Publications

Revolution Reconsidered: Evolving Perspectives on Livestock Production and Consumption

STEPS Working paper 52

Over the last two decades much has been written about the on-going re-structuring of the global food system and its regional, national and local manifestations (McMichael 1993; Goss et al. 2000; Busch and Bain 2004; Konefal et al. 2005; Thompson and Scoones 2009). Often associated with...

Young People, Agriculture, and Transformation in Rural Africa: An “Opportunity Space” Approach

Over the last decade, both agriculture and young people have become increasingly prominent on African development agendas. Politicians, policymakers, and development professionals have confronted food price volatility, food insecurity, and the phenomenon of large-scale land grabs on the one...

Brazil and China in Mozambican Agriculture: Emerging Insights from the Field

IDS Bulletin Vol. 44 Nos. 4

Mozambique, a country undergoing rapid transformations driven by the recent discovery of mineral resources, is one of the top destinations of Chinese and Brazilian cooperation and investment in Africa. This article provides an account of the policies, narratives, operational modalities and...

Lídia Cabral & 6 others

Heifer-in-trust, Social Protection and Graduation: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Questions

Development Policy Review;31,3

This article examines the ‘heifer-in-trust’ or ‘livestock-in-kind credit’ model through a social-protection lens. Specifically it seeks to engage with debates about the use of asset-based strategies to support graduation from social protection. Drawing on project experience with dairy...

Introduction: The Young People and Agriculture ‘Problem’ in Africa

IDS Bulletin;43.6

In introducing this collection of articles we argue that policy framing and policy responses to the ‘problem’ of young people and agriculture in Africa are hampered by a lack of research and evidence that is theoretically and historically informed, conceptually sound and context...

James Sumberg & 4 others

Changing the Financial Landscape of Africa: An Unusual Story of Evidence-informed Innovation, Intentional Policy Influence and Private Sector Engagement

IDS Bulletin;43(5)

This article uses the Steven Framework to show the influence of research on the policies and practices of mobile money transfer and mobile phone-enabled payments in Africa. While it is a much discussed subject, few people know the wider narrative by which products such as M-Pesa were...

The State and Accessible Justice in Africa: is Ghana Unique?

Africa Power and Politics Programme (APPP) Policy Brief;3

The provision of legitimate and accessible justice for its citizens is one of the fundamental duties of a well-governed state. But throughout Africa the institutions of state justice are struggling to overcome problems of overload and delay, perceptions of corruption and popular...

Richard Crook

Digging in, Spreading out and Growing up: Introducing CLTS in Africa

Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS), an approach that focuses on community-wide behaviour change to stop open defecation, has spread widely but with varying outcomes in Africa.

Kamal Kar

The African Standby Force External Support to an ‘African Solution to African Problems’?

International donors and African leaders share a belief in the need for ‘African solutions to African problems' in the field of peace and security. Their goal is to lessen Africa's dependence on international support in preventing conflict escalation and establishing lasting peace.

The Last Golden Land? Chinese Private Companies Go to Africa

The widely-held perception of Chinese investment in Africa is that of large state-owned enterprises in search of natural resources.

Jing Gu

Contested paradigms of ‘viability’ in redistributive land reform: perspectives from southern Africa

‘Viability’ is a key term in debates about land reform in southern African and beyond, and is used in relation to both individual projects and programmes. ‘Viability’ connotes ‘successful’ and ‘sustainable’ - but what is meant by viability in relation to land reform, and how...

Ian Scoones

Democratisation and Foreign Aid in Africa