2. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
Preamble
The presentation intends to highlight
โข The emerging challenges and opportunities facing African
microeconomic agents/actors
โข Consumers,
โข Entrepreneurs
โข Smallholder producers
โข Research issues and lessons in selected Policy and Program areas
โข Policy refers to regulations to manage behaviors and actions
โข Program refers to Investments to create incentives and resolve constraints
โข Data and methodological issues in microeconomic analysis
3. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
African consumers
Challenges
โข Income and health shocks
โข Rising food prices and other bills
โข Degradation family and community based social
transfers
Opportunities
โข Rising supermarkets and rural venders
โข Rising supply of processed and convenient foods
โข Rising awareness on diet for health and nutrition
4. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
African Entrepreneurs
(Firms and enterprises)
Challenges
โข Most are SMEs and informal
โข Competition and market power
โข Public services/infrastructures (energy, land, water,
etc.)
Opportunities
โข Availability of technologies /innovations
โข Increased access to skilled and cheap
manpower
โข Increased demand for differentiated product
and services
5. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
Smallholder Producers
Opportunities
โข Increased access to technology and advisory services
โข Rising prices for agricultural products
โข Growing demand and market for food
Challenges
โข Weather shocks
โข Rising input prices
โข Shrinking farm size
6. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
Examples of PPOs for agriculture and livelihoods
Social protection
Climate smart technologies
Digital Advisory and Information
Services
Small scale irrigation
7. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
Social protection
โข How responsive are governments to shocks?
โข How effective and efficient are the
responses?
โข Targeting efficiency
โข Distributional impacts
โข Humanitarian vs Development benefits
โข Cost of implementation
โข How important are pre-existing social
protection programs to manage emerging
shocks?
Effectiveness score of COVID-19 policy
responses
8. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
Firm-level innovations
โข Preliminary observations
โข Declining profit
โข Low and declining innovativeness
โข Clustering and ICT are critical for innovation
โข Positively associated with business
obstacles???
โข Research gaps
โข The need for generating reliable dataset
โข Targeting of public support
โข Firmsโ response to public support : innovation
platform, innovation grants
9. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
Small-scale irrigation
Observation
โข Growing interest to invest on irrigation
โข Enhancing labor productivity
โข Regular supply of raw materials for the growing
processing sector
Research gaps
โข The feasibility and scalability of SSI
โข Efficiency of SSI
โข The choice of irrigation technologies
โข Irrigation governance options
10. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
Food Safety
Drivers
โข High cost of food borne diseases
related to health and trade rejection
โข Increasing awareness of consumersโ
and policymakers on safe food /diet
quality
Research Issues
โข Constraints to compliance
โข Consumers willingness to pay for
food safety and quality
โข Harmonization of standards
Frequency of African
export rejections
African Food Safety Index
11. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
Data and econometric issues
โข Microeconomic analysis
โข Depends on micro data at firm, household
or individual levels
โข African students and researchers prefer to
depend on their own primary data
โข Challenges of working on secondary data
โข Not timely accessible
โข The variables included are not comprehensive and
specific
List of micro datasets available in many
countries
โข DHS: Demographic and Household Surveys
โข LSMS: Living Standard Measurement
Surveys
โข SAS: Seasonal Agricultural Surveys
โข Labor Force Surveys:
Global and Regional sources
โข WBES: World Ban Enterprise Surveys
โข Afrobarometer
12. #2023 AGRODEP CONFERENCE
Data and econometric issues
โข Most microeconomic studies are based on discrete choice models
โข Binary as well as multinomial choices
โข Model selection
โข While there exist plenty of Micro-econometric models, most analysis are
based on few them
โข There exist mismatches between the nature of the dependent variable
and the model selected
โข Bivariate vs multinomial choices
โข Poisson vs truncations
โข Sequential and simultaneous choices