RESUMO
Background: Value chain interventions have become widespread throughout the international development sector over the last 20 years, and there is a need to evaluate their effectiveness in improving women's welfare across multiple dimensions. Agricultural value chains are influenced by socio-cultural norms and gender dynamics that have an impact on the distribution of resources, benefits, and access to opportunities. While women play a critical role in agriculture, they are generally confined to the least-valued parts of the value chain with the lowest economic returns, depending on the local, social and institutional contexts. Objectives: The review assesses the effectiveness of approaches, strategies and interventions focused on women's engagement in agricultural value chains that lead to women's economic empowerment in low- and middle-income countries. It explores the contextual barriers and facilitators that determine women's participation in value chains and ultimately impact their effectiveness. Search Methods: We searched completed and on-going studies from Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection (Social Sciences Citation Index [SSCI], Science Citation Index Expanded [SCI-EXPANDED], Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science [CPCI-S], Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities [CPCI-SSH], and Emerging Sources Citation Index [ESCI]), International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, EconLit, Business Source Premier, APA PsycInfo, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane, Database of Systematic Reviews, CAB Abstracts and Sociological Abstracts. We also searched relevant websites such as Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR); the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); AgriProFocus; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF); Donor Committee for Enterprise Development; the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO); the International Labour Organisation (ILO); the Netherlands Development Organisation; USAID; the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation; the International Food Policy Research Institute; World Agroforestry; the International Livestock Research Institute; the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office; the British Library for Development Studies (BLDS); AGRIS; the IMMANA grant database; the 3ie impact evaluation database; Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA); The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL); the World Bank IEG evaluations; the USAID Development Data Library; Experience Clearinghouse; the proceedings of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy conference; the proceedings of the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) Conference; the proceedings of the North East Universities Development Consortium (NEUDC) Conference; and the World Bank Economic Review. The database search was conducted in March 2022, and the website search was completed in August 2022. Selection Criteria: The review includes value chain interventions evaluating the economic empowerment outcomes. The review includes effectiveness studies (experimental and non-experimental studies with a comparison group) and process evaluations. Data Collection and Analysis: Two review authors independently assessed studies for inclusion, extracted data, critically appraised the studies, and synthesised findings. Results: We found that value chain interventions are successful in improving the economic conditions of their intended beneficiaries. The interventions were found to improve women's economic outcomes such as income, assets holdings, productivity, and savings, but these effects were small in size and limited by low confidence in methodological quality. The meta-analysis suggests that this occurs more via the acquisition of skills and improved inputs, rather than through improvement in access to profitable markets. The qualitative evidence on interventions points to the persistence of cultural barriers and other constraints. Those interventions implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are consistently more successful for all outcomes considered, although there are few studies conducted in other areas of the world. Conclusions: The review concludes that value chain interventions empower women, but perhaps to a lesser extent than expected. Economic empowerment does not immediately translate into empowerment within families and communities. Interventions should either moderate their expectations of empowerment goals, or they should be implemented in a way that ensures higher rates of participation among women and the acquisition of greater decision-making power.
RESUMO
This is the protocol for a Campbell systematic review. The review will address the following research questions: (1) What are the effects of economic development interventions on the economic outcomes of people in humanitarian settings? What factors explain any observed variations in effect such as setting, programme design features or duration? (2) What are the effects of economic development interventions on the food security, nutrition, the psychosocial and mental health, and the physical health outcomes of populations in humanitarian settings? (3) What are the success factors and barriers that affect the implementation and effectiveness of economic development interventions on populations affected by humanitarian crisis?
RESUMO
This is the protocol for a Campbell systematic review. The objectives are as follows: The primary objective of this review is to understand as well as evaluate what approaches, strategies or interventions focused on women's engagement in agricultural value chains and markets that have led to women's economic empowerment in low-and-middle-income countries. The secondary objective of this review is to examine in which contexts are these approaches effective (or ineffective)? What are the contextual barriers and facilitators, determining the participation of women in, and benefits from, engagement in the value chain in low-and middle-income countries programme effectiveness. Finally, this review aims to refine the theory of change that describes how value chain interventions lead to women's economic empowerment using evidence drawn from both rigorous quantitative impact evaluation studies and qualitative studies.
RESUMO
Background: There are great disparities in the quantity and quality of infrastructure. European countries such as Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK have close to 200 km of road per 100 km2, and the Netherlands over 300 km per 100 km2. By contrast, Kenya and Indonesia have <30, Laos and Morocco <20, Tanzania and Bolivia <10, and Mauritania only 1 km per 100 km2. As these figures show, there is a significant backlog of transport infrastructure investment in both rural and urban areas, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. This situation is often exacerbated by weak governance and an inadequate regulatory framework with poor enforcement which lead to high costs and defective construction.The wellbeing of many poor people is constrained by lack of transport, which is called "transport poverty". Lucas et al. suggest that up to 90% of the world's population are transport poor when defined as meeting at least one of the following criteria: (1) lack of available suitable transport, (2) lack of transport to necessary destinations, (3) cost of necessary transport puts household below the income poverty line, (4) excessive travel time, or (5) unsafe or unhealthy travel conditions. Objectives: The aim of this evidence and gap map (EGM) is to identify, map, and describe existing evidence from studies reporting the quantitative effects of transport sector interventions related to all means of transport (roads, rail, trams and monorail, ports, shipping, and inland waterways, and air transport). Methods: The intervention framework of this EGM reframes Berg et al's three categories (infrastructure, prices, and regulations) broadly as infrastructure, incentives, and institutions as subcategories for each intervention category which are each mode of transport (road, rail trams and monorail, ports, shipping, and inlands waterways, and air transport). This EGM identifies the area where intervention studies have been conducted as well as the current gaps in the evidence base.This EGM includes ongoing and completed impact evaluations and systematic reviews (SRs) of the effectiveness of transport sector interventions. This is a map of effectiveness studies (impact evaluations). The impact evaluations include experimental designs, nonexperimental designs, and regression designs. We have not included the before versus after studies and qualitative studies in this map. The search strategies included both academic and grey literature search on organisational websites, bibliographic searches and hand search of journals.An EGM is a table or matrix which provides a visual presentation of the evidence in a particular sector or a subsector. The map is presented as a matrix in which rows are intervention categories (e.g., roads) and subcategories (e.g., infrastructure) and the column outcome domains (e.g., environment) and subcategories as (e.g., air quality). Each cell contains studies of the corresponding intervention for the relevant outcome, with links to the available studies. Included studies were coded according to the intervention and outcomes assessed and additional filters as region, population, and study design. Critical appraisal of included SR was done using A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR -2) rating scale. Selection Criteria: The search included both academic and grey literature available online. We included impact evaluations and SRs that assessed the effectiveness of transport sector interventions in low- and middle-income countries. Results: This EGM on the transport sector includes 466 studies from low- and middle-income countries, of which 34 are SRs and 432 impact evaluations. There are many studies of the effects of roads intervention in all three subcategories-infrastructure, incentives, and institutions, with the most studies in the infrastructure subcategories. There are no or fewer studies on the interventions category ports, shipping, and waterways and for civil aviation (Air Transport).In the outcomes, the evidence is most concentrated on transport infrastructure, services, and use, with the greatest concentration of evidence on transport time and cost (193 studies) and transport modality (160 studies). There is also a concentration of evidence on economic development and health and education outcomes. There are 139 studies on economic development, 90 studies on household income and poverty, and 101 studies on health outcomes.The major gaps in evidence are from all sectors except roads in the intervention. And there is a lack of evidence on outcome categories such as cultural heritage and cultural diversity and very little evidence on displacement (three studies), noise pollution (four studies), and transport equity (2). There is a moderate amount of evidence on infrastructure quantity (32 studies), location, land use and prices (49 studies), market access (29 studies), access to education facilities (23 studies), air quality (50 studies), and cost analysis including ex post CBA (21 studies).The evidence is mostly from East Asia and the Pacific Region (223 studies (40%), then the evidence is from the sub-Saharan Africa (108 studies), South Asia (96 studies), Latin America & Caribbean (79 studies). The least evidence is from Middle East & North Africa (30 studies) and Europe & Central Asia (20 studies). The most used study design is other regression design in all regions, with largest number from East Asia and Pacific (274). There is total 33 completed SRs identified and one ongoing, around 85% of the SR are rated low confidence, and 12% rated as medium confidence. Only one review was rated as high confidence. This EGM contains the available evidence in English. Conclusion: This map shows the available evidence and gaps on the effectiveness of transport sector intervention in low- and middle-income countries. The evidence is highly concentrated on the outcome of transport infrastructure (especially roads), service, and use (351 studies). It is also concentrated in a specific region-East Asia and Pacific (223 studies)-and more urban populations (261 studies). Sectors with great development potential, such as waterways, are under-examined reflecting also under-investment.The available evidence can guide the policymakers, and government-related to transport sector intervention and its effects on many outcomes across sectors. There is a need to conduct experimental studies and quality SRs in this area. Environment, gender equity, culture, and education in low- and middle-income countries are under-researched areas in the transport sector.