S4 Ep18: Harnessing technology to boost African agriculture

In a world of economic nationalism rather than integration, the export-led pathway to development that transformed China, Vietnam and other countries might no longer be effective. Instead, Penny Goldberg tells Tim Phillips, policies for poverty reduction now also need to answer the question of where demand will come from, and that may require more emphasis on creating a domestic middle class.

Agriculture makes up a large share of employment and GDP in Africa, but crop yields remain stubbornly low. VoxDev has published Issue 2 of Agricultural Technology in Africa, which reviews what the published literature can – and cannot – explain about this stagnation. Chris Udry, one of the editors, tells Tim Phillips about the impact of this stagnation on living standards in Africa, and insights from recent research that can potentially make a difference. Read the VoxDevLit: https://voxdev.org/voxdevlit/agricultural-technology-africa

How can we take what we learn in educational RCTs and apply it at scale to many schools, maybe in many countries? Adrienne Lucas talks to Tim Phillips about the project she was part of to improve learning in Ghana, the difference between small- and large-scale trials, and the challenge of implementing policies results without perfect compliance or daily monitoring.

In high-income countries, we take a reliable electricity supply for granted. But in parts of the world where that reliable electricity supply isn’t available, what is the effect of frequent power outages on employment? Justice Tei Mensah of The World Bank tells Tim Phillips about how power cuts translate to job cuts.

In September 2022 António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, convened the Transforming Education Summit by telling education stakeholders from around the world that education is “beset by inequalities and struggling to adjust to the needs of the 21st century”. Their task: to tackle the global learning crisis by transforming their education systems. Robert Jenkins of UNICEF talks to Tim Phillips about the progress that has been made to solve what he calls “the global learning crisis”.

What determines how a war is fought, and who chooses to fight it? Eleonora Guarnieri of the University of Exeter talks to Tim Phillips about how cultural distance influences whether, and how, sexual violence is used as a weapon of war – and its role in civil conflict in Africa.

If you go to college in a low- or middle-income country (LMIC), how does it help you, and what do you get from it? Two questions that would seem to have obvious answers – but these questions may be more complicated for policymakers to answer than they seem. Jishnu Das tells Tim Phillips that “the demographic dividend seems to be turning into a demographic nightmare” – and what researchers and policymakers can do about it.

Does being rich make us happy, or is it being richer than other people that matters? Will interventions that alleviate poverty also improve someone’s well-being? If we can improve a person’s mental health, does this have an economic effect too? Johannes Haushofer and Daniel Salicath tell Tim Phillips what we know so far about these questions, and how future research can help us understand the psychology of poverty.

Who should select political candidates, the people or the party? Abou Bakarr Kamara and Niccoló Meriggi talk to Tim Phillips about an experiment in Sierra Leone that convinced two major political parties to adopt a primary system for candidate selection. Did that mean that different candidates stood in the election, and that different MPs were chosen?   Photo: Carol Sahley/USAID

Universal basic income – UBI – has always been more an economic thought experiment than serious policy idea. It’s now being taken seriously, but any large-scale implementation would need solid empirical evidence to justify the cost. Tavneet Suri tells Tim Phillips about the surprising insights from the early stages of a decade-long test of UBI in Kenya, and what we expect to learn as the experiment progresses.