AFRICA

The new paper investigates how youth migration in Ethiopia and Malawi affects household labor, hired labor demand, and income, and whether these effects vary by migrant sex and destination.

Africa’s impressive economic performance over the past two decades has been accompanied by a proliferation of small firms, many of which operate in the informal sector. The new paper contributes to the understanding of the role that small firms play in a rapidly growing, but still poor, African economy.

Bananas and plantains (Musa spp.) provide a major source of food and income for over 30 million people in Eastern and

The Structural Transformation of African Agriculture and Rural Spaces (STAARS) fellowship program managed by Cornell University in collaboration with PIM and other partners began in 2016 and to date has supported 14 talented early-career African researchers. We talked with two 2017 fellows, Wondimagegn Mesfin Tesfaye and Chiyembekezo Chafuwa, to learn more about their STAARS experience.

West African countries are now in a better position to perform high-quality, production-boosting agricultural research than they were a decade ago, thanks to the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP). That is the main finding of a newly published status report by ASTI’s Gert-Jan Stads and Nienke Beintema, based on new detailed agency-level data from the World Bank on the allocation of WAAPP funding and WAAPP-funded staff training.

How does the amount of land that youth expect to inherit affect their migration and employment decisions? The new AJAE article by Kosec et al. explores this question in the context of rural Ethiopia.

The Structural Transformation of African Agriculture and Rural Spaces (STAARS) fellowship program managed by Cornell University in collaboration with the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) and other partners announces a call for concept proposals from early-career African researchers seeking to become STAARS fellows in 2018. Deadline: March 15, 2018.

Agricultural mechanization is playing an increasingly important role in Africa’s rural transformation. Recent research in Ghana addresses the relationship of agricultural mechanization and economic transformation and suggests how government policies can support this process.

An international team of agricultural researchers led by a Michigan State University professor has been recognized for the quality of