Papers by Levison Chiwaula
A Ricardian analysis of the economic impacts of climate change on agricultural production in the low-income agrarian economy: Estimates from Malawi's 2010–2019 LSMS longitudinal data
Journal of agriculture and food research, Feb 1, 2024
Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
IntroductionExternal conditionalities have shaped public policy development in borrowing nations.... more IntroductionExternal conditionalities have shaped public policy development in borrowing nations. This has been through top-down policy support programs, an example being the policy reforms under the structural adjustment program. Under the seed sector reforms Malawi committed to the Southern Africa Development Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa harmonized seed regulations technical agreements.MethodsTo contribute to the debate, we analyzed the Malawi seed sector policy process by investigating three questions: What were the leading events? Who were the stakeholders involved, and their roles? Which factors influenced the policy process? Qualitative tools were employed based on policy process theory using the Kaleidoscope Model. We used stakeholder inception, planning, feedback workshops, and key informant interviews (N = 17). This data was complemented by grey literature as secondary information. Snowball sampling was used to identify key informant inter...
Small-scale aquaculture in Malawi is thought to contribute to nutrition and food security and ser... more Small-scale aquaculture in Malawi is thought to contribute to nutrition and food security and serve as an income diversification strategy. Nevertheless, its adoption is low. Drawing on a recent survey of 734 small-scale fish farms across the country, the present study assesses the productivity and profitability of small-scale fish farms, and their determinants using regression analysis. Most fish farms are owned and managed by individual farm-households, though communally owned farms are also present. Small-scale aquaculture is found to be profitable, though the gross margins are slim. Regression results reveal that productivity and profitability are positively affected by the use of farms for both fingerling and grow-out production; the use of high-quality inputs such as commercial feed and inorganic fertilizers; and number of years the farm has existed. These results confirm that small-scale fish farmers in Malawi and other similar settings should adopt improved technologies and p...
Food Policy
Many sub-Saharan African countries implementing agricultural input subsidies programmes (AISP) co... more Many sub-Saharan African countries implementing agricultural input subsidies programmes (AISP) concentrate on fertilizers and staple food crops which may have little or no effect on consumption of diverse nutrient dense non-staple foods. The programme in Malawi -the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) -includes legume seeds, but little research has been undertaken to evaluate the effects of this strategy on household dietary diversity. In this study, we used two waves of integrated household panel survey data of 2013 and 2016 to examine the dietary diversity gains from inclusion of legume seed coupons in the programme. The control function approach for dealing with selection bias into a programme is used in Poisson regression of panel data. The results show that access as well as redemption of legume coupons is positively associated with diversified diets. This is especially though location fixed effects in the southern region of Malawi, higher production diversity, greater land holding sizes and the sale of maize. Further, households that had less need to satisfy hunger through the growing of maize were those likely to redeem legume coupons. The results suggest a more nuanced pathway of impact from coupon access, redemption or type of crop produced to dietary diversity than the pathway that might be expected, and have implications for how best to understand and conceptualise the tensions and synergies between addressing different aspects of malnutrition in all its forms -and suggest the importance of addressing food insecurity constraints that potentially limit the growing of nutrient-rich legume crops as well as wider increases to dietary diversity. The results also point to the importance of the income pathway and food markets in facilitating greater dietary diversity. Further consideration of these issues by policymakers and the wider agri-nutrition community will be important to advance the discussion and research of how best to design AISP and other public policy to address malnutrition in all its forms. • Agricultural input subsidy programmes (AISP) often focus on staple food crops. • We examined dietary diversity (DD) effects of subsidizing legume seeds in AISP. • Households that accessed and redeemed subsidized legume coupons had significantly higher DD. • Households with less need to satisfy hunger by growing maize redeemed legume coupons. • Income from the marketing of maize supports diversification of diets. • Achievement of food security incentivizes diverse crop production important for DD.
To examine key factors influencing global research spillovers, this study compares direct and spi... more To examine key factors influencing global research spillovers, this study compares direct and spillover impacts of groundnut (GN) and pigeonpea (PP) research to be used for resource allocation. The estimation of global research benefits from breeding research uses an economic surplus based international trade model. GIS tools are used to analyze applicability of new technologies across a range of agro-climatically homogeneous zones. High photoperiod sensitivity and concentrated production of PP limits global applicability of varieties and thus spillover effects are lower as compared to GN. Comparing these two crops highlights the differences across crops and their potential global benefits. Utilization of spillover measures will assist in tailoring research investments to the individual characteristics of the crop, and thus increase research efficiency and ultimately enhance diffusion of improved varieties for the benefit smallholder farmers globally.
Additional file 1: of The value of informal care in the context of option B+ in Malawi: a contingent valuation approach
Data used in the analysis. (XLSX 130Â kb)
Goal in Sub-Saharan Africa: a quantitative analysis
effect of illicit financial flows on time
Research The effect of illicit financial flows on time to reach the fourth Millennium Development Goal in Sub-Saharan Africa: a quantitative analysis
Objectives: This paper sets out to estimate the cost of illicit financial flows (IFF) in terms of... more Objectives: This paper sets out to estimate the cost of illicit financial flows (IFF) in terms of the amount of time it could take to reach the fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG) in 34 African countries. Design: We have calculated the percentage increase in gross domestic product (GDP) if IFFs were curtailed using IFF/GDP ratios. We applied the income (GDP) elas-ticity of child mortality to the increase in GDP to estimate the reduction in time to reach the fourth MDG in 34 African countries. Participants: children aged under five years.
World Development Perspectives, 2020
This paper presents the findings from a qualitative and quantitative fisheries value chain and po... more This paper presents the findings from a qualitative and quantitative fisheries value chain and post-harvest loss study conducted in four Malawian lakes: Malawi, Malombe, Chilwa and Chiuta. The research found that the estimated total value of the fisheries value chain was US $454 million in 2016 -or 7.2% of the projected 2017 GDP. This is over 2.5 times the previously reported (Government of Malawi, 2017) beach landing site value. The study found that 43%, 54% and 69% of fish have physical and quality losses at the beach, processing and marketing nodes, respectively. However, high quality loss is not proportionately affecting economic loss. The fisheries value chain experiences less than 10% annual economic losses mainly due to low pricing sensitivity of existing products. The overall economic losses are nine percent, being highest at the beach node (19.3%) and smallest at the market node (2.1%). The main reason for this unusual relationship is that pricing is not sensitive to quality, which means that almost all types of quality of product is sold resulting in a recorded relatively low overall physical loss of 4.1%. An important conclusion of the assessment is that even though the economic losses are relatively modest in relation to the total value, the quality losses, which range between 43% and 69% depending on the node, indicate that the potential for health impacts and nutritional value loss are high throughout the value chain. Value chain improvements are recommended to provide economic and nutritional benefits for end-users and value chain actors.
African Journal of Business Management, 2018
There continues to be a lack of a commonly agreed perspective of entrepreneurship despite the con... more There continues to be a lack of a commonly agreed perspective of entrepreneurship despite the concept being studied for a long period of time. Definitions of the concept and constructs of study in the field have depended on the researcher's conceptualisation of what constitutes entrepreneurship and as a result there are variations in the study focus and measurement of entrepreneurship. An analysis of literature was therefore conducted to untangle the concept of entrepreneurship towards a common perspective despite similar failed attempts by scholars in the past. The analysis showed that researchers and theorists trace entrepreneurship through the same early theorists that include Cantillon, Say, Marshall, Walker, von Thunen, Menger, von Mises, Schumpeter, Knight, Kirzner, Shane and Venkataraman etc. That means the background to the concept is the same but with varying interpretations. The underlying perspective however is that entrepreneurship is a human behaviour with identifiable driving motives and it requires definitive competencies; skills, knowledge and abilities. The behaviour is purposively exerted, involves various activities and judgmental decisions that are undertaken through a process of identifying, evaluating and exploiting opportunities to create socioeconomic value under conditions of uncertainty. Although the socioeconomic value manifests in new products or services, new sources of supplies, new methods of production, new markets and/or new organisations, it is the new organisation that is commonly recognised as the output of the entrepreneurship process. This perspective narrows and limits the understanding of the concept of entrepreneurship to new and small business ventures with implications on measurement of entrepreneurship. Our analysis shows that all variations of entrepreneurship such as sole entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, necessity motivated entrepreneurship, opportunity motivated entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship etc are connected within the broader view of the same concept, thereby presenting a common perspective of entrepreneurship.
AEA Randomized Controlled Trials, 2018
Over 70% of Malawians living in rural areas are excluded from the formal financial sector, which ... more Over 70% of Malawians living in rural areas are excluded from the formal financial sector, which has led to a drive in government's efforts towards increasing financial inclusion through expansion of digital payment systems and group savings (most importantly the Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs)), amongst others. The main aim of the study therefore was to measure the impact of mobile money and financial literacy training together with reminder SMSs among VSLAs members would induce financial inclusion and entrepreneurial outcomes. This was achieved through the implementation of a clustered randomized control trial in two purposively selected districts in Malawi. The trial had two randomly selected study groups each with 21 randomly selected VSLAs: (1) The control arm which received no intervention; and (2) The treatment arm which received face to face training on use of mobile money services for business, financial inclusion, and SMSs reminders on the content of the trainings. We used the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) regression analysis to estimate the casual effect of the intervention. The results indicate that mobile money and financial literacy promotion impacted on knowledge of mobile money services and utilisation of mobile money services. The findings show that the treatment effect of the intervention on the knowledge to use mobile to save money was 6% and the effect on the knowledge that they can take loans was 5%. The treatment effects on usage of mobile money to receive money and usage of mobile money to save money were 10% and 5%, respectively. The treatment also led to the digitization of VSLAs by 7%. With these findings, we conclude that mobile money and financial literacy training together with reminder SMSs has positive impact on mobile money knowledge and utilisation to individuals and VSLAs. The experiment fails to show significant treatment effect on financial inclusion and entrepreneurial behaviour partly due to the length and the timing of the experiment. Further research should consider observing the participants for a longer period.
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Papers by Levison Chiwaula