Food insecurity and malnutrition are still major challenges for large proportions of households in Sub-Saharan Africa. The empirical literature on food demand, however, suggests mixed evidence on the roles of income and other socioeconomic attributes on food demand. This study analyzes the food demand among households in Rwanda, based on nationally representative household expenditures and demographic (EICV4, 2013/14) survey data. The results show that poor households consume merely food containing higher carbohydrates and starches. Further, the study finds that the majority of rural households spend almost nothing on micronutrients from animal products, suggesting that effective targeted food policy interventions for poor and rural households may play an important role in reducing the incidence of malnutrition through improving food diets.
Rwanda is experiencing rapid development and urbanization in the Post-genocide perpetrated against Tutsi (1994) period. Kigali as the capital and the leading city is undergoing remarkable changes in the process of modernization. This is being done through the rejuvenation of commercial areas, building of new business offices and quality infrastructure, improvement of urban service delivery, tourism and industrial development (Kigali Special Economic Zone). Together with a clean city policy, the City of Kigali is now known to be one of the cleanest cities in Africa. This has been effectively achieved through consistent and integrated urban policies. However, the city has been facing challenges related to informal settlements and equitable provision of urban services to all residents. In this paper, data from secondary sources, mainly official reports, policy documents and academic papers, are presented and discussed through various perspectives related to the urban growth of Kigali. Likewise, the implications of existing policies on the implementation of strategic initiatives have also been highlighted.
This study examines the impact and implications of the East African Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa preferential trade agreements on coffee export performance of eight East and Southern African countries. The analysis employed a static and dynamic gravity modelling framework for the period 1998-2013. Following several robustness checks, the study found that regional trade agreements play a vital role in increasing coffee trading in East and Southern African countries. Factors including geographical distances, income, and population size in importing and exporting countries are also statistically significant determinants of coffee exports. The study also found that the exporting countries are currently under-performing with respect to their maximum potential to the global market indicating room for improvement.
This study examined the effects of the likely change in rainfall on food crop prices in Rwanda, a landlocked country where agriculture is mainly rain-fed. The empirical investigation is based on nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag cointegration framework, which incorporates an error correction mechanism and allows estimation of asymmetric longrun and short-run dynamic coefficients. The results suggest that food crop prices are vulnerable to rainfall shocks and that the effect is asymmetric in both the short and long run. Moreover, there was evidence of seasonal differences, with prices falling during harvest season and rising thereafter. Considering the ongoing threat of global climate change, and in order to cope with rainfall shortage and uncertainty, increase food affordability and ultimately ensure food security throughout the year, there is a need to develop and distribute food crop varieties and crop technologies that reduce the vulnerability of farming to rainfall shocks.
This study has been prepared within the project Sustainable development solutions for Tanzania -strengthening research to achieve SDGs funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.
Rwanda’s “Crop Intensification Program (CIP)” is primarily a land consolidation program aimed at improving agricultural productivity and food security. The program, which began in 2007, focuses on monocropping and commercialization of six priority crops: maize, wheat, rice, white potato, beans, and cassava. CIP has facilitated easy access to improved seed stocks, fertilizer, extension services, and postharvest handling and storage services. Although studies have documented the impact of CIP on changes in farm yield, incomes, and productivity, less is known about its impact on food prices. In this study, we examine the crop-food price differences in intensive monocropped CIP and non-intensive monocropped CIP zones in Rwanda. Specifically, the study evaluates price variations of beans and maize along with complementary food crops in intensive and non-intensive monocropped zones before and after the introduction of the CIP policy. We find that the CIP policy is not associated with differences in CIP crop prices between the intensive and non-intensive monocropped zones. Over time, prices increased for CIP crops but generally, the crop prices in the two zones were cointegrated. Prices for non-CIP crops in the two different zones did show price differentials prior to the implementation of CIP, with the prices in intensive monocropped zones being greater than in the non-intensive monocropped zones. Moreover, the prices in intensive areas are cointegrated with prices in non-intensive areas for maize and beans and these prices are converging. This indicates that farmers who intensively produced one CIP crop were able to go to the market and purchase other food crops and that price differences between zones have decreased over time, potentially making the CIP intensive farmers better off.
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