Double Dutch Disease
Emigration as a Human Resource Curse on the Sudan

Structural adjustment started in Sudan in 1978 but no real devaluation nor effective liberalisation was achieved. Declining exports and persistent inflation were not solely the result of the Sudan’s lax fiscal policies, distorted markets and structural weaknesses. Sudanese emigration to OPEC countries and the Dutch-disease effect of the emigrants’ hard-currency remittances had a greater impact; one which  rendered powerless the standard prescriptions of devaluation and market liberalisation.  A theory is developed for this special form of Dutch Disease and the way its effects are compounded by its direct impact on Government.

How Aid Fails Failed States 
St Antony's Sudan Programme

2010

How to Govern Darfur? 
Sir William Luce Lecture - 2011

This paper looks at the way different states in Darfur have answered the question of the title since the foundation of the Fur Sultanate in the 18th century.   Since that time, institutions of a 'Darfur Social Contract' based on kinship and neighbourhood have developed.  These have lasted to the present day, and it is easier to find continuities between the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial eras than differences.  But this contract is now under threat from conflict, social change and political globalisation.  (The generous support of the Sir William Luce Trust is gratefully acknowledged. www.dur.ac.uk/sgia/imeis/lucefund)

2010

Why We Will Never Learn                                                              A Political Economy of Aid Effectiveness

Current literature sees development as uniquely complex. Measuring the  impact of development aid is correspondingly difficult. This has led to intense, even acrimonious discussions about assessment methodologies. This paper argues that these debates serve to obscure the workings of the unique incen- tives which shape aid institutions: incentives which predispose all parties to prefer theoretical  debates about unattainable levels of impact assessment to simpler questions of monitoring delivery and accounting for resources. These  truer measures of aid effectiveness are too politically challenging, too threatening to the business of aid, to be faced.

2009

Assessing the Impact of Community-Driven Development      26 Years of Pakistan's Rural Support Programmes

An overview of 26 years of community-driven development in Pakistan, from the start of the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme in 1982.  It looks at how social mobilisation approaches have evolved, at a time when they had reached 14% of the rural population of Pakistan.                                                                                (With Zafar Ahmed, Claus Euler, Saba Gul Khattak & Muhammad Tariq)

2008

Managing Political and Economic Claims to Land in Darfur              
ww.ssrc.org/blog/category/darfur/

Land has been described as Sudan's Peace Nemesis.  This paper draws on the historical record, experience of the 1989/90 conflict and surveys from the 1980s to show how land issues in Darfur must be managed at two levels.  At the political level, claims to an area of land concern how the communities which share it will live together.  Claims to land for economic use, for crops or grazing, are more the concern of individual farmers and herders. 
                                (Published on SSRC Blog: Making Sense of Darfur)    

2005

SEEDS Manual – From Strategy to Action  (6.94 Mb)                      
National Planning Commission, Abuja, Nigeria 

The State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (SEEDS) Manual presents a fully integrated approach to policy formation, public financial management, public service reform and accountability. It is designed to assist Nigerian states to turn their poverty reduction strategies into realistic action plans to deliver their goals. The National Planning Commission's website - www.nigerianeconomy.com/seeds – describes SEEDS. 

Strategy2Action, a presentation to the World Bank, sets out how the Manual addresses the question: "How to pay for and deliver the Millenium Development Goals?" (see Presentations)  A full set of training modules were used at meetings across Nigeria.  (PDF)

2005

A Darfur Compendium (5.42 Mb)   
HTSPE, Hemel Hempstead, UK

Written at the time of the 1985 famine in Darfur, to draw together all available information on a little known region: geographical, historical, social and economic. (Note: This file is 5 mb.  Please email if too large for download)

2004

Resources, Development and Politics in Darfur:
Briefing to UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 
HTSPE, Hemel Hempstead, UK

Emphasises security, access to justice and basic economic services as the most urgent need, not a grand political solution or new settlement of natural resources.

2004

Conflict in Darfur: A Different Perspective 
HTSPE, Hemel Hempstead, UK

A new edition of a 1992 paper ‘Tribal Administration ….’, to give the perspective of earlier conflict in Darfur.

A Sudanese responds to ‘Conflict in Darfur’ (PDF)

1998

The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Aid: The Case of Sudan 
SEREIN – Occasional Paper No 6, University of Copenhagen, Jan. 1998

Presented at the Danish Sahel Workshop on Sahelian Perspectives, this paper argues that in fragile states aid ‘destroys the process by which the state can adjust to changing circumstances.’

1996

Land Resources in Darfur Region, Sudan                             Prisoners’ Dilemma or Coase Outcome? 
 Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 33, No. 1, October.

An economic analysis of institutional models of environmental degradation (‘Tragedy of the Commons’ etc), testing them against observed responses and survey data from Darfur.

1994

Agricultural Development in Darfur Region, Sudan: With special reference to Innovation, Technical Change and Open Access Resources. PhD Thesis, London University.

Describes how the Darfur economy grew rapidly through the early 20^th century and was then ‘smothered’ by the failures of the Sudanese state. Tests models of growth, innovation and environmental change against that evidence.

1994

The Poverty of Nations: The Aid Dilemma at the Heart of Africa. I.B. Taurus, London. (Out of print. It is hoped to arrange a reprint. The more requests for a reprint, the better the chances)

A wide ranging review of development in Sudan, Darfur in particular, and the way the ‘success or failure of aid is essentially related to aspects of political economy’, including the political economy of aid itself.

"A marvellous book .. I was turning down every corner." William Easterly. The Center for Global Development

1992

Tribal Administration or No Administration: The Choice in W. Sudan. Sudan Studies, Number 11, January 1992

Written after three years living in W. Darfur at a time of inter communal fighting, this paper suggests that government was not malign, merely incompetent. (See Conflict in Darfur above for text.)

1991

Economic Development in Darfur in Sudan: Environment and People. (PDF) 2^nd International Sudan Studies Conference, University of Durham, April 1991

Darfur is widely seen as ‘stuck in a primitive social and technical framework’. This paper presented evidence that the Darfur economy had in fact expanded rapidly for most of the 20^th century. New opportunities and technologies were exploited fully as they became available and ‘traditional’ social institutions had not been a barrier to that development.

1989

Tubewell Irrigation in Bangladesh 
ODI/IIMI Irrigation Management Network Paper 89/2d.

Describes how Bangladeshi farmers chose the most appropriate, intermediate irrigation technology - diesel-driven, shallow tubewells – while donor experts promoted deep tubewells and NGOs supported human-powered treadle pumps. Because the farmers were right, Bangladesh is now self-sufficient in food grains.

 Analysis of Donor Support to CAADP Pillar 4 - Phase 1                  JM&Co, Thame UK (With C. Floyd - leader - and K. Patel) 

Detailed analysis of available data to map international donor efforts to support agricultural R&D in Sub Saharan Africa.

Analysis of Donor Support to CAADP Pillar 4 - Phase 2                       

Case studies on Benin, Tanzania and Zambia to develop an overall assessment of the coherence, relevance and effectiveness of CAADP Pillar 4 and donor support to agricultural R&D in SS Africa. 

2003

Land Markets in Guyana (PDF) 
HTSPE, Hemel Hempstead UK (With H. Lemel)

‘Livelihoods do not depend on access to land but on access to incomes from land.’ An input to a major programme of land tenure reform, reviewing the land market at a point when demand for agricultural, commercial and residential land had fallen, with recommendations on how to facilitate ‘incomes from land.’

2002

African Beverage Crops and Poverty Reduction 
HTSPE, Hemel Hempstead, UK (Team Leader & Editor)

A response to OXFAM’s Bitter Coffee campaign, DFID commissioned this review of the international trade in coffee, tea and cocoa, including consultation across the trade from producers to retailers. It includes an analysis of the economics behind the Fairtrade arguments.

2001

Rural Development Strategies (PDF) 
HTSPE, Hemel Hempstead, UK (Editor/Economist)

A review of the rural development strategies of seven multilateral development agencies and the new consensus that emerged around the millennium: a consensus was based on a much better understanding of rural livelihoods, but undermined by the inconsistency between strategies for rural development and the developed world’s agricultural trade policies.

2001

Towards a Food Security Strategy Paper (PDF) 
HTSPE , Hemel Hempstead, UK (Editor/Economist)

An overview of the debate around food security issues - trade, subsidy, access versus availability, rights to food, etc – and the extent to food security is best treated as an issue in its own right or as part of a wider strategy for development and poverty reduction.

2000

Agricultural Sector Scoping Study, Bangladesh 
HTSPE, Hemel Hempstead, UK (With J. Farrington)

An input to DFID policy, reviewing the structure of poverty, the agricultural and rural non-farm economies and rural institutions. Proposes a rural development strategy structured around five sectors: agriculture, rural non-farm, local government & infrastructure, rural finance, and rural governance.

1998

Land Tenure Reform in Six Latin American Countries (PDF) 
Hunting Technical Services, Hemel Hempstead, UK (With R. Trenchard)

Reviews different approaches to land tenure reform and its contribution to poverty reduction; at a point when the World Bank was developing a market-led model of Negotiated Land Reform and what is now the consensus on land was starting to form.

1994

Assessing the Potential for Assistance to Agriculture in the Middle Hills of Nepal (PDF) 
Hunting Technical Services, Hemel Hempstead, UK (Team Leader & Editor)

A detailed review of poverty, economic development and institutions in the middle hills, after 15 years of UK support. A case study in the development of remote, agricultural areas.

1992

Review of the Upper River Division Integrated Programme, The Gambia (PDF) 
Hunting Technical Services, Hemel Hempstead, UK (Team Leader & Editor)

A detailed review of development and institutions in eastern Gambia at a time when agricultural production was stagnating and emigration and remittance earnings a key feature in the rural economy.

1991

Review of the Mashonaland East Fruit and Vegetable Project, Zimbabwe (PDF)
HTS, Hemel Hempstead, UK. (With D.T. Jackson)

Detailed analysis of the horticultural value chain from a communal area in E. Zimbabwe to the urban markets of Harare, including large survey of smallholder livelihoods and interview surveys with truckers and market traders.

1986

Development in Darfur A review of the geographical, historical and economic background to development in the region
WSDC, Nyala, Republic of Sudan.

Re-issued as A Darfur Compendium above.

1981

Tractor Usage in the Wadi Rima, Yemen  
Agricultural Engineering Project, Taiz, Yemen Arab Republic

A case study in agricultural innovation. Stimulated by market changes, it took Yemeni farmers less than five years to adapt their farming systems to mechanised ploughing, with little credit or technical assistance.

1980

Yemeni Emigration, Short Term International Emigration and the Effects on the Home Economy - MSc Thesis, London University

Uses survey data and zakat tax records to analyse the impact of rapid emigration to Saudi Arabia on smallholder farming in central Yemen.

1980

Labour Inputs to Agriculture on the Montane Plains  Project Record
Land Resources Development Centre, UK (With A.T. Barrett)

A detailed analysis of labour inputs in a traditional farming rainfed farming system.

1979

Agricultural Marketing in the Yemen Arab Republic with special reference to the Montane Plains and Wadi Rima. Land Resources Development Centre, UK: Project Record 35

Description of agricultural marketing chains shortly after the end of the Yemeni civil war.