An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development: How much can Africa learn from Asia?

An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development: How much can Africa learn from Asia? PDF Author: Diao, Xinshen, ed.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN: 0896293807
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 548

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Book Description
Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara — especially for small farms and businesses — requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent’s evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development analyzes the experiences of eight Asian and five African countries. The authors explore crucial government roles in boosting and supporting mechanization, from import policies to promotion policies to public good policies. Potential approaches presented to facilitating mechanization in Africa include prioritizing market-led hiring services, eliminating distortions, and developing appropriate technologies for the African context. The role of agricultural mechanization within overall agricultural and rural transformation strategies in Africa is also discussed. The book’s recommendations and insights should be useful to national policymakers and the development community, who can adapt this knowledge to local contexts and use it as a foundation for further research.

An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development: How much can Africa learn from Asia?

An evolving paradigm of agricultural mechanization development: How much can Africa learn from Asia? PDF Author: Diao, Xinshen, ed.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN: 0896293807
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 548

Get Book Here

Book Description
Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara — especially for small farms and businesses — requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent’s evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization Development analyzes the experiences of eight Asian and five African countries. The authors explore crucial government roles in boosting and supporting mechanization, from import policies to promotion policies to public good policies. Potential approaches presented to facilitating mechanization in Africa include prioritizing market-led hiring services, eliminating distortions, and developing appropriate technologies for the African context. The role of agricultural mechanization within overall agricultural and rural transformation strategies in Africa is also discussed. The book’s recommendations and insights should be useful to national policymakers and the development community, who can adapt this knowledge to local contexts and use it as a foundation for further research.

Agriculture, Diversification, and Gender in Rural Africa

Agriculture, Diversification, and Gender in Rural Africa PDF Author: Agnes Andersson Djurfeldt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198799284
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
This book contributes to the understanding of smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa through addressing the dynamics of intensification and diversification within and outside agriculture in contexts where women have much poorer access to agrarian resources than men

Morality and Economic Growth in Rural West Africa

Morality and Economic Growth in Rural West Africa PDF Author: Paul Clough
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1782382712
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
The land, labor, credit, and trading institutions of Marmara village, in Hausaland, northern Nigeria, are detailed in this study through fieldwork conducted in two national economic cycles - the petroleum-boom prosperity (in 1977-1979), and the macro-economic decline (in 1985, 1996 and 1998). The book unveils a new paradigm of economic change in the West African savannah, demonstrating how rural accumulation in a polygynous society actually limits the extent of inequality while at the same time promoting technical change. A uniquely African non-capitalist trajectory of accumulation subordinates the acquisition of capital to the expansion of polygynous families, clientage networks, and circles of trading friends. The whole trajectory is driven by an indigenous ethics of personal responsibility. This model disputes the validity of both Marxian theories of capitalist transformation in Africa and the New Institutional Economics.

Bush Bound

Bush Bound PDF Author: Paolo Gaibazzi
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1782387803
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Whereas most studies of migration focus on movement, this book examines the experience of staying put. It looks at young men living in a Soninke-speaking village in Gambia who, although eager to travel abroad for money and experience, settle as farmers, heads of families, businessmen, civic activists, or, alternatively, as unemployed, demoted youth. Those who stay do so not only because of financial and legal limitations, but also because of pressures to maintain family and social bases in the Gambia valley. ‘Stayers’ thus enable migrants to migrate, while ensuring the activities and values attached to rural life are passed on to the future generations.

Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa

Essays on the Political Economy of Rural Africa PDF Author: Robert H. Bates
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520060142
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The essays in this volume represent a dialogue between theory and data. The theory is drawn from a branch of contemporary political economy which can also be labeled the collective-choice school. The data are drawn from Africa. The book extends the methods of reasoning developed in collective choice from their original base-the advanced industrial democracies-to new territory; the literature on rural Africa. Such as extension challenges the power of this form of political economy. It also enriches it, for the central questions which motivate the contemporary study of political economy are often addressed with unique clarity in the scholarship on rural Africa.

Energy Politics and Rural Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Energy Politics and Rural Development in Sub-Saharan Africa PDF Author: Naaborle Sackeyfio
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319601229
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
This book addresses the paradox of uneven electricity in one of the fastest growing and now petro rich economies, Ghana, by addressing the question of why one of the most hydro rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa produces irregular access for all but ‘swing’ voter regions of the country. The book questions why targeted rural electricity initiatives over the course of the last two decades have yielded uneven benefits for what is a substantial portion of the country’s population. Using Ghana as an emblematic case-study that speaks to broader regional concerns, including those of Nigeria and South Africa, this book contextualizes the variegated nature of how power sector reforms could not be undertaken without significant political costs. Indeed, the book situates an unfolding political landscape that prompted the successful but partial implementation of power sector reforms in part prompted by the Washington consensus and undergirded by a shrinking role for the state in the wider economy.

Our Continent, Our Future

Our Continent, Our Future PDF Author: P. Thandika Mkandawire
Publisher: IDRC
ISBN: 155250204X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Our Continent, Our Future presents the emerging African perspective on this complex issue. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies, 25 of which were from African economists, to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent's development agenda.

Africa's Land Rush

Africa's Land Rush PDF Author: Ruth Hall
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1847011306
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Interrogates the narratives of land grabbing and agricultural investment through detailed local studies that illuminate how these are experienced on the ground and the implications for Africa's land and agricultural economy.

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.

Reframing the Urban Challenge in Africa

Reframing the Urban Challenge in Africa PDF Author: Ntombini Marrengane
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000333418
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
This book explores the changing dynamics and challenges behind the rapid expanse of Africa’s urban population. Africa’s urban age is underway. With the world’s fastest growing urban population, the continent is rapidly transforming from one that is largely rural, to one that is largely urban. Often facing limited budgets, those tasked with managing African cities require empirical evidence on the nature of demands for infrastructure, escalating environmental hazards, and ever-expanding informal settlements. Drawing on the work of the African Urban Research Initiative, this book brings together contributions from local researchers investigating key themes and challenges within their own contexts. An important example of urban knowledge co-production, the book demonstrates the regional diversity that can be seen as the main feature of African urbanism, with even well-accepted concepts such as informality manifesting in markedly different ways from place to place. Providing an important nuanced perspective on the heterogeneity of African cities and the challenges they face, this book will be an important resource for researchers across development studies, African studies, and urban studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003008385, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license