Labour-intensive public works for food security in Africa: past experience and future potential

von Braun, J. and Teklu, T. and Webb, P. (1992) Labour-intensive public works for food security in Africa: past experience and future potential. International Labour Review, 131 (1). pp. 19-33.

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Abstract

The rapid evolution of public works institution in recent years, such asPAMSCAD in Ghana, DFFRI in Nigeria, as well as AGETIP in Senegal and NIGETEP in the Niger, demonstrates the extent to which past macroprice distortions (due to changes in the labour/capital price ratio) not only led to misallocation of resources in the private sector, but also prevented properpublic institutions from emerging to manage public works programmes with labour-intensive technology. Accelerated changes in this respect in the late 1980's suggest that public response is now forthcoming. There is a risk, of course that the learning costs of a fast institutional build-up will behigh, but these can be minimized by learning from both African and non-African experiences with public works programmes. Simpler than many other development instruments, the public works programme may not be foolproof, but it can be rendered very effective

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Labour; Food security; Food supply; Africa; Public works, RP8010
Author Affiliation:	IFPRI, Washington, USA
Subjects:	Social Sciences > Agricultural Economics Postharvest Management > Food Technology
Divisions:	General
Depositing User:	Mr Daneti Raju
Date Deposited:	26 Apr 2014 09:09
Last Modified:	26 Apr 2014 09:09
URI:	http://eprints.icrisat.ac.in/id/eprint/12675

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