community and household-level income & asset status baseline

More documents

Recommendations

Info

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Lack of data and empirically supported policy recommendations for guiding formulation, implementation and evaluation of rural development strategies and policies is a big challenge that faces many project managers in Uganda. This study was undertaken to support AFRICARE’s Southwestern Uganda Sustainable Natural Resources Management (SUNAREM) Project. The study reports the baseline statistics of key income and wealth indicators and other poverty measures. The research involved a survey of 15 communities and 203 households in the year 2003. The findings of the study support SUNAREM’s strong investment in agriculture and natural resource management (NRM) extension and training programs as primary means of reducing poverty in the southwestern region of Uganda since these efforts contribute to increasing both household income and wealth. However, our results show that participation in agricultural extension and training is less in remote areas suggesting the need to target such programs in areas with limited access to market. In using extension and advisory services to address poverty, it is crucial to ensure that the approach is responsive to local demands and conditions. Similarly, efforts to improve market access significantly contribute to poverty reduction. However, Nkonya, et al., (2004) showed that access to market also contributes to soil nutrient depletion due to harvesting and selling agricultural products without adequate replenishment of the exported soil nutrients. Hence, agricultural commercialization and efforts to improve market access need to be implemented together with efforts to address land degradation problems. Education also increases household income and asset stocks suggesting that such efforts are crucial in addressing poverty in the region. SUNAREM therefore needs to consider promoting investment in education as a way of reducing poverty in the region. v
Participation in non-farm activities increases income and asset stock. This suggests that non-farm activities are important in addressing poverty. However, there are potential barriers to entry into non-farm activities since a start-up capital and skills are required (Barrett, et al., 2001). The fact that we did not find evidence that access to credit is a major factor influencing income or participation in non-farm activities suggests that the mostly informal, short-term and small loans that the farmers are currently getting does not appear to overcome barrier to entry into non-farm activities. This points to the need to develop rural finance institutions to provide credit for agricultural modernization and for addressing poverty. Post-primary education increases the probability to participate in non-farm activities implying that education is important not only in increasing income directly, but also indirectly through its positive impact on non-farm activities. To increase the competitiveness of non-farm products, farmers’ skills in making them need to be increased through training in polytechnic and vocational schools based in rural areas. Assets, as expected are crucial in increasing income suggesting that poor farmers with limited access to land, livestock and agricultural equipment are likely to be caught in a poverty trap. These results suggest the need to target small and poor farmers through non- asset interventions that increase income. According to this study, such efforts are agricultural extension, education, programs and organizations focusing on agriculture, NRM, and health, improvement of access to market and promotion of non-farm activities. Supporting community-based organizations with a focus on social/mutual support is also an important strategy for increasing income. The Southwestern highland region has an enormous potential for improved livestock production. However, the region’s livestock production potential is dogged by limited market access, and lack of livestock product processing capacity in the region. Our results show that access to market, credit, agricultural extension and training services increase probability to vi
Page 1 and 2: SOUTHWESTERN UGANDA SUSTAINABLE NAT
Page 3 and 4: Table 9: Determinants of Choice of
Page 5: ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS AFRENA A
Page 9 and 10: increase the low access to formal c
Page 11 and 12: component is implemented under the
Page 13 and 14: 1) A well documented database of co
Page 15 and 16: Determinants of major sources of in
Page 17 and 18: Dairy production and other intensiv
Page 19 and 20: irrelevant. On the other hand, cred
Page 21 and 22: markets are poorly developed (Binsw
Page 23 and 24: Table 1: Survey Enumeration Area an
Page 25 and 26: RESULTS This section is organized i
Page 27 and 28: Source of Income Kabale (N=49) Kanu
Page 29 and 30: Determinants of Income, Asset, Choi
Page 31 and 32: Table 8: Determinants of Household
Page 33 and 34: Household size significantly increa
Page 35 and 36: more evidence that extension and tr
Page 37 and 38: Determinants of Income Strategies T
Page 39 and 40: Primary activity of household head
Page 41 and 42: CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Page 43 and 44: enhances forest-based livelihoods.
Page 45 and 46: REFERENCES Appleton, S. 2001. What
Page 47: Project Purpose: To support sustain
Page 50 and 51: Table A2.2 - Characteristics of Wea
Page 52 and 53: APPENDIX 4: DETAILED TABLES OF DESC
Page 54 and 55: Table A4.7 - Main Food Crops Grown
Page 56 and 57:
Table A4.9 - Commercial Woody Trees
Page 58 and 59:
Table A4.12 - Restrictions on Priva
Page 60 and 61:
Table A4.15 - Level of Enforcement
Page 62 and 63:
Table A4.18 - Type of Markets Mainl
Page 64 and 65:
Table A4.22 - Farmer Willingness to
Page 66 and 67:
Table A4.26 - Perceptions of Change
Page 68 and 69:
Table A5.2 - Determinants of househ
Page 70 and 71:
Livestock MLE 2 Stage MLE Forest Le
show all

community and household-level income & asset status baseline

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?