AGRODEP NEWS

  Bringing you together in Kigali for the March 2023 Annual AGRODEP Conference was, indeed, a critical milestone towards "normalizing" life after COVID-19. As it was our first gathering as the AGRODEP family since the global pandemic struck, this year's meeting meant different things to people who were a part of it. To see the excitement from you to come, once again together, to Kigali and be part of the conference alone was probably the best…

By: Sara Gustafson Blog originally posted on ssa.foodsecurityportal.org The number of people around the world facing severe food insecurity skyrocketed by 20 million in 2020, according to the 2021 Global Report on Food Crises, released earlier this month. Acute food insecurity now affects at least 155 million people across 55 countries/territories, with some regions facing famine-level hunger. Of the 10 worse food crises identified by…

By: Sara Gustafson Blog originally posted on ssa.foodsecurityportal.org While Africa south of the Sahara has largely avoided severe health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic (fewer than 5 percent of globally confirmed cases and approximately 89,000 COVID-related deaths), the region is experiencing economic fallout due to national and global pandemic policy responses. Economic growth, value chain functioning, incomes, trade, poverty, and…

By: Sara Gustafson Blog originally posted on foodsecurityportal.org While women contribute significantly to global agricultural production, they often lack access to credit and finance, training and extension services, resources, and land rights, putting them at higher risk of malnutrition, food insecurity, and poverty. Increasing women’s empowerment in agriculture is a critical step in ensuring gender equity and reducing hunger for…

By: Antoine Bouët, Brahima Cissé and  Fousseini Traoré Blog originally posted on telos-eu.com Mark Twain once warned, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Yet statistics are a fundamental tool for economic policy and decision-making by governments, international institutions, and even the private sector. International trade statistics play a…

By: Sara Gustafson Blog originally posted on ssa.foodsecurityportal.org In 2019, as many as 135 million people across 55 countries required urgent food, nutrition, and livelihood assistance, according to the 2020 Global Report on Food Crises. This was the highest global number of acutely food-insecure people on record. The GRFC’s mid-year update, released in early October, takes a look at recent data for 26 of those…

By: Antoine Bouet Blog originally posted on ssa.foodsecurityportal.org The third annual Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor (AATM) was released last week. The report finds both good news and bad news for Africa’s trading system, as well as some important promises. First the good news. The value of African agricultural exports grew steadily between 2003 and 2018, and African exports are expanding in several emerging and fast-…

  By: Evans Osabuohien Blog originally posted on ssa.foodsecurityportal.org Recent occurrences in the global arena, such as volatile commodity and resource markets, suggest the urgent need for African countries to develop policy options that can mitigate resource constraints and their attendant consequences. The transformation and development of Africa’s agricultural sector, especially the development of functional value chains,…

By Obayelu Abiodun Elijah and Obayelu Oluwakemi Adeola Blog originally posted on ssa.foodsecurityportal.org   Global food systems face numerous pressures including population growth, urbanization, climate change, resource depletion, health challenges, and the vested interests of food and agricultural businesses that benefit from lack of financial and regulatory responsibilities for protecting public health and the environment, to name…

  By IFPRI Communications and Public Affairs Originally posted on wca.ifpri.info   ACCRA, 4 September 2019 – A new report points to non-tariff barriers, high trading costs and a lack of product diversification as the biggest impediments to Africa’s agricultural trade performance. The Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor 2019 examines the effectiveness of efforts to increase regional trade integration and intra-…

By Tsitsi Makombe Blog originally posted on resakss.org   On May 30, 2019, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement entered into force. To trigger its implementation, the agreement needed a minimum of 22 country ratifications. The AfCFTA aims to gradually eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers, accelerate regional and continental integration, improve customs and trade facilitation, develop regional and continental…

From November 12-15, AGRODEP hosted a workshop on the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) regional office in Dakar. The workshop aimed: (a) to present recent and ongoing research related to the CFTA and to regional integration in Africa, (b) to launch an AGRODEP expert group for policy analysis and advisory services (PAAS) in the area of trade and regional integration, and…

In early November, AGRODEP held a workshop in Dakar, Senegal on Evaluation of Interventions on Agricultural Technology Adoption. At the workshop, participants learned to identify the determinants of and constraints to technology adoption, as well as approaches to promote technology adoption. They were also taught the use of field experiments methods to analyze technology adoption and engaged in Stata exercises for econometric analysis and…

The African Growth and Development Policy (AGRODEP) Modeling Consortium has launched a new special call for membership. For this particular membership call, applications from researchers engaged in trade policy analysis, value chain analysis, or agricultural transformation and investments are strongly encouraged. Applications from women researchers and from researchers from African countries which have low representation in AGRODEP are also…

The AGRODEP training course on Losses along Food Value Chains was held from October 17-19. The course was instructed by Maximo Torero and Luciana Delgado of IFPRI and Monica Schuster of the University of Antwerp. The training course was designed to provide an understanding of the key concepts and issues related to food loss and waste along value chains and the methodological approaches employed in its measure. A particular focus was the proposed…

From March 29 - April 1, AGRODEP held a training course on Tools for Value Chain Analysis. The course included a section on the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), the first comprehensive and standardized index to directly measure women's empowerment and inclusion in the agricultural sector. The course introduced participants to the proper use of the tool, as well as featuring discussions of how and why gender issues…

From March 29 – April 1, 2016, the African Growth and Development Policy Modeling Consortium (AGRODEP) hosted a two-part training course on Tools for Value Chain Analysis. The course was conducted as part of AGRODEP’s Tools for Value Chain Analysis Virtual Hub and had support from the CGIAR Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM). The aim of the course was to strengthen regional capacity for value chain analysis using two…

The AGRODEP Management Team is pleased to announce the launch of a new IGI Global title, "Handbook of Research on In-Country Determinants and Implications of Foreign Land Acquisitions," edited by AGRODEP member Evans Osabuohien. The book also includes contributions from several other AGRODEP members, including: Elijah Abiodun Obayelu, Kassa Alemu, Ciliaka M. Gitau, and Uchenna Efobi. The book …

In the 1960s, Ghana was the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans; while the country’s cocoa crop took a hit in the 1980s as a result of rampant bushfires, it has since rebounded and is now the second largest producer of cocoa beans in the world. The majority of the raw beans grown in Ghana are not processed within the country, however, and the government has been putting more emphasis in recent years on promoting industrialization…

AGRODEP organized a side event during the 2015 RESAKSS conference being held this week in Addis Ababa. Entitled “From Modeling Skill Development to Policy Analysis Support: A Future Roadmap for AGRODEP,” the session highlighted AGRODEP's capacity-building activities since its inception and outlined plans for future activities. Created in 2010 and led by IFPRI, in collaboration with several partners, AGRODEP…