About 70% of the world poor live in rural areas. Rural people are not only isolated from economic opportunities. They also tend to have less access to social services such as health, sanitation, and education; for example, it is estimated that around 1 billion rural households in developing countries lack access to safe water supplies. Because it is the case that in rural areas a) the poor are small farmers and b) agriculture acts as the engine of growth, investing in agriculture has long been seen as a means of simultaneously addressing both growth and equity issues. Development Analytics focuses on agriculture and rural development in its work program through the lens of impact evaluations in agricultural extension programs and integrated development programs in rural areas. Rural livelihoods are central to the food security of countries and making sure that basic services are provided at reasonable cost in remote areas, to make sure rural poor also can have access to equal services and opportunities is important for future sustainability of the world’s rural as well as urban populations.
Projects
Final Global Evaluation of the Decent Work in the Green Economy Project
Sustainability, Employment
The ILO project “Decent Work in the Green Economy” has focused on the employment aspects of national efforts to transition to a green economy. The project was implemented in 3 countries Mexico, China, and Turkey. The global evaluation report was undertaken in this project after carrying out the local interviews in Turkey and receiving local country reports for Mexico and China. The report followed the guidelines indicated in the TOR and evaluate: (i) the project’s relevance and effectiveness; project achievements against immediate objective and expected outputs; (ii) emerging outcomes and impacts of the interventions; (iii) lessons learned and recommendations for future projects of similar focus.
March 2015 - July 2015
Final Evaluation Report for “A Fair Start for Young Children in Turkish Rural Communities” Project
Early Childhood Care and Education, Gender and Women's Empowerment
“A Fair Start for Young Children in Turkish Rural Communities” project was conducted by the Mother Child Education Foundation (AÇEV) in Tokat from 2012 to 2015. The purpose of the project was two-fold: (i) to improve the physical, mental, social and emotional development of young children in rural Turkey by engaging them in an early childhood education program, and (ii) to increase the community awareness in early childhood education. The mixed methods evaluation of the project utilized quantitative data that was collected form treatment and control villages in the baseline and post-test surveys, as well as qualitative data from 16 focus groups with beneficiary and non-beneficiary mothers and fathers in the program area, in-depth interviews and a short quantitative survey of teachers in the final phase of the program.
November 2014-August 2015
Impact Evaluation of the Hüsnü M. Özyeğin Rural Development Program in Eastern Turkey
Hüsnü M. Özyeğin Foundation Rural Development, Impact Evaluation, Aid Effectiveness
Experimental impact evaluation study and household survey instrument covering modules on agricultural activities, migration, household assets, income, and consumption, time use, social networks, access to education and health services, and women’s empowerment. Sample size: 6 treatment and 6 control villages 326 households in the baseline (Dec 2008) and 389 households in panel (Dec 2010) surveyed. Third survey round in treatment and control villages scheduled for December 2013. Fieldwork funded by the Hüsnü M. Özyeğin Foundation. Design of the impact evaluation study, the design of the survey instrument, training of enumerators in the field, training of data entry staff, econometric analysis and write-up of baseline and panel findings.
December 2008 - March 2014
Tools to Assess Value for Money in Agriculture: Agriculture Sector Dialogue
Impact Evaluation, Agriculture, Capacity Building
Preparation of a key-note paper and case studies describing ex-ante and ex-post quantitative evaluation methodologies in agriculture in Africa. The paper reviewed a list of about 30 studies using ex-ante and ex-post impact evaluations that have been conducted in Africa in the agricultural sector and selected studies that highlighted applications of each methodology to African case studies. In addition, two in-depth case studies were prepared on Mali and Malawi's agricultural sector program impact evaluations. The case studies included interactive sessions providing the context of the policy to the policymakers, and asking them questions in each step to solve pieces of the puzzle, thus imparting in them the necessary tools for discussion and selection among various methodologies and techniques. The keynote paper and case studies were presented in Johannesburg at the CABRI Tools to Assess Value for Money in Agriculture: Agriculture Sector Dialogue on April 14-15, 2014. The two-day workshop was attended by delegates from Ministries of Finance and Agriculture from 15 CABRI member African countries.
📖 Download the Keynote Paper: "Tools to assess value for money in Agriculture
📖 Download the Case study for Mali
📖 Download the Case study for Malawi
October 2013 - June 2014
Publications
Agricultural Technology Diffusion in a Post-Conflict Setting: Evidence from an Experimental Study in Eastern Turkey
Meltem A. Aran
This paper considers the impact of an agricultural extension program, The Özyeğin Rural Development Program, implemented in eastern Turkey, on rates of agricultural technology adoption. Using a uniquely designed experimental panel survey collected in treatment and control villages before and after program implementation, the paper analyses the heterogeneous impact of this agricultural extension program, on the adoption rates of different groups in the villages. The main results in the paper are consistent with the predictions of the model presented, whereby in the early stages of adoption, the existence of the agricultural extension program increases the adoption rates in the villages significantly for all households: treatment is associated with an increase in the rate of adoption of inoculation of fruit trees by 26.2-31.4 percentage points depending on the empirical specification. The paper also finds evidence for the "inclusiveness'' of the NGOs efforts by looking at the heterogeneous impact of the program of adoption rates of the "excluded" groups using various economic and political exclusion criteria. the paper also considers the role of social networks in access to information and rates of adoption of new technologies and finds that even in the presence of inclusive policies that reach out to economically or politically vulnerable sub-sections in the villages, those who do not have many social interactions with the rest of the village community may remain excluded from the benefits of the program.
10-jan-13
Socioeconomic Impact of Mining Activity: Effects of Gold Mining on Local Communities in Tanzania and Mali
Beyza Polat, Nazlı Aktakke, Meltem A. Aran, Andrew Dabalen, Punam Chuhan-Pole, Aly Sanoh
The effect of extractive activity on economic growth and development is a long debated issue in economics literature. While most of the existing literature focuses on the macroeconomic impacts of natural resource abundance, there is a rather limited but growing strand of literature that studies the local economy impact of extractive activity using micro data. This paper aims to contribute to this literature by providing new evidence on the effects of gold mining in two resource-rich African countries: Tanzania and Mali. We utilize a rich data set collected from various sources and apply a differences-in-differences estimation strategy to see whether individuals/households geographically close to mines, are affected differently from the opening of mines. We look at a number of outcome variables including various measures of children’s health indicators, households’ access to facilities, and women and men’s employment status. The first part of the analysis is at the household/individual level where the data is kept and treatment is defined at. As a second attempt, we aggregate the data up to the district level by using the appropriate poverty mapping techniques and apply Abadie et al. (2010)’s Synthetic Control Group method to study whether mining districts behave differently from non-mining districts after mines start operation. We reach different conclusions for the two case countries. In the case of Tanzania, we show that households in the immediate mining catchment area are negatively affected from extractive activity whereas this effect becomes positive when we consider households that are located in neighbouring and further away catchment areas. In the case of Mali, any significant positive impact of mining activity is on those households who are located closer to the mines. Those households, who are still in the catchment area but further away from the mine, are either not affected or negatively affected from mining activity.
01/10/2014