Publications

An approach for assessing whether agricultural projects help smallholders transition to better livelihood strategies: A Malawian case study
Timu, Anne G.; Hazell, Peter; Savastano, Sara. 2024
Food Policy

Agricultural projects typically aim to promote the uptake of project components amongst targeted small farm populations to improve their farm productivity and welfare. While this approach can be an important first step towards improving smallholder livelihoods, it ignores alternative and often superior livelihood options that might arise within the rural transformation process, particularly in commercial agriculture and the rural nonfarm economy. We argue that the design of smallholder projects implemented within regions already undergoing a dynamic transformation and/or projects which have significant value chain components, should be broadened to assist smallholders in making successful transitions to their best livelihood options. For such projects, monitoring and evaluation activities should track livelihood transitions as well as the usual assessments of productivity and welfare outcomes. To help operationalize such an approach, we propose a typology of smallholder livelihood strategies that can track transitions over time and illustrate its use with data from the Sustainable Agricultural Production Program (SAPP), an agricultural value chain project in Malawi. Using available household panel data and quasi-experimental econometric approaches, we find that the project helped smallholders transition out of subsistence farming to market-oriented farming and helped already existing market-oriented farmers remain as such. Even though the project did not have any specific components designed to promote off-farm incomes, nevertheless, it facilitated many farm household transitions to off-farm diversified livelihoods, possibly due to spillover benefits generated within the local nonfarm economy. All SAPP facilitated transitions led to increases in household incomes. We conclude with some lessons for designing, monitoring, and the evaluation of future agricultural projects.

IFPRI Malawi monthly maize market report, August 2024
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2024
MaSSP Monthly Maize Market Report

The Monthly Maize Market Report was developed by researchers at IFPRI Malawi to provide clear and accurate information on the variation of maize prices in selected markets throughout Malawi. All prices are reported in Malawi Kwacha (K).

IFPRI Malawi Monthly Maize Market Report, July 2024
IFPRI. 2024

IFPRI Malawi monthly maize market report, April 2024
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2024

The Monthly Maize Market Report was developed by researchers at IFPRI Malawi with the goal of providing clear and accurate information on the variation of maize prices in selected markets throughout Malawi. The reports are intended as a resource for those interested in maize markets in Malawi, namely producers, traders, consumers, policy makers, and other agricultural stakeholders.

IFPRI Malawi monthly maize market report, June 2024
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2024

Africa RISING impact assessment report
Haile, Beliyou; Boukaka, Sedi Anne; Azzarri, Carlo. 2024

This report summarizes lessons from cross-country analyses of the impact of the Africa RISING (AR) program. Implemented in six countries—Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Mali, and Ghana—AR aimed to provide pathways out of hunger and poverty for smallholders by sustainably intensifying their farming systems in order to enhance income and food security, particularly for women and children, while conserving or enhancing the natural resource base. Phase I (2012–2016) focused on the validation of demand-driven sustainable intensification (SI) innovations, while Phase II (2016–2022) focused on the scaling of a subset of validated SI innovations in partnership with development partners.

Impacts of Africa RISING in Malawi
Haile, Beliyou; Azzarri, Carlo; Boukaka, Sedi-Anne; Chikowo, Regis; and Vitellozzi, Sveva. 2024

This study evaluates the impact of Africa RISING, a large-scale sustainable intensification (SI) program that has been implemented in Central Malawi’s Dedza and Ntcheu districts beginning in 2012. Using a participatory action research framework, the program validated and promoted alternative SI options including fertilized maize, maize-legume intercropping, intercropping of two compatible legumes, cereal-legume rotation, and double-row planting of legumes. Impact is estimated on several SI indicators and domains using two rounds of panel data and difference-in-differences techniques. The unique study design allowed us to estimate impact by comparing outcomes among program beneficiaries with two different counterfactual groups—one located inside program villages (within village comparison) and another in non-program (control) villages (out-of-village comparison). We also conduct a placebo test comparing non-beneficiaries in the two counterfactual groups. The within-village comparison shows positive impact on several agricultural and economic indicators including access to agricultural information, value of harvest, on-farm diversity, labor profitability, annual net household income, per capita household consumption expenditure, household wealth, and household dietary diversity score. We do not find a statistically significant impact on human indicators such as child and maternal nutrition. Estimates based on within-village, out-of-village, and placebo comparisons suggest important insights about the challenges in assessing the impact of agricultural programs in general and, specifically, participatory multi-intervention programs in the presence of sample (self-)selection and spillovers. Our study highlights important lessons learned to inform future program design and impact assessments.

IFPRI Malawi maize market report, May 2024
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2024
MaSSP Monthly Maize Market Report

Revisiting development strategy under climate uncertainty: case study of Malawi
Mukashov, Askar; Thomas, Timothy; Thurlow, James. 2024
Climatic Change

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of agriculture-led versus non-agriculture-led development strategies under climate-induced economic uncertainty. Utilizing Malawi as a case study, we introduce the application of Stochastic Dominance (SD) analysis, a tool from decision analysis theory, and compare the two strategies in the context of weather/climate-associated economic uncertainty. Our findings suggest that an agriculture-led development strategy consistently surpasses its non-agriculture-led antagonist in poverty and undernourishment outcomes across almost all possible weather/climate scenarios. This underscores that, despite increasing exposure of the entire economy to weather/climate uncertainty, agriculture-led development remains the optimal strategy for Malawi to reduce poverty and undernourishment. The study also endorses the broader use of SD analysis in policy planning studies, promoting its potential to integrate risk and uncertainty into policymaking.

The importance and determinants of purchases in rural food consumption in Africa: implications for food security strategies
Dzanku, F.M.; Liverpool-Tasie, Saweda Lenis Onipede; Reardon, Thomas. 2024

We analyze rural households’ purchases of food (cereals and non-cereals) in Sub-Saharan Africa using nationally representative data with 65,000 observations covering 7 countries over a decade. We distinguish between three strata of countries: lower stratum in income and urbanization, middle stratum, and upper stratum. The paper breaks ground by the breadth and time length of the sample. We find that purchases form the majority of rural food consumption whether in favorable or unfavorable agroecological zones and over country and income strata and for most food products. Rural nonfarm employment (as a cash source) plays an important role in household food purchases across all study countries and food products. Policy implications include the importance of food purchase markets and supply chains to and in rural areas as well as nonfarm employment.

IFPRI Malawi monthly maize market report, March 2024
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2024
MaSSP Monthly Maize Market Report

IFPRI Malawi Maize Market Report December 2023
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2024
MaSSP Monthly Maize Market Report
December 2023

IFPRI Malawi Maize Market Report February 2024
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2024
MaSSP Monthly Maize Market Report
February 2024

IFPRI Malawi Maize Market Report January 2024
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2024
MaSSP Monthly Maize Market Report

Gender, deliberation, and natural resource governance: Experimental evidence from Malawi
Clayton, Amanda; Dulani, Boniface; Kosec, Katrina; Robinson, Amanda Lea. Washington, DC 2023
IFPRI Discussion Paper
2232

Abstract | PDF (2.9 MB)

Initiatives to combat climate change often strive to include women’s voices, but there is limited evidence on how this feature influences program design or its benefits for women. We examine the causal effect of women’s representation in climate-related deliberations using the case of community-managed forests in rural Malawi. We run a lab-in-the-field experiment that randomly varies the gender composition of six-member groups asked to privately vote, deliberate, then privately vote again on their preferred policy to combat local over-harvesting. We find that any given woman has relatively more influence in group deliberations when women make up a larger share of the group. This result cannot be explained by changes in participants’ talk time. Rather, women’s presence changes the content of deliberations towards topics on which women tend to have greater expertise. Our work suggests that including women in decision-making can shift deliberative processes in ways that amplify women’s voices.

Associations between women’s empowerment and maternal depressive symptoms: A cross-sectional analysis from Balaka and Ntcheu districts in Malawi

Becker, Karoline; Bliznashka, Lilia; Doss, Cheryl; Gelli, Aulo; Kachinjika, Monice; Munthali, Alister; Mvula, Peter; Nwabuikwu, Odiche; Quisumbing, Agnes R.. Washington, DC 2023
IFPRI Project Note
December 2023

Abstract | PDF (277.9 KB)

Enhanced women's empower ment has been linked to im provements in various areas of women's lives, such as in creased access to resources, decision-making power, and a manageable workload. It can also have posi tive effects on child health out comes, including nutritional sta tus and early childhood develop ment. However, there can also be trade-offs for women, such as their own nutritional outcomes. While the relationship between women's empowerment and child health outcomes has been extensively studied, there is limited research on the relationship between women's empowerment and their own mental health, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). One aspect of mental health, maternal depressive symptoms is prevalent in these countries and can have a negative impact on both the moth ers and their children. In Malawi, Stewart et al. (2010) find that 30 percent of mothers of young children, attending a child health clinic grapple with depressive epi sodes. In this study, we explore the relationship between women's empowerment, as measured by the pro-WEAI, and maternal depressive symptoms, as measured by the 20 symptom Self-Reported Ques tionnaire (SRQ-20). The Pro-WEAI is particularly useful because it allows us to explore the relationship of various components of women’s empowerment with maternal depressive symptoms.

Lump-sum transfers for agriculture, support services, and household decision making
Ambler, Kate; de Brauw, Alan; Godlonton, Susan. 2023
Gender Equality Initiative Working Paper
December 2023