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A major determinant of input subsidy programs’ effects on the achievement of national policy goals is the extent to which they raise total fertilizer use. This study synthesizes recent literature on how the new generation of targeted input subsidy programs has affected national fertilizer use after accounting for crowding effects, and derives benefit–cost (BC) estimates of the fertilizer subsidy programs for Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia after accounting for crowding out and diversion. We highlight two major findings. First, accounting for the illicit diversion of program fertilizer can profoundly influence estimates of how fertilizer subsidy programs affect total fertilizer use and program impacts. Given recent evidence that 33% or more of total program fertilizer may be diverted before being received by intended beneficiary farmers, the failure to account for program diversion is shown to overestimate the contribution of the subsidy programs to national fertilizer use by 67.3% in the case of Malawi, by 61.6% for Zambia, and by 138.0% for Kenya. The second major finding is that the incremental value of maize output produced from these subsidy programs is considerably less than their costs in most years, except under unusually high maize price assumptions. Conventional BC analyses that do not account for crowding out and diversion may seriously overestimate the benefits of input subsidy programs. Greater attention to program design and implementation details to reduce problems of crowding out and diversion can substantially raise the returns to such programs.

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Kenya joined the ranks of sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries implementing targeted input subsidy programmes (ISPs) for inorganic fertiliser and improved seed in 2007 with the establishment of the National Accelerated Agricultural Inputs Access Programme (NAAIAP). Although several features of NAAIAP were 'smarter' than other ISPs in the region, some aspects were less 'smart'. However, the efficacy of the programme, and the relationship between its design and effectiveness, have been little studied. This article uses nationwide survey data to estimate the effects of NAAIAP participation on Kenyan smallholders' cropping patterns, incomes, and poverty status. Unlike most previous studies of ISPs, a range of panel data-and propensity score-based methods are used to estimate the effects of NAAIAP. The article then compares these estimated effects across estimators and to the effects of other ISPs in SSA, and discusses the likely links between differences in programme designs and impacts. The results are robust to the choice of estimator and suggest that, despite substantial crowding out of commercial fertiliser demand, NAAIAP had sizeable impacts on maize production and poverty severity. NAAIAP's success in targeting resource-poor farmers and implementation

Myanmar, like many low-income countries in Southeast Asia, is extremely vulnerable to the human and economic consequences of COVID-19 (World Bank 2020; Hein and Minoletti 2020). The challenges facing high density urban and rural areas are linked in many ways-epidemiological, social, economic, and political. Households and individuals vary greatly in their vulnerabilities and coping mechanisms, even in the same geographical contexts. An effective mitigation strategy for Myanmar to counter the economic and food and nutrition security consequences of COVID-19 will require a variety of interventions over time, some broad and others targeted to specific sectors or vulnerable groups, that are implemented by a variety of organizations, including private businesses, civil society, and government at all levels.

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African agricultural input subsidy programmes (ISPs) have primarily focused on conventional intensification: raising yields through increased use of inorganic fertiliser and improved seeds. Yet the yield effects from maize-focused 1 Kassie et al., (2015a) use crop diversification to refer to maize-legume intercropping and crop rotations.