News

Timely news and information about agricultural research in Africa. Collected from a variety of sources, we are also happy to accept your suggestions for relevant research to include.


Latest articles

Neo-patrimonialism and Policy Processes
June 1, 2005 / News
In the 1990s economic liberalisation replaced state support for agriculture across much of Southern Africa. As well as reducing costs, it was assumed that liberalisation would ensure food availability and access to food through positive effects on production and trade

Governing Technology Development: Challenges for Agricultural Research in Africa
June 1, 2005 / News
There is little doubt that agricultural research is of critical importance to the future of agriculture in Africa. As an investment, it has been shown again afinnd again to deliver high returns, in terms of bothancial benefits (Alston et al.

Beyond Liberalisation: “Developmental Coordination” Policies for African Smallholder Agriculture
June 1, 2005 / News
By Andrew Dorward, Jonathan Kydd and Colin Poulton This article argues for a fresh approach to agricultural policy in Africa, to exploit the strengths of both stateled and market-led development approaches pursued over the last 50 years, while avoiding their

Investing in Africa: The Political Economy of Agricultural Growth – 2
June 1, 2005 / News
By Adebayo Olukoshi IDS Bulletin Vol 36 No 2 June 2005 If investments are good for growth, then a question which has always exercised the minds of economists and policy-makers historically, is just how to generate, attract, secure and sustain

Success Stories from African Agriculture: What are the Key Elements of Success?
June 1, 2005 / News
By Steve Wiggins IDS Bulletin Vol 36 No 2 June 2005 Success is not a word often heard when dealing with contemporary issues in agriculture in Sub- Saharan Africa. For 30 years, the overall picture has been one of failure.While

Livelihoods Research Findings and Agriculture-led Growth
June 1, 2005 / News
By Godfrey Bahiigwa, Ntengua Mdoe and Frank Ellis IDS Bulletin Vol 36 No 2 June 2005 The findings of livelihoods research conducted in East Africa and Malawi demonstrate that the role of agriculture in contributing to poverty reduction in sub-Sahara

Communities, Commodities and Crazy Ideas: Changing Livestock Policies in Africa
May 1, 2005 / News
In the late 1990s a review of aid-assisted livestock projects included an assessment of sustained impact on poorer producers (Ashley et al. 1998). The review looked back over 35 years and analysed documents from more than 800 livestock projects funded

Too Much Inequality or Too Little, Inequality and Stagnation in Ethiopian Agriculture
May 1, 2005 / News
The agricultural sector remains our Achilles heel and source of vulnerability …Nonetheless, were main convinced that agricultural based development remains the only source of hope for Ethiopia. (Prime Minister Meles Zenawi 2000). A powerful strand of thinking about the causes

Wild Resources Management in Southern Africa: Participation, Partnerships, Ecoregions and Redistribu
June 19, 2003 / News
By William Wolmer and Caroline Ashley IDS Bulletin Vol 34 No 3 2003 In rural southern Africa, access to wild resources is critical to livelihoods and various attempts have been made by policy-makers to increase the income derived from them

Politics and Water Policy: A Southern Africa Example
June 19, 2003 / News
By Alan Nicol and Sobona Mtisi IDS Bulletin Vol 34 No 3 2003  Access to and management of water resources is inherently political. Drawing on fieldwork from the Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa programme, largely undertaken in Zimbabwe, with some

Land and Livelihoods: The Politics of Land Reform in Southern Africa
June 19, 2003 / News
By Edward Lahiff IDS Bulletin Vol 34 No 3 2003 Southern Africa today presents a wide spectrum of land policies, embracing a variety of forms of redistribution and tenure reform initiatives, utilising methods that range from consensual, market-based approaches to

The Rural Poor, the Private Sector and Markets: Changing Interactions in Southern Africa
June 19, 2003 / News
By the SLSA Team IDS Bulletin Vol 34 No 3 2003 One of the central tenets of much current development thinking in southern Africa is that market-oriented strategies and private sector involvement must be the basis for future economic growth.

Decentralisations in Practice in Southern Africa
June 19, 2003 / News
By the SLSA Team IDS Bulletin Vol 34 No 3 2003  Decentralisation, like good governance or sustainable development, is one of those concepts everyone from the World Bank to top officials in national governments seems to think is a “good thing”.

Livelihoods in Crisis: Challenges for Rural Development in Southern Africa
June 19, 2003 / News
By Ian Scoones and William Wolmer IDS Bulletin Vol 34 No 3 2003 Southern Africa is in the midst of a major food crisis. Fourteen million people are reported to be at risk. Most commentators agree that since around 1990,

The Politics of Livelihood Opportunity
January 1, 2003 / News
By Ian Scoones and William Wolmer IDS Bulletin Vol 34 No 3 2003 Rethinking Livelihoods As previous sections of this Bulletin have shown, the livelihoods of poor, rural people in southern Africa are highly complex, often vulnerable and subject to