Longitudinal data on household living standards open the way to a deeper analysis of the nature and extent of poverty. While a number of studies have exploited this type of data to distinguish transitory from more chronic forms of income or expenditure poverty, this paper develops an asset-based approach to poverty analysis that makes it possible to distinguish deep-rooted, persistent structural poverty from poverty that passes naturally with time due to systemic growth processes. Drawing on the economic theory of poverty traps and bifurcated accumulation strategies, this paper briefly discusses some feasible estimation strategies for empirically identifying poverty traps and long-term, persistent structural poverty, as well as relevant extensions of the popular Foster-Greer-Thorbecke class of poverty measures. The paper closes with reflections on how asset-based poverty can be used to underwrite the design of persistent poverty reduction strategies.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00220380500405261

The economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty: An asset-based approach

We examine the impact of ambiguous and contested land rights on investment and productivity in agriculture in Akwapim, Ghana. We show that individuals who hold powerful positions in a local political hierarchy have more secure tenure rights and that as a consequence they invest more in land fertility and have substantially higher output. The intensity of investments on different plots cultivated by a given individual corresponds to that individual’s security of tenure over those specific plots and, in turn, to the individual’s position in the political hierarchy relevant to those specific plots.

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The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana

/pdf/coping-better-with-current-climatic-variability-in-the-rain-2uo9wn2ixk.pdf

Coping better with current climatic variability in the rain-fed farming systems of sub-Saharan Africa: An essential first step in adapting to future climate change?

The current global land grab is causing radical changes in the use and ownership of land. The main process driving the land grab, or ‘foreignisation of space’, as highlighted in the media and the emerging literature is the production of food and biofuel for export in the aftermath of recent food and energy crises. However, there are several other processes driving the land rush. In this article I argue that an analytical framework that focuses on only one or two processes that drive the global land grab offers a narrow perspective on this complex process. It will be unable to take into account the full range and extent of agrarian and social changes that occur in light of the land grab and their strategic implications for poor people's livelihoods. An important starting point is to identify the broad processes driving the current land rush, and trace their structural and institutional origins. To do so, I identify and examine seven factors that are giving rise to radical changes in landownership and land ...

Globalisation and the foreignisation of space: seven processes driving the current global land grab

Poverty Traps and Natural Disasters in Ethiopia and Honduras

The report is based on case studies in seven countries, and relies on new data to examine the relationship between land holding rights, and agricultural production. Land remains the most important source of economic livelihood, security, and social status in Sub-Saharan Africa. But the extent to which existing tenure rules, and practices influence agriculture, is unclear. The report further questions whether indigenous African land tenure systems, accord farmers sufficient security for long-term investment in agricultural production, and, examines as well the major effects of land registration and titling, on agricultural production. The study represent the first rigorous quantitative analysis of the relationship between land tenure security, and agricultural production in the context of contemporary political economies of African countries.

Searching for land tenure security in Africa

This paper presents comparative qualitative and quantitative evidence from rural Kenya and Madagascar in an attempt to untangle the causality behind persistent poverty. We find striking differences in welfare dynamics depending on whether one uses total income, including stochastic terms and inevitable measurement error, or the predictable, structural component of income based on a household's asset holdings. Our results suggest the existence of multiple dynamic asset and structural income equilibria, consistent with the poverty traps hypothesis. Furthermore, we find supporting evidence of locally increasing returns to assets and of risk management behaviour consistent with poor households' defence of a critical asset threshold through asset smoothing.

https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADE649.pdf

Welfare dynamics in rural Kenya and Madagascar

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) faces a formidable challenge. Most rural Africans remain poor and food-insecure in the aftermath of widespread macroeconomic, political and sectoral reforms that have largely failed to stimulate significant agricultural productivity improvements. Meanwhile, the extensive margin of new arable land available to bring into cultivation, so as to satisfy population-driven increases in food demand, is rapidly being exhausted across most of the continent. There are thus intense pressures for agricultural intensification so as to improve factor productivity without expanding the area under cultivation. Sustainable agricultural intensification requires prudent long-term management of the natural resource base on which agriculture fundamentally depends. A wide range of traditional and modern techniques1 exist for effective natural resource management (NRM). None the less, degradation of soils and other natural resources proceeds at a high rate in much of the continent, reflecting in large measure disturbingly low rates of use of sustainable NRM strategies, especially among the poorer subpopulations of smallholder producers. The challenge of improving smallholder NRM practices lies at the heart of the broader imperative for sustainable agricultural intensification in Africa today, and thus of the universal objective of reducing poverty and vulnerability on a continent in which most people today are employed in agriculture and poverty remains most acute in the countryside. Improved NRM is every bit as much about increasing productivity and incomes for the current generation as it is about preserving the quality of resources to safeguard the livelihoods of future generations. This volume provides an unprecedented synthesis of findings from across the continent. In drawing together lessons learned from the full range of African agroecosystems and economic and cultural contexts, several empirical regularities

The challenge of stimulating adoption of improved natural resource management practices in African agriculture.

The devastating environmental effects of deforestation and the exploitation of other natural resources in the developing world have been well documented, yet their impact on local communities has received far less attention. This report looks at how land degradation and deforestation are being addressed at the local level, where households have experienced the reduction of farm size and the decline of natural resources. Through a comparison of Asia and Africa, the evolution of land tenure institutions within diverse cultural, natural, and policy environments is examined. Specific topics include the evolution of customary land tenure, the impacts of land tenure policies, and common property management. The editors conclude that the best strategy for managing land and forest resources lies in promoting the establishment of property rights and investment in the improvement of the natural resource base.

F. Place

Papers

Searching for land tenure security in Africa

Welfare dynamics in rural Kenya and Madagascar

The challenge of stimulating adoption of improved natural resource management practices in African agriculture.

Land tenure and natural resource management

Initiatives to encourage farmer adoption of soil-fertility technologies for maize-based cropping systems in Southern Africa.