in the agricultural sector - theoretical aspects, decision making, agricultural production production factors, farm households, agricultural technology issues, agricultural policies for speeding up modernization, etc. Graph, references, tables.

The Palgrave Handbook of Agricultural and Rural Development in Africa

The Palgrave Handbook of Agricultural and Rural Development in Africa PDF Author: Evans S. Osabuohien
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030415139
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 670

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Book Description
This handbook examines agricultural and rural development in Africa from theoretical, empirical and policy stand points. It discusses the challenges of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and assesses how poverty and other development concerns can be addressed in rural communities through agricultural transformation. Additionally, the handbook extends the Post-2015 Development Agenda and it emphasizes the importance of the agricultural sector as it is closely related to the issues of food sustainability, poverty reduction, and employment creation. The contributors suggest multiple evidence-based policies to develop the rural areas through the transformation of the agricultural sector which can significantly benefit the African continent.