Farmers in developing countries face a wide array of risks. Yet they often lack formal financial instruments to protect against risks. This paper examines the impact on consumption, investment, and welfare of the separate provision of three financial products: weather insurance, savings, and credit.
... See More + The paper develops a dynamic stochastic mode to capture the essential features of the lives of West African rural households. The model is calibrated with data from farmers in Burkina Faso and Senegal, to assess quantitatively the effects of three policy interventions. For each intervention the analysis first considers a benchmark scenario that abstracts from the flaws that affect each instrument; later the assumptions are relaxed. Weather insurance offers the largest welfare gains at each level of wealth, although the gains are significantly reduced by introducing a multiple on the insurance premium. Over time, however, savings can lead to substantial gains, higher than those achievable by unsubsidized weather insurance.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7187 FEB 01, 2015
This document provides information, guidance and tools to support decision-making, planning and implementation of mining local procurement in West Africa, in particular at a country level.
... See More + It can be used by individual role players as well as form the basis of consultative processes. The guide can also support regional harmonization relating to mining local procurement. This 2015 version of the Practical Guide to Mining Local Procurement in West Africa addresses questions that are commonly asked by governments, companies, and citizens in the region. How do we define and measure local procurement? Do we create a specific policy or legislation to encourage mining companies to buy more locally? If so, what do these look like, and what has led to successful outcomes in other countries? Do we pick winner productive sectors? How do we best support suppliers to develop the right capacities and standards to meet mine requirements? What institutional framework and which actors need to be involved to deliver? Rather than laying the main responsibility for increasing domestic sourcing on the mining sector, this Guide aims at promoting a multi-stakeholder approach, in which all actors have clear roles and responsibilities. This guide has been organised into eight modules that each address a set of related questions that have been consistently raised by role players.
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This document provides information, guidance and tools to support decision-making, planning and implementation of mining local procurement in West Africa, in particular at a country level.
... See More + It can be used by individual role players as well as form the basis of consultative processes. The guide can also support regional harmonization relating to mining local procurement. This 2015 version of the Practical Guide to Mining Local Procurement in West Africa addresses questions that are commonly asked by governments, companies, and citizens in the region. How do we define and measure local procurement? Do we create a specific policy or legislation to encourage mining companies to buy more locally? If so, what do these look like, and what has led to successful outcomes in other countries? Do we pick winner productive sectors? How do we best support suppliers to develop the right capacities and standards to meet mine requirements? What institutional framework and which actors need to be involved to deliver? Rather than laying the main responsibility for increasing domestic sourcing on the mining sector, this Guide aims at promoting a multi-stakeholder approach, in which all actors have clear roles and responsibilities. This guide has been organised into eight modules that each address a set of related questions that have been consistently raised by role players.
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To improve farmer access to quality seeds and fertilizers, West African governments have been working through economic community of West African states (ECOWAS) and other regional organizations to develop harmonized rules for input trade for many years.
... See More + After extensive consultations, regional regulations based on advanced international standards have mostly been agreed upon and are already helping to guide quality improvements in some countries. Despite these encouraging signs, most countries do not currently have the physical capacity or institutional structures needed to implement the agreed trade rules which will take considerable time and investment to develop. The analysis, therefore, points to a need for pragmatic solutions that are easy for individual countries or groups of countries to implement in the near term while longer-term progress towards full harmonization continues.
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Working Paper 93630 JAN 01, 2015
Keyser, John C.; Eilitta, Marjatta; Dimithe, Georges; Ayoola, Gbolagade; Sene, Louis
This study estimates marginal increase in malnutrition for children ages 1-3 years from exposure to an extreme shock in the West African Sahel.
... See More + The study uses knowledge of a child's birth and high resolution spatial and temporal distribution of shocks, calculated from the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index and satellite-based measures of rainfall and temperature to link a child to the shock experienced in-utero. The study finds that while around 20 percent of the children in the sample are stunted or underweight, more than 30 percent of the children in the sample are highly vulnerable to either form of malnutrition.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7171 JAN 01, 2015
Beyond the terrible toll in human lives and suffering, the Ebola epidemic currently afflicting West Africa is already having a measurable economic impact in terms of forgone output, higher fiscal deficits, rising prices, lower real household incomes, and greater poverty.
... See More + These economic impacts include the costs of healthcare and forgone productivity of those directly affected but, more importantly, they arise from choices by others to avoid exposure to the disease, called aversion behavior. This report provides a systematic analysis of the channels of economic impact and the likely magnitude of that impact for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, as well as West Africa as a whole. The short-term (2014) impact of Ebola on economic output is on the order of US$359 million in foregone output in 2013 prices. Two alternative scenarios are used to estimate the medium-term (2015) impact of the epidemic. A low Ebola scenario corresponds to rapid containment within the three most severely affected countries, while high Ebola corresponds to slower containment in the core three countries, with some broader regional contagion. The estimates of the GDP lost as a result of the epidemic in the core three countries for 2015 alone sum to US$97 million under low Ebola (implying some recovery from 2014), and US$809 million under high Ebola (in 2013 dollars). Over the medium term, however, both epidemiological and economic contagion in the broader sub-region of West Africa is likely. This report uses a multi-country general equilibrium model to estimate the medium-term impact on output for West Africa as a whole. Under low Ebola, the loss in GDP for the sub-region is estimated to be US$2.2 billion in 2014 and US$1.6 billion in 2015. Under high Ebola, the estimates are US$7.4 billion in 2014, and US$25.2 billion in 2015. This analysis shows that the economic impacts are already very serious in the core three countries, particularly Liberia and Sierra Leone, and could become catastrophic under a slow-containment, high Ebola scenario. In broader regional terms, the economic impacts could be limited if immediate national and international responses succeed in containing the epidemic and mitigating aversion behavior. If, on the other hand, the epidemic spreads into neighboring countries, some of which have much larger economies, the cumulative two-year impact could reach US$32.6 billion by the end of 2015, almost 2.5 times the combined 2013 GDP of the core three countries.
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The 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus disease in West Africa has taken a devastating human toll. Although the outbreak originated in rural Guinea, it has hit hardest in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in part because it has reached urban areas in these two countries, a factor that distinguishes this outbreak from previous episodes elsewhere.
... See More + As of October 3, 2014, there had been 3,431 recorded deaths out of 7,470 probable, suspected, or confirmed cases of Ebola. This report informs the response to the epidemic by presenting best-effort estimates of its macroeconomic and fiscal effects. Any such exercise is necessarily highly imprecise due to limited data and many uncertain factors, but it is still necessary in order to plan the economic assistance that must accompany the immediate humanitarian response. The goal is to help affected countries to recover and return to the robust economic growth they had experienced until the onset of this crisis. This document presents the World Bank's preliminary estimates of the economic impact of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa for 2014 (short term impact) and 2015 (medium term impact). Section 2 presents a single set of 2014 estimates for Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, based on available data on current economic activity as well as assumptions about the short-term impact. It also presents current data on the limited current impacts on other countries in the region. Section 3 presents estimates for the impact by the end of 2015 for Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, as well as estimates for West Africa as a whole. Because the epidemic and the behavioral responses to it have more time to diverge over the course of 2015, Section 3 presents two scenarios for 2015, which vary in the optimism of their assumptions regarding the epidemic and the success of donor and government policy and efforts to control it. The take-away messages from this analysis are a low Ebola scenario that corresponds to rapid containment within the three most severely affected countries, and a high Ebola scenario corresponds to slower containment in the three countries, with some broader regional contagion. A swift policy reaction by the international community is crucial. With potential the economic costs of the Ebola epidemic being so high, very substantial containment and mitigation expenditures would be cost-effective, if they successfully avert the worst epidemiological outcomes. To mitigate the medium term economic impact of the outbreak, current efforts by many partners to strengthen the health systems and fill the fiscal gaps in the core three countries are key priorities. Finally, this report does not take into account the longer term impacts generated by mortality, failure to treat other health conditions due to aversion behavior and lack of supply capacity, school closings and dropouts, and other shocks to livelihoods. It is truly focused on the short and medium-term inputs, over the next 18 months.
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Trafficking is an emerging concern in West Africa. In 2011, 17 percent of all cocaine consumed in Europe -- 21 tons -- passed through the region, for a retail value of US$1.7 billion.
... See More + This paper discusses the evolution of trafficking in the region and provides estimates of the size and value of trafficking flows to demonstrate the significance of this illegal activity. Although this topic is gaining increasing attention, less attention has been has been paid to how trafficking is perpetuating fragility. This paper contributes to this area of research by identifying five channels through which trafficking is intensifying fragility in the region. The relative importance of each channel is discussed, with specific countries as case-study examples. Possible programmatic responses are then suggested with examples of policy approaches successfully adopted elsewhere in the world.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7079 OCT 01, 2014
Mobile phone coverage has expanded considerably throughout the developing world, particularly within sub-Saharan Africa. Existing evidence suggests that increased access to information technology has improved agricultural market efficiency for consumer markets and certain commodities, but there is less evidence of its impact on producer markets.
... See More + Building on the work of Aker (2010), this paper estimates the impact of mobile phone coverage on producer price dispersion for three commodities in Niger. The results suggest that mobile phone coverage reduces spatial producer price dispersion by 6 percent for cowpea, a semi-perishable commodity. These effects are strongest for remote markets and during certain periods of the year. The introduction of mobile phone coverage has no effect on producer price dispersion for millet and sorghum, two staple grains that are less perishable and are commonly stored by farmers. There are no impacts of mobile phone coverage on traders' gross margins or producer price levels, but mobile phone coverage is associated with a reduction in the intra-annual price variation for cowpea. These results are potentially explained by the fact that farmers engage in greater storage for storable commodities such as millet and sorghum.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6986 JUL 01, 2014
The rapid economic rise of China over the last twenty years has sustained high global demand and prices for primary commodities such as oil and minerals, greatly benefitting Sub-Saharan (SSA) African countries.
... See More + China now represents more than 20 percent of SSA's trade, up from just 2.3 percent in 1985. West Africa's share in China's trade is still quite low, 0.6 percent in 2012, but it is rising rapidly. Exports to China - oil, iron, phosphates, gold, cotton, cocoa and cashew nuts, have grown fast. However, they have not grown as rapidly as imports, resulting in a large trade deficit with China (13 percent of West Africa's GDP over 2009-2012). Reasons include a strong consumption demand for inexpensive Chinese products as well as the import-content requirements in development assistance agreements. Looking at the impact of China on West Africa, it appears that West African producers do not compete with China on third markets; by and large their products are complementary. However, West African producers are finding difficult to compete with China in their own domestic as well as in regional markets. The paper's main messages are as follows: Chinese demand for primary commodities is likely to continue in the near future, potentially benefitting West Africa. To maximize these benefits, West African countries need to maintain macroeconomic stability and to design appropriate policies to manage the volatility of commodity prices while raising the competitiveness of the economy. The current stagnation of the agricultural and manufacturing sectors in many West African countries is a sign of Dutch disease effects that should not be underestimated and need to be readdressed; and while the specific reforms needed vary from country to country, they should be comprehensive enough to generate a shift in the policy stance aimed at increasing productivity and encouraging diversification in the tradable sector. Examples of such reforms include the removal of trade restrictions among West African countries, the dismantling of formal and informal trade barriers to regional processing activities and the improvement of trade logistics.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 88349 MAY 23, 2014
Evidence from a large panel of low-income and lower middle-income countries over the period 1995-2012 suggests that, contrary to other countries, public investment in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) has been pro-cyclical.
... See More + Public investment contracts more in "bad times" than it increases in "good times" and appears to have become pro-cyclical since the introduction of the fiscal convergence criteria in 1994. The pro-cyclicality of public expenditure and the high asymmetry of shocks that affect WAEMU countries justify exploring options for greater counter-cyclicality of rules-based fiscal frameworks and for risk-sharing.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6562 AUG 01, 2013
Dessus, Sebastien; Diaz Sanchez, Jose Luis; Varoudakis, Aristomene
The objective of this project is to strengthen the supervisory capacity of the Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority (CCAA) and ensure that Douala and Yaoundé international airports meet international safety standards.
... See More + Expected results for this project are: 100% of the CCAA inspectors are trained and certified, 21 km of fence and a road for patrols are to be built around these airports, the budget share of the CCAA dedicated to aviation security is increasing, 50% of the security personnel of the airport have, at least, three years of experience , the terminals of Yaoundé and Douala are monitored 24 hours seven days a week through video surveillance equipment. Airports in Yaoundé and Douala now have security checked luggage systems, badges for authorized personnel and biometric access controls.
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