Topic: poverty

ADVISORY: WRI and IMF to Host Major Speech by Lord Stern

Lauren Zelin — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:18:00 -0400

“Fostering Growth and Poverty Reduction in a World of Immense Risk”

Live webcast, video, and PowerPoint presentation available at bit.ly/sterndc

In the six turbulent years after the ground-breaking Stern Review, the risks of unmanaged climate change are substantially higher. On Tuesday, April 2, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Resources Institute (WRI) will co-host a major speech by Lord Nicholas Stern analyzing how the risks have changed, and arguing that the transition to the low-carbon economy is an opportunity for growth and poverty reduction.

Lord Stern will be introduced by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF, with commentary by Dr. Andrew Steer, President, WRI. Closing remarks will be delivered by Rachel Kyte, Vice President of Sustainable Development, World Bank.

This event will include an interactive discussion and is open to the media.

WHAT:
Address by Lord Nicholas Stern on “Fostering Growth and Reducing Poverty in a World of Immense Risk” co-hosted by IMF and WRI.

WHO:
Lord Nicholas Stern, Chair, Grantham Research Institute
Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF
Dr. Andrew Steer, President and CEO, WRI
Rachel Kyte,Vice President of Sustainable Development, World Bank

WHEN:
Tuesday, April 2, 2013

TIME:
2:30 – 4:00 p.m.
Note: Guests should arrive 15 minutes early to register; Photo ID required

WHERE:
IMF Headquarters
Building 2, Conference Hall 1
1900 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC

SOCIAL MEDIA:
Please use #sterndc to tweet about this event. We will take questions via Twitter.

RESOURCES
Live webcast, video, and PowerPoint presentation available at bit.ly/sterndc

RSVP required to press@wri.org

Implementation Strategies for Renewable Energy Services in Low-Income, Rural Areas

Sarah Parsons — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 10:10:46 -0500

Executive Summary

This issue brief is the first in a series of three that focus on expanding the delivery of affordable, renewable energy in developing countries. It describes the core business strategies employed by a group of socially oriented energy enterprises and organizations working to provide distributed, renewable energy services to low-income, rural communities and provides examples of how these strategies were implemented.

The enterprises and organizations described here promote the social, economic, and environmental benefits of delivering clean energy services to individuals and communities that are not well served by traditional energy providers. Their business models combine social and environmental objectives with entrepreneurship. Although these enterprises function across different countries and contexts, they are characterized by a common focus on clean, affordable, accessible, and scalable energy solutions. Millions of underserved people in 11 countries around the world have benefited from the work of the enterprises highlighted here.

This series is rooted in a three-day workshop held by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the DOEN Foundation in March 2012 as well as follow up interviews that gathered the experiences of 25 socially oriented energy enterprises, organizations, and financiers who understand the energy needs of low-income consumers in developing countries.

Over the course of the workshop and interviews, participants identified four core strategies common to their business models: (1) understanding consumer needs, preferences, and capacity to pay; (2) demonstrating the value of a new technology or energy service delivery model; (3) building and maintaining consumer trust in the product and the supply chain; and (4) designing financing and payment schemes that fit within consumer energy budgets.

This brief examines each of these strategies, first through exploring its rationale and then by considering specific examples of its implementation. Although the energy access solutions discussed still face obstacles for scale up, several socially oriented energy enterprises and organizations have proven that with the right delivery mechanisms, and effective and efficient financing, many consumers can access affordable, cleaner energy services.

ADVISORY: New Report Outlines Key Steps to Reduce Poverty in a Green Economy

Michael Oko — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:21:48 -0400

Despite global development progress, some 1.3 billion people are living on less than US $1.25 per day, with 900 million facing hunger. Efforts to tackle poverty are being compounded by the continued degradation of ecosystems and the effects of climate change, to which poor communities are often most vulnerable.

A new report from the Poverty-Environment Partnership, a network of bilateral aid agencies, development banks, UN agencies and international NGOs, will set out the major opportunities for reducing poverty, promoting economic growth and ensuring environmental sustainability through the transition to a green economy.

Using case studies primarily from developing countries, Building an Inclusive Green Economy for All, will outline the key building blocks towards creating a shared agenda for more inclusive and sustainable human development.

Developing and middle-income countries are home to many growth industries such as ecotourism and organic agriculture. The report will demonstrate how strategic investments in these sectors, and in the ecosystem services that account for up to 89 percent of the so-called ‘GDP of the poor’, can reduce social inequity, boost employment and promote environmental sustainability.

Members of the Poverty-Environment Partnership, including the World Resources Institute and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), will present the main findings of the report.

For more information on the Poverty-Environment Partnership, visit: http://www.povertyenvironment.net/pep

WHAT
Report launch on green economy at Rio+20

WHO
Achim Steiner, Executive Director, UNEP
Kitty van der Heijden, Ambassador for Sustainable Development, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Netherlands
Peter Hazlewood, Director of Ecosystems & Development, World Resources Institute, and a lead author of the report

DATE
Thursday, June 14, 2012

TIME
1:00 - 1:30 p.m. BRT (12:00 - 12:30 p.m. EDT)

WHERE
UN Media Centre, Pavilion 3, Rio Centro
Rio de Janeiro

For more information, contact:

Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson; Tel: +55 11 6593 8058 or +254 733 632755, E-mail: nick.nuttall@unep.org

Michael Oko, Media Director, World Resources Institute; Tel: +(202) 246-9269, E-mail: moko@wri.org

Building an Inclusive Green Economy for All

Christine Potochny — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:07:17 -0400

Foreword

While significant development progress has been achieved over the past two decades, with almost 650 million people moving out of extreme poverty in developing countries between 1990 and 2008, nearly 1.3 billion women, men and children have been left behind living on less than US$1.25 per day. Even greater numbers suffer other forms of poverty and deprivation, and inequality both within and across countries has increased. Looking ahead, the challenge of overcoming poverty and inequality will be greatly compounded by ecosystem degradation, climate change and economic disruption, which disproportionately impact the poor and most vulnerable. These increasingly interlinked crises threaten hard-won development gains and prospects for continued progress. While calls for action have multiplied, the world’s collective response has fallen far short of what is needed.

At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the Poverty-Environment Partnership (PEP) launched the influential publication Linking Poverty Reduction and Environmental Management, with the core message that sound management of the environment is vital to fighting poverty and inequality and to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A decade later, as the global community prepares for the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, moving toward an inclusive and green economy is receiving growing political attention as a promising path to sustainable development and poverty eradication.

Examples of the green economy in practice show great potential for delivering a “triple bottom line” of job–creating economic growth coupled with environmental protection and social inclusion. However, there are significant barriers to realizing this potential on a large scale. To build an inclusive green economy that is equitable and sustainable will require carefully designed policies and targeted investments that enable low and middle-income countries and the poor to contribute to and benefit from the transition. Of particular importance is the need for governance and policy reforms that extend to poor people secure rights over the environmental assets that underpin their livelihoods and well-being, and that ensure a greater voice in decisions affecting how these assets are managed. At the same time, policies and measures such as green protectionism and aid conditionality that could adversely impact low and middle-income countries and people living in poverty must be avoided if the benefits of an inclusive green economy are to be realized.

This joint Poverty-Environment Partnership paper aims to stimulate a dialogue among developing country policymakers, development partners and other stakeholders on how best to support country-led efforts to build inclusive green economies. Through a shared commitment to putting into place the building blocks of a green economy for all, real and lasting progress can be made towards overcoming poverty and inequality and achieving sustainable human development.

Access to Information Gains Ground in Africa

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:48:30 -0400

This piece originally appeared on the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) website.

Access to information is widely recognized as a cornerstone of good governance and an important anti-corruption tool. Almost 100 countries, including 10 in Africa, have national laws or decrees that recognize the public’s right to access information or records from government.

An IDRC-supported initiative launched in 2011 is looking at access to information in three African countries — Ghana, South Africa, and Uganda — through an environmental and natural resource lens. Natural resources drive the national and household economies of these and many other developing countries. Thus, promoting transparency in this sphere is considered key to assuring healthy, prosperous societies.

The “ATI in Africa” initiative is investigating to what extent citizens are gaining access to information through environment and natural resource laws and institutions. The World Resources Institute (WRI), based in Washington, D.C., is working on the two-year effort with three leading research organizations: the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, the Open Democracy Advice Centre in South Africa, and Greenwatch Uganda.

“Africa lags behind on a whole series of indicators associated with access to information,” says Peter Veit, a senior fellow at WRI who is managing the project. “But the good news is there is huge momentum for reform in Africa right now. There are probably more countries discussing, debating, and negotiating ATI bills in Africa than anywhere else in the world.”

Recent progress

Policies and practices to implement the right of access to information began to emerge in Africa only in recent years. The three project countries are at different stages of this process. In 2000, South Africa became the first country on the continent to pass an ATI law. Uganda’s Access to Information Act was enacted in 2005 but has not been fully implemented. After years of debate and a national consultation, a proposed freedom of information bill in Ghana has yet to be passed.

The right of access to information is enshrined in many countries’ constitutions. Even in the absence of comprehensive national ATI legislation, citizens and advocacy groups in Africa have used constitutional provisions or environmental laws to access information.

Research teams in the three focus countries are reviewing court cases and ATI laws, policies, and practices in the energy and natural resource sectors. Which issues arise most often? Which requests for information are most likely to be rejected? For example, is information on high-value natural resources such as oil and minerals more likely to be considered confidential than information on forestry and the environment?

Learning lessons

The teams are also incorporating evidence from Ethiopia, Liberia, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, as they review the status of ATI laws there. Says Veit: “There’s a real need across the continent for assistance to be provided South-South and North-South on how to draft ATI laws as well as those governing the extraction and use of natural resources — and how to create institutions that can deliver the functions prescribed to them in those laws.”

The researchers are making and monitoring citizens’ ATI requests, and trying to determine the extent to which particular groups can access information. They asked three types of requesters to seek information from governments: a freelance journalist, a so-called “poor citizen,” and an NGO advocate. Preliminary results from Ghana indicate that refusal rates were high for all types of requesters, especially journalists, who had the highest refusal rate of 60%.

Carole Excell, a lawyer and senior associate at WRI, points to another potential hurdle applicants face. “With two exceptions, every African country’s law refers a citizen who makes a request and is refused, to ultimately go to the courts for relief. This has really restricted the ability of citizens and journalists to seek a remedy.” In most cases, she says, having recourse to an independent ombudsman or information commissioner rather than the courts would be simpler, faster, and less costly.

Change on the ground

The researchers hope their findings will be useful to many other countries — and to the African Union as it develops a model ATI law for the whole continent. They also want to help ensure implementation of the declaration approved at the 2011 Pan-African Conference on Access to Information. The African Platform on Access to Information encourages African countries to become more transparent and was developed specifically to recognize the context and needs of African countries.

The research partners will make their work freely available to other researchers and governments, to support the creation of robust ATI laws throughout Africa. They also hope to encourage better information storage and retrieval in the region by fostering stronger and clearer laws on document archiving.

“Change on the ground is most important,” Excell says. “Our African partners want research that leads to results in policies, practices, and legal reforms.”

Map: Candice Schibli/WRI

The World Bank Group, Palm Oil, and Poverty

Beth Gingold — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:11:01 -0400

The World Bank Group should aim to achieve and measure poverty reduction, not palm oil investments.

In March 2011, the World Bank Group (WBG)’s President Robert Zoellick is expected to decide whether to lift a global moratorium on WBG palm oil investment. The moratorium was instituted as a result of the findings of a 2009 internal audit (PDF, 4.5 Mb). The audit was triggered by civil society concerns regarding an International Finance Corporation (IFC) investment in a major palm oil company in Indonesia.

His decision will be based on a review of a revised version of this draft of “The World Bank Group Framework and IFC Strategy for Engagement in the Palm Oil Sector.” The strategy document is IFC’s response to this letter and is the result of an extensive public consultation process.

Palm Oil and Public Consultations

The World Resources Institute (WRI) was an active participant and “lead discussant” in the public consultation process. WRI’s input was informed by our experience from Project POTICO. This project aims to promote sustainable palm oil production on degraded land in Indonesia in accordance with the principle of free prior and informed consent and the principles and criteria of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). WRI is currently receiving funding from the IFC’s Biodiversity and Agricultural Commodities Program (BACP) to support related work. The IFC is not responsible for the implementation or administration of the project.

The WBG’s engagement in the palm oil sector has potential to contribute to poverty reduction and social and environmental sustainability if country- and project-specific IFC and World Bank strategies are designed and effectively implemented to achieve this mission.

If the WBG removes the moratorium on palm oil investment, it is critical that issues such as the treatment of free prior and informed consent are addressed on an institutional level, and that country- and project-specific strategies be guided by clear measurable objectives, informed by relevant research, implemented with appropriate staff incentives, and measured according to its long term success in achieving poverty reduction.

Agreement on Palm Oil Potential

Despite the focus of the media on the palm oil “controversy” and “debate”, which often pits proponents of “development” against those concerned with deforestation and human rights, many voices in the private, public, and civil sectors have recognized the potential of the palm oil sector to contribute to poverty reduction. Many groups have expressed agreement with key points detailed in the WBG strategy document such as:

Palm oil is the world’s most traded and most affordable cooking oil as well as a versatile product with many uses.
Oil palm, the crop that is used to produce palm oil, has a higher yield of vegetable oil per hectare than any other major oil crop.
Palm oil production has contributed to economic benefits such as government revenues, profits for companies, employment, and raised incomes for smallholders. In Indonesia—the world’s largest producer—the industry generated US$12.4 billion in foreign exchange from palm oil exports in 2009, and supports millions of jobs and opportunities for rural farmers.
Many of the negative consequences that have been associated with the sector can be avoided when rights of local people are recognized, land use planning considers long term social and environmental impacts, and companies follow improved practices such as those required for certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

In the recent public consultations, many stakeholders agreed that some form of IFC and World Bank engagement could contribute to poverty reduction. Many participants expressed continuing willingness to engage with the IFC and World Bank, noted ongoing improvements in the process, and welcomed revisions to the second draft such as increased focus on poverty and smallholders and emphasis on coordination between the World Bank and IFC.

Potential Challenges for Poverty Reduction

Whether this poverty reduction potential can be achieved will depend on how decisions are made regarding when and how to engage or invest in particular countries, programs, or projects. Investing in the palm oil sector should be viewed as one possible means to achieve poverty reduction, not a goal in itself.

As noted by many stakeholders, and acknowledged in the WBG document, different countries and policy contexts will require different responses by both the IFC and World Bank. For example, countries in Africa and Latin America—such as Ghana or Colombia—have relatively small industries with growth potential with their own opportunities and challenges, some similar and some quite different from those in Indonesia.

As acknowledged by the strategy, the “impacts of oil palm depend on where and how it is developed.” Information from the public consultation and research conducted by the World Bank demonstrate that under some conditions IFC investment in the palm oil sector is unlikely to reduce, and may increase, poverty. For example:

Investment in some business models may not result in poverty reduction. According to a World Bank analysis of district level data in Indonesia, only smallholder production—not production by private estates—is positively correlated with poverty reduction.
Investment in some business models may increase poverty. Large-scale land acquisition for agriculture has resulted in loss of livelihoods and increased poverty (PDF, 3.5 Mb) where the regulatory and policy environment did not recognize existing rights to land and natural resources or support sustainable practices.
In some countries the prospect of IFC financing may provide little leverage for improving company practices. For example, in Indonesia the palm oil sector is already “largely self-financing” according to the government (PDF).

Many of these challenges are not unique to the palm oil sector but rather depend on the IFC and World Bank’s institutional approaches to strategy and project implementation. Many problems can be avoided by following IFC’s existing performance standards with appropriate safeguards, and by effective coordination with the World Bank and host country governments. However, some of these issues have not yet been addressed on an institutional level (for example through the Performance Standards Review process)—such as the treatment of free prior and informed consent.

Both the institutional organization of the IFC and its standard monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tools encourage the separate treatment of “economic benefits” on one hand and “social and environmental costs” on the other. This institutional approach does not explicitly acknowledge that economic, environmental and social sustainability are key parts of poverty reduction, or sufficiently address equity concerns related to the distribution of costs and benefits among different groups. In addition, past experience (PDF, 4.5 Mb) has shown problems in implementation resulting from inappropriate staff incentives and insufficient training.

Recommendations for the World Bank Group

If the WBG removes the moratorium on palm oil investment, it is critical that country- and project-specific strategies include the following:

Application of relevant research and decision-making tools. Relevant research would need to address the following questions on an appropriate country and project level: Which models result in poverty reduction? What investment needs are not met by the private sector and could be addressed by IFC investment? What necessary policies are or are not in place and how are they implemented? A new “risk analysis tool” proposed in Annex XII of the WBG document may help address these questions.
Clear measurable objectives aligned with the WBG’s mission. Objectives should aim to achieve poverty reduction, not investment in a particular sector.
Clear roles and responsibilities for the World Bank and IFC. To ensure cooperation, mechanisms for coordination and communication should be established at the outset.
Suitable measures of success. M&E tools should measure indicators related to poverty and social and environmental sustainability. Current standard tools focus on measuring financial returns and positive development impacts, while negative development impacts—such as loss of livelihoods of local people and local environmental degradation—are treated separately as “social and environmental risks” to be mitigated. Local communities are not included as stakeholders under the IFC’s standard economic performance indicators.
Appropriate staff incentives and support. Staff incentives should be aligned with poverty reduction and social and environmental sustainability goals, and not based on financial returns. Staff members also need appropriate training and support, including incentives to cooperate and coordinate across teams and institutions.
Room for improvement. Any effective strategy should explicitly include processes that allow flexibility to continually improve and receive and incorporate feedback. The recent public consultation process, which demonstrated increasing transparency and continued openness to civil society inputs, can provide a positive basis for further improvements.

New Maps Guide Livestock and Economic Planning in Uganda

Scott Thompson — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 10:06:59 -0400

A new set of state-of-the art maps will help Uganda target livestock infrastructure investments and reduce poverty.

Livestock is an essential part of Uganda’s culture, diet, and economy. Because more than 70 percent of Ugandans own livestock, improvements in livestock health and productivity can have a direct effect on the incomes and economic prospects of many of the nation’s residents—particularly the rural poor.

But where should the government focus investments? New spatial analysis can help reveal the answer.

A primary challenge for government agencies working on development issues is coordination – planning and implementing effective interventions across multiple sectors and actors. Data is often siloed, with poverty figures kept separately from information on livestock.

Read the Report

Mapping a Better Future: Spatial Analysis and Pro-Poor Livestock Strategies in Uganda, published last week by the Ugandan government and the World Resources Institute, combines social data and livestock information to yield new insights into the poverty-livestock relationship.

By examining the spatial relationships between poverty, current livestock systems and services, and animal-borne disease hotspots, the maps illustrate economic opportunities, and will help the government target the right areas for new infrastructure, health interventions, and livestock land management.

For instance, maps showing milk surplus and deficit areas highlight geographic differences in market opportunities for poor dairy farmers. About 3.5 million Ugandans currently live in areas that produce more milk than their residents consume. At the same time, approximately 800,000 poor people live in areas that do not produce enough milk. This information can help policymakers, dairy researchers and development agencies support poor farmers and invest in appropriate infrastructure in regions where it is most needed – including infrastructure to help farmers with surplus get their products to other markets.

Dairy Development Hubs and Poverty Rate

Dairy development hubs, where farmers’ milk is bulked and cooled, and where they can access credit and training, serve as community anchors. This map shows that these hubs are more likely to be located in more prosperous areas.

Mapping a Better Future is the third installment in a series of publications using maps and spatial analysis to reduce poverty in Uganda. Two previous reports targeted wetlands and water and sanitation. By providing illustrative maps and analyses of their policy repercussions, the reports demonstrate how information on the location and severity of poverty can assist decision-makers in all sectors to set intervention priorities, stimulate economic growth, and protect the Uganda’s most vulnerable citizens.

Power to the People: Investing in Clean Energy for the Base of the Pyramid in India

Maggie Barron — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 12:52:23 -0400

Executive Summary

India, a rapidly emerging economy with the world’s second largest population, is facing a surging energy demand. Its rural Base of the Pyramid (BoP) consists of 114 million households, representing 76 percent of India’s rural residents and almost 60 percent of the country’s total population. Despite their low income, these households constitute a significant consumer market for the energy services and products required to provide daily necessities such as cooking and lighting. Using the most recent available expenditure data (2004/2005), we estimated that India’s rural BoP consumers spent INR 224 billion (US$4.86 billion) per year on their energy needs.

What is the Base of the Pyramid?

The Base of the Pyramid (also referred to as the Bottom of the Pyramid) refers to the estimated 4 billion people around the world who are poor by any measure and have limited or no access to essential products and services such as energy, clean water, and communications. Globally, people in this socioeconomic group earn US$1 to US$8 in purchasing power parity (PPP) per day. Yet these households often pay higher prices than wealthier consumers do for lower-quality goods and services because of uncompetitive markets.

Since this report focuses specifically on rural India, we define the rural Indian BoP market as households in the bottom four expenditure quintiles (based on data from the National Sample Survey Organization) that spend less than INR 3,453 Indian rupees (US$75) on goods and services per month. This definition represents a market of 114 million households, or 76 percent of the rural population.

In 2005, approximately 45 percent of India’s rural BoP households still did not have reliable access to electricity and relied on kerosene for lighting, and more than 85 percent of rural BoP households mostly used conventional free or inexpensive sources of fuel, such as firewood and dung, for cooking. These fuel sources, however, are not only harmful to users’ health but also contribute to pollution and environmental degradation.

A growing number of Indian companies see a market opportunity in providing rural BoP households with access to alternative cooking and electricity solutions and consequently are developing clean energy products and services for this market.

“Clean energy” refers to products and services that produce energy from renewable resources and emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions than does energy from conventional fuel sources. The lack of a reliable supply of power from the electricity grid and the availability of free and inexpensive fuels, such as wood and kerosene, are key influences on this market. In this report, we focus on two areas in this growing, high-potential market: clean energy electricity systems and clean energy cooking and light products. We examined a representative selection of companies selling solar lanterns, solar home systems, energy-efficient cookstoves, and electricity generated from decentralized sources, including small hydro power plants and biomass gasifier systems.

About this Report: Informing Investors

The goal of this report is to inform investors about the market potential of the clean energy industry serving India’s rural BoP market, by looking at its opportunities, challenges, and potential paths to growth. The purpose of our report is to present an overall picture of these growing clean energy sectors, rather than to provide investment advice on individual companies.

The potential opportunity for investors in the Indian clean energy market for the rural BoP is significant. We estimated the aggregated potential market for the four sectors studied in this report to be INR 97.28 billion (US$2.11 billion) per year, including INR 94.06 billion (US$2.04 billion) for decentralized renewable energy services and INR 3.22 billion (US$70.1 million) for energy products per year.

Our analysis shows that clean energy services and products may require an upfront investment three to ten times greater than that for conventional energy sources such as kerosene and firewood, which often are subsidized or free to India’s rural consumers. Yet despite these and other drawbacks, the average annual gross revenue of the companies profiled in this report has grown 36 percent since 2004.

Mapping a Better Future: Spatial Analysis and Pro-Poor Livestock Strategies in Uganda

Maggie Barron — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 11:09:54 -0400

Executive Summary

Livestock represents an essential part of Uganda’s agriculture, culture, and economy. While the growth of Uganda’s total agricultural output has declined, livestock trends are up considerably. The total number of cattle, sheep, and goats more than doubled between 2002 and 2008, and the number of pigs and chickens grew by 88 and 59 percent, respectively. Beef and milk production both increased by 8 percent in 2008 alone.

Additional Resources

Mapping a Better Future: How Spatial Analysis Can Benefit Wetlands and Reduce Poverty in Uganda

Mapping a Healthier Future: How Spatial Analysis Can Guide Pro-Poor Water and Sanitation Planning in Uganda

Livestock are particularly important to the subsistence agriculture on which seven out of ten Ugandans rely for their livelihood. While income from livestock provides only one of many sources of income for rural households, people typically rank livestock as their second or third most important means of livelihood. It is not surprising then that over 70 percent of all households in Uganda owned livestock in 2008. Indeed, smallholders and pastoralists dominate the livestock sector. Farming households with mixed crop and livestock production and pastoralists together own 90 percent of Uganda’s cattle and almost all of the country’s poultry, pigs, sheep, and goats.

Uganda’s policymakers have acknowledged the importance of livestock to household incomes, the achievement of national food security and the Millennium Development Goals, as well as to employment creation and poverty reduction. Thus, as part of its National Development Plan covering 2010/11-2014/15, the government intends to boost meat and dairy production by increasing its investments in improved breeds, water infrastructure for livestock, and better management of rangeland and forage resources.

Rationale and Approach

Ensuring that government investments in the livestock sector benefit smallholders and high-poverty locations will require more evidence-based local planning supported by data, maps, and analyses. Mapping a Better Future: Spatial Analysis and Pro-Poor Livestock Strategies in Uganda is intended to address this need. To do so, it compares the latest 2005 poverty maps with maps of livestock data from the 2002 population and housing census and the 2008 national livestock census. Using these data, it examines the spatial relationships between poverty, livestock production systems, the location of livestock services such as dairy cooling plants, and livestock disease hotspots.

By providing illustrative examples of maps that can be developed with these indicators and analyses of what they mean for policy, this report demonstrates how information on the location and severity of poverty can assist livestock sector decision-makers in setting priorities for interventions.

Similarly, decision-makers concerned with poverty reduction will see how comparing levels of poverty in a given location with maps of livestock indicators can inform efforts to fight poverty.

This report is intended for a variety of audiences, including analysts and decision-makers in the livestock and dairy sectors, personnel involved in livestock research and advisory services, officials involved in national planning and budgeting, and civil society and nongovernmental organizations. It is motivated by the fact that, while there is a growing body of knowledge about Uganda’s livestock sector, comparatively little is known about the interrelationship between livestock and poverty. Two factors have contributed to this knowledge gap: (1) Household surveys undertaken to date in Uganda have not managed to break down household income into its various components so that an explicit link can be made between welfare and the role of livestock at the household level; (2) Subnational poverty and livestock data for small administrative areas have only recently become available.

The spatial analysis approach taken in this report provides a way forward. It suggests that by integrating more detailed information on livestock distribution, animal husbandry and veterinary service provision, disease incidence, and poverty, planners can more effectively design and target livestock management interventions and policies so that the benefits reach a greater proportion of poor communities and the costs associated with land-use changes or new restrictions on livestock use do not disproportionately affect the poor.

Findings

While the maps and analyses in this report are primarily designed to demonstrate the value to decision-makers of combining social and livestock-related information, they also support the following conclusions:

Maps showing milk surplus and deficit areas can highlight geographic differences in market opportunities for poor dairy farmers and help target knowledge dissemination, market infrastructure investments, and service delivery to dairy farmers.
Maps showing animal (and human) disease risk by livestock production system can help target and prioritize areas for intervention. The impact of disease on livestock and their owners differs geographically because the role of livestock in peoples’ livelihoods varies among production systems.
Mapping poverty, livestock production systems, and distribution of disease vectors such as tsetse allows a better understanding of how the disease affects livestock owners in terms of livelihoods, welfare, and food security.

Recommendations

Strengthening the supply of high-quality spatial data and analytical capacity will provide broad returns to future planning and prioritization of livestock sector and poverty reduction efforts. Priority actions to achieve this include:

Fill important livestock data gaps, regularly update data, and continue the supply of poverty data for small administrative areas.
Strengthen data integration, mapping, and analysis through regular and focused training that promotes understanding of the whole livestock production system.

Promoting the demand for such indicators and spatial analyses will require leadership from several government agencies, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Ministry of Local Government, and National Planning Authority. Actions in the following three areas carry the promise of linking the supply of new maps and analyses with specific decision-making opportunities:

Incorporate poverty information in livestock-related interventions and in regular performance reporting for the livestock sector.
Incorporate livestock sector information into poverty reduction efforts.
Incorporate poverty maps and maps of livestock production systems, disease risk, etc. into local decision-making.

Q&A: Clean Energy for India’s ‘Base of the Pyramid’

Saurabh Lall — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:38:06 -0400

WRI’s new report, in collaboration with CDF-IFMR, looks at the market potential for clean and renewable energy in rural India.

Why did you decide to research market opportunities for clean energy in rural India in your new report, Power to the People?

There’s a serious need to look at how better energy solutions – energy that is clean, reliable, and affordable – could be provided to low-income populations in rural India. Because grid electricity isn’t consistently available in rural areas, people meet their basic energy needs with sources like kerosene, diesel generators, firewood, and dung. These fuel sources are cheap, but they’re also unreliable, highly flammable, and harmful to people’s health – the World Health Organization estimates that indoor air pollution from smoke causes 1.6 million deaths per year around the world. Cumulatively, these fuel sources are also very polluting and damaging to the environment.

Read the Report

At New Ventures, WRI’s center for environmental entrepreneurship, we provide business development services for many great environmentally-focused companies that are coming up with innovative solutions to this problem, with solar lanterns, energy efficient cookstoves, and other renewable energy technologies. We realized that if renewable energy is going to provide a clean and cost-effective solution for poor rural households, all of these companies that New Ventures and other organizations support are going to need to scale up.

One of the critical elements in any scale-up is investment. So we collaborated with CDF-IFMR to find out more about the market opportunity and investment potential of companies operating in this sector as well as the challenges they face reaching their potential. How well are these companies serving this market? How can investors help them? The combined research and market expertise of New Ventures/WRI and CDF-IFMR allowed us to produce a report that will help investors understand the opportunities and challenges of the clean energy sector serving the rural poor in Indian.

Why can’t rural households simply depend on the electrical grid?

Rural electrification has been growing in recent years, but it’s still pretty slow. From 2000 to 2005, the percentage of electrified rural households in India only increased from 48 to 55 percent. Even households that are connected to the grid often find that their electricity is poor quality. Cities are the priority when providing electricity, and so rural areas only get a few hours of electricity a day, and it’s a very low voltage. In some cases it’s barely enough for a light bulb.

If there are renewable products and services available, there is a market and people willing to pay for them, even in very poor communities.

In your report you find that despite low incomes, poor rural households are a significant consumer market for clean energy. Why is that?

About 45% of the 150 million rural households in India do not have a reliable source of electricity. In this report, we focus on the very poorest sectors with monthly spending below $75 per month that represent the rural “base of the pyramid” (BoP) in India. This portion of the population amounts to 114 million households.

A communal cooking oven for a small village in the Kutch, Gujarat, India. Photo credit: flickr/orange tuesday.

In our research we found that the rural BoP is willing to pay for energy services. They see the benefits and consider energy to be essential. Right now, the Indian BoP already spends $4.8 billion per year on energy usage, and that’s mainly for potentially harmful and inefficient fuels like firewood, kerosene, diesel generators, and biomass for cooking. The main takeaway from our report is that if there are renewable products and services available, there is a market and people willing to pay for them, even in very poor communities.

Which sectors did you study?

We honed in on four specific sectors that offered the most potential for growth in the rural BoP market. At the individual household level, we studied solar lanterns and energy efficient cookstoves. And at the community level, we looked at small hydro and biomass gasification, which can supply energy to a local area without depending on the grid. The market for decentralized renewable energy generation has the largest potential because it mimics grid based electricity, which is what consumers want.

What are some of the benefits of meeting the energy demands of rural communities in India?

Shopping by lamplight at a roadside fruit and vegetable market. Photo credit: flickr/Artiii.

Electricity acts as an economic multiplier. It has a huge impact on productivity and living standards. For smaller shops, dependable energy means they can keep their shops open longer, and they can use refrigeration to keep products fresher. In our research we came across a company that rents solar lanterns to street vendors. Vendors pay a few rupees to rent a lantern, and they can keep their stalls open later into the night, increasing trade.

With electricity, you also see people adding more value to what they sell—farmers can process their crops and sell the resulting products for more money. Electricity also improves education standards by providing students with better light for studying. This will have a long term impact on families’ economic status.

Why has it been difficult so far for renewable energy companies to grow in rural areas?

The biggest challenge at the moment is distribution. Companies producing solar lanterns and energy efficient cookstoves are having trouble establishing rural retail networks that can effectively penetrate the rural BoP market. There’s also the challenge of maintaining and servicing products over such a far-flung customer base, which is essential to keep customer’s confidence in the technology. Some companies are solving this problem by partnering with NGOs and Market Development Organizations (MDOs) who already operate in rural markets. They have the retail distribution chains to promote socially and environmentally beneficial products, and they can also offer financing to consumers. For investors looking for new opportunities to invest in the clean energy market, while creating a positive environmental and social impact, we think this is a key success factor to look for in companies – strong partnerships with on-the-ground MDOs that can raise awareness and build the market.

In terms of policy, the Indian government provides a number of incentives such as capital subsidies, tax holidays and low-interest loans for renewable energy companies, which have really helped the sector grow in recent years. But there are still subsidies and government policies that contradict these incentives. The government heavily subsidizes kerosene, for example, which undermines the market for competing clean products like solar lanterns. It’s a challenge to sell a solar lantern for $10 when a family can get kerosene for much less than that, even if in the long term the solar lantern would be a better investment. Poor families have uncertain periods of income, so it’s hard for them to make a significant up-front investment in any energy solution.

What policy solutions do you recommend?

Since so many people are dependent on the kerosene subsidy, the government can’t just cut it off. But we recommend that the government shift to an open-ended lighting based subsidy, to allow people to choose which technology they want to use, including solar lanterns and other clean lighting solutions. This would incentivize people to try new technologies that they might not be familiar with, and that actually work much better than kerosene or firewood.

The Indian government also has certain “priority lending sectors” that Indian banks are required to lend a certain amount of money to, like education, microfinance, and rural banking. It would be great if renewable energy was included in this group, especially since it’s one of those sectors that has a spill-over effect into the overall economy.

What is your advice to interested investors?

At this stage, the sector needs patient capital and pragmatic expectations. Some companies also need short-term debt financing to free up cash flows so they can expand their businesses. The decentralized renewable energy (DRE) sector is the most mature, and appears ready to absorb mainstream capital.

While the demand for solar home systems, solar lanterns and energy efficient cookstoves is currently limited, it has the potential to grow significantly as upfront product prices are reduced through design and manufacturing advances, lower distribution and marketing costs through partnerships and the availability of consumer financing options.

Investors can assist market growth by providing capital as well as more strategic, nonfinancial resources such as business expertise and access to networks. If market challenges are overcome, the future rewards for investors and benefits to India’s rural consumers are likely to be significant.

For more information on investing in companies that serve the Base of the Pyramid, check out the New Ventures website.

The Centre for Development Finance at IFMR is a non-profit action research think tank focused on improving government systems and markets capacity to channel finance into sustainable, holistic development.

The Rural Market Insight group at CDF develops key insights using qualitative research methodologies and traditional market research tools to help companies and investors understand what it takes to create sustainable and scalable social enterprises in the rural context.

NEWS RELEASE: New Maps Show Economic Opportunities for Poor Livestock Farmers in Uganda

Jessica Forres — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 16:25:53 -0400

The World Resources Institute (WRI) is unveiling today a new set of maps illustrating possible market opportunities for Uganda’s livestock farmers living in poverty. The maps compare for the first time 2005 poverty levels with livestock data from the 2002 population and housing census and the 2008 national livestock census.

“Seven out of ten households in Uganda own livestock, making it an integral part of Ugandans’ diet, culture, and income,” said Hon. Hope R. Mwesigye, Ugandan Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries and co-author of Mapping a Better Future: Spatial Analysis and Pro-Poor Livestock Strategies in Uganda. “The maps are meant to guide the government’s future investments to reduce poverty while strengthening the livestock sector.”

  Hon. Syda N.M. Bbumba, Uganda Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, said, “Examining the spatial relationships between poverty; livestock systems; location of livestock services, such as dairy cooling plants; and livestock disease hotspots can provide new evidence-based information to help craft more effective investments and poverty reduction efforts.”

  While Uganda’s total agricultural output has declined, livestock figures have increased dramatically in the last decade due to strong domestic and regional demand for livestock products, according to the report.

“Increased livestock production carries both economic opportunities for Ugandans and greater risk for transmission of animal diseases,” said Nicholas Kauta, Commissioner of Livestock Health and Entomology at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries. “The maps included in this report will help Uganda’s leaders understand market opportunities and, at the same time, target at-risk areas for disease outbreaks with appropriate health intervention plans.”

For instance, maps showing milk surplus and deficit areas can highlight geographic differences in market opportunities for poor dairy farmers. According to the maps in the report, about 3.5 million people live in subcounties identified as producing more milk than their residents consume and approximately 0.8 million poor people live in areas where the demand for milk is greater than supply. This information can help policymakers, dairy researchers and development agencies gauge market opportunities and invest in infrastructure where it is needed the most.

“By combining social data and livestock information and analyzing the map overlays, decision-makers from different sectors can work together to identify solutions to complex problems facing communities such as diseases that affect both people and livestock,” said Norbert Henninger, senior associate at WRI and co-author of the report.  

John B. Male-Mukasa, executive director of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, said, “Uganda’s government acknowledges the importance of livestock to the nation’s economic development and food security, and as part of its 2010-2015 National Development Plan, it plans to invest in improved livestock breeds, water infrastructure, and livestock land management. The maps in this report will be useful in identifying the regions where investment is needed most dearly.”

Mapping a Better Future is the third installment in a series of publications using maps and spatial analysis to reduce poverty in Uganda, following two previous reports which targeted wetlands and water and sanitation.

Using Nature to Reach the Millennium Development Goals

Janet Ranganathan — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:13:45 -0400

To regain momentum on the MDGs, we must recognize the role of healthy ecosystems in successful development.

Over 140 heads of state gathering in New York today to assess progress on the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) must face a stark reality. Most developing countries will fall short of one or more of the eight goals, aimed at vanquishing extreme poverty and delivering basic services to the world’s poor.

Progress is faltering under an intensifying triple challenge: endemic poverty; the early destructive impacts of climate change; and the loss of nature-based services (water, food, fuel wood etc) on which most of the world’s two billion rural poor depend.

While encouraging progress is being made on certain MDGs outside cities – for example, in providing access to clean drinking water and ante-natal care – rural areas remain the hotbeds of entrenched poverty in most developing countries. Only four in ten rural families have improved sanitation, for example, and their children are twice as likely not to attend school as their urban counterparts. Yet these same rural regions will increasingly bear the brunt both of livelihood-threatening climate change impacts such as extended droughts and changed rainfall patterns, and the consequences of accelerating ecosystem degradation. It is not uncommon for poor households to obtain half to two-thirds of their income from the goods and services that nature provides. And for the 1.1 billion people living in extreme poverty, ecosystem services such as food and water are essential for daily survival. Yet research suggests that 60% of the ecosystem services on which humanity depends are being systematically degraded.

How can the heads of state gathered in New York change this disturbing dynamic? One answer will be forthcoming at a high level event on the margins of the MDG Summit attended by top officials from governments, UN agencies and civil society groups. Hosted by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the event will seek to reinvigorate progress toward the MDGs by calling for a global effort to scale up local nature-based solutions to eradicating poverty and strengthening people’s resilience to climate change.

In a keynote speech, UNDP Administrator and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark will propose that projects which anchor local economies and food security in sustainable use of ecosystems should be scaled up across the developing world to help meet the MDGs. Her remarks, in which she will also call for the environment to move “from the periphery to the center of development thinking” reflect a growing recognition within aid agencies of the key role of healthy ecosystems in successful development.

2010 Winners of the Equator Prize

The Equator Prize is awarded to recognize and celebrate outstanding community efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation of biodiversity. Some examples of this year’s winners:

In Cameroon, a community-funded Rural Resource Centre provides farmers with training in sustainable tree nursery management, watershed protection, soil fertility restoration, microfinance, and market supply chains for tree seedlings and farm produce. Wheat yields have increased by 200 percent, potato harvests by 300 percent, and the average number of trees planted per household has risen from 10 to 120.
In the Philippines, the Trowel Development Foundation is employing climate-adapted aquaculture technology to replant mangroves and populate community-managed crab farms, improving aquatic biodiversity, food security and local livelihoods – and doubling the income of fishing households.
In Brazil, in an effort to halt tree clearance and migration, the non- governmental organization RECA has trained forest communities in agro-forestry techniques. With help from research institutions and government ministries, RECA has facilitated access to new markets for local farm products, including squash, cabbage, seeds, and oil and fat substances derived from milk and used in cosmetics.

Decades of field experience in Africa, Asia and Latin America have taught that community-led projects that conserve biodiversity and generate economic and other benefits can greatly improve quality of life. The 2008 World Resources Report, produced by the World Resources Institute, World Bank, UNDP and UNEP, demonstrated a clear link between scaling up nature-based income for the poor and improving rural communities’ economic, social and environmental resilience. And the latest winners of the Equator Prize, to be honored at today’s UNDP event in New York, demonstrate successful formulae for community- led initiatives on three continents that sustainably use fisheries, forests and other natural resources to improve local populations’ lives and livelihoods (See sidebar).

To scale up local solutions such as these – and regain momentum on the MDGs – will not be an easy task. A joint WRI and UNDP analysis prepared for the MDG Summit, Ecosystems, Climate Change and the MDGS: Scaling Up Local Solutions, argues that governments and donors should adopt a five-point framework for action which would provide a roadmap forward by:

Putting in place supportive policies and incentives, such as secure land tenure;
Helping communities’ gain the skills to more fully benefit from nature on their doorstep;
Fostering the sharing of best practices across regions and continents;
Finding the financing for deployment of local nature-based initiatives across the developing world;
Monitoring and assessment of such scaled up initiatives to improve accountability and learn lessons.

Preserving nature and pursuing economic development used to be seen as mutually exclusive; one had to be sacrificed in the interests of the other. In fact, it is increasingly clear that, at least for the rural poor, sustaining nature and pursuing successful, climate-resilient development are mutually dependent. Without an approach that embraces both, any hope of achieving all the Millennium Development Goals will recede over the horizon.

Further Reading

See Bono’s piece in the New York Times: M.D.G.’s for Beginners … and Finishers
Read WRI’s analysis prepared for the MDG Summit, Ecosystems, Climate Change and the MDGS: Scaling Up Local Solutions

Ecosystems, Climate Change and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): Scaling Up Local Solutions

Maggie Barron — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:00:39 -0400

This Working Paper has been jointly produced by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the high-level event on Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Climate Change: Scaling Up Local Solutions to Achieve the MDGs, in support of the UN MDG Review Summit (September 2010).

Ecosystem decline and climate change together are altering the rules of development, bringing a new urgency to the MDG agenda. Because ecosystem services typically account for a substantial portion of the incomes of the rural poor, current trends in ecosystem decline threaten the very basis of their household economies. Climate change will place additional stresses on ecosystems and further intensify the challenges facing the rural poor, undermining efforts to accelerate and sustain progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

To meet this confluence of threats and attain the MDGs, rural development strategies will have to adjust. Effective strategies must enhance the livelihood opportunities of the rural poor while sustaining the ecosystem services on which they depend; must be able to achieve sufficient scale to have a broad effect; and must be designed to increase economic, social, and ecological resilience to climate change.
Three decades of development experience has shown that action at the local level—with local organizations as key actors—underpins the success and sustainability of most environment and development initiatives. Poverty reduction strategies and climate change interventions can’t succeed without being rooted in the perspectives, capabilities, and actions of local organizations.
Local ecosystem-based initiatives have a demonstrated potential to generate economic, social, and environmental benefits for the participants. There is a direct relationship between the health of ecosystems and the opportunities of the poor to build assets, increase their food security, improve their health, reduce risks, and have more secure lives— in short, to achieve the MDGs.
Scaling up such local ecosystem-based initiatives is necessary if they are to achieve sufficient impact. This requires effectively channeling resources and developing capacity at the local level, combined with supportive policy and institutional reforms at higher levels.
Now is the time to act on the potential of local action and to tackle the challenge of scaling up successful ecosystem-based approaches to poverty reduction and the threats of climate change and ecosystem decline. Interest in local approaches is growing; funding for local efforts at climate change adaptation is increasing; and the international community has renewed its commitment to achievement of the MDGs. A joint effort to provide the enabling conditions for scaling up local ecosystem-based initiatives could be an effective route to localizing the MDGs, sustaining ecosystem services and biodiversity, and improving rural adaptation to climate change.
An action framework to scale up local ecosystem-based initiatives should include five key elements.
- Forging an enabling policy environment that provides the poor with secure resource rights, market access and fair regulations, and a voice in local and national decision-making.
- Building local capacity and providing support services, to ensure that local groups have the skills and support they need to sustainably manage local ecosystems and run successful enterprises.
- Ensuring equitable access to finance, from both traditional sources and from emerging sources of environmental and climate finance, so that local groups have sufficient investment and operating capital to carry out their plans.
- Facilitating learning and knowledge sharing, in order to share best practices, speed up the innovation cycle, and to inform policymakers and policy processes.
- Adopting a programmatic approach to scaling up that goes beyond a project-by-project focus to adopt a comprehensive and coordinated effort among government, NGOs, international development agencies, and the private sector to foster the enabling conditions for scaling.

Tsetse Distributions, Uganda

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:49:19 -0400

It is estimated that some 70 percent of Uganda is infested with 11 species of tsetse, each of which occupies a different ecological niche. This map shows the aggregate distribution of three tsetse species in Uganda – glossina fuscipes fuscipes, g. pallidipes, and g. morsitans submorsitans.

Dairy Development Hubs and Poverty Rate by Subcounty, Uganda

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:44:03 -0400

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Overview

Dairy development hubs, where farmers’ milk is bulked and cooled, and where they can access credit, training, knowledge, and inputs through farmer-owned enterprises, serve as community anchors. When fully functioning, the dairy hub is a dynamic cluster of services and activities that generate greater income for farmers. By using this system, the quality of milk passing through the traditional market will be improved and access to formal markets will be facilitated through farmer owned-and-operated chilling plants.

This map displays dairy development hubs and a 20-kilometer ‘buffer’ zone. The circles (outlined in blue for ten hubs with chilling plants and in red for five traditional market hubs) approximate catchment areas from where the milk is expected to be supplied by local farmers.

Data Sources

International boundaries (NIMA, 1997), district administrative boundaries (UBOS, 2006a), subcounty administrative boundaries (UBOS, 2002a), water bodies (NFA, 1996; NIMA, 1997; Brakenridge et al., 2006), economic development hubs (ILRI, 2009), milk surplus (ILRI calculation based on IFPRI, 2002), and poverty density (UBOS and ILRI, 2008).

Copyright

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License . Cite “World Resources Institute.”

Other WRI Featured Maps

This map is part of a continuing project to produce maps that shed light on significant environmental issues throughout the world.