Edward Lahiff

University College Cork | UCC · Department of Food Business and Development

Although various studies have examined the relative influence of farm production diversity and market access on household dietary diversity, few studies have empirically investigated their joint interplay in shaping such diversity. This research addresses this gap based on cross-sectional data from 396 smallholder households in rural Tigray in Nort...

Background Low diet quality significantly contributes to public health risks in low-income countries. This situation is particularly concerning for vulnerable groups, such as women and children, who are at increased risk of malnutrition due to inadequate access to proper nutrition. Objective This study aimed to assess the influence of nutrition-re...

Food insecurity remains one of the major challenges in Ethiopia. There is scanty empirical evidence regarding the contribution of seasonality to household food and nutrition security. This study was conducted in eastern Ethiopia with the aim of examining seasonal household food and nutrition security and factors influencing this seasonal variation....

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine household food gap and food insecurity in Eastern Ethiopia. Differences in food gap and food insecurity were also examined in terms of gender of the household head and location. Design/methodology/approach A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods such as household survey, key informant i...

This study explores the impact of agriculture production on food consumption amongst rural households in Babille district, East Hararghe, Ethiopia. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used to analyse information on production, consumption and income in two consecutive seasons. Diets in the area are dominated by cereals, while...

Food insecurity remains one of the major challenges in Ethiopia. There is scanty empirical evidence regarding the contribution of seasonality to household food and nutrition security. This study was conducted in eastern Ethiopia with the aim of examining seasonal household food and nutrition security and factors influencing this seasonal variation....

Food availability and access are strongly affected by seasonality in rural households in Ethiopia. However, relationships between household food insecurity indicators and dietary diversity and nutritional status of reproductive age mothers and their young children are unclear. A longitudinal study was conducted among 800 farming households in lowla...

Two strategies employed by non-governmental organisations that are key to a rights-based approach to development are examined, ensuring the active engagement of state duty-bearers and building alliances at multiple levels. The aim is to understand how sustainable alliances between NGOs, the state, communities, and other stakeholders are built at th...

This empirical study investigates drivers of farmers’ hypothetical cattle insurance participation, and their intensity of participation, using the Heckman two-step model to control for selection bias. The data pertains to a survey of 356 cattle farmers from selected villages of Northern Ethiopia. Findings indicate that 94 per cent of the cattle own...

This paper examines programs, strategies and actions adopted by non-governmental organisations in Odisha State and their impact on poverty alleviation and in policy making, from a rights-based approach (RBA) to development. Scholars (Sen in Philos Public Aff 32(4):315–356, 2004; Sengupta in: Pogge (ed) Freedom from poverty as a human right: who owe...

This study analyzes cattle farmers’ perceptions of risk and risk management strategies in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. We use survey data from a sample of 356 farmers based on multistage random sampling. Factor analysis is employed to classify scores of risk and management strategies, and multiple regression is then used to investigate the relationsh...

This study analyzes cattle farmers’ perceptions of risk and risk management strategies in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. We use survey data from a sample of 356 farmers based on multistage random sampling. Factor analysis is employed to classify scores of risk and management strategies, and multiple regression is then used to investigate the relationsh...

Since the end of apartheid, South African land reform has struggled—and so far failed—to overcome extreme inequalities and historical injustices …

A substantial component of BRAC's WASH programme involves educating rural Bangladeshis about safe water management, good hygiene and the causes of diarrhoea. By conducting questionnaires and focus group discussions in two BRAC WASH villages and one control village, this investigation sought to assess the impact of BRAC's programme on knowledge, pra...

Democratic South Africa inherited a highly unequal and dualistic pattern of landholding and an embattled smallholder sector. Market-based land reform since 1994 has done little to redistribute land or revitalise the rural economy. The tenacity of South African smallholders under difficult conditions and lessons from countries such as Zimbabwe, sugg...

This article examines the politics of land in southern Africa and, in particular, current processes of land reform in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. it argues that, despite the considerable attention given to land issues-in the region over the past 20 years, fundamental reform that shifts assets and opportunities in favour of the rural poor...

Since its transition to democracy, South Africa has implemented a multifaceted programme of land reform to address problems of historical dispossession and rural poverty, relying heavily on the concept of 'willing buyer, willing seller'. This version of market-led agrarian reform has been influenced by the World Bank but enjoys support from landown...

Market-led agrarian reform (mlar) has gained prominence worldwide since the early 1990s as an alternative to the state-led approaches widely implemented over the course of the 20th century. This neoliberal policy framework advocates voluntary transactions between ‘willing sellers’ and ‘willing buyers’ and the removal of various ‘distortions’ from l...

With the transition to democracy in 1994, South Africa was faced with an enormous challenge in redressing the highly unequal and racialized pattern of land rights inherited from the colonial and apartheid past. In Namaqualand, a history of land dispossession and racial segregation presented the new government with a complex set of problems, which l...

In the former coloured rural reserves of Namaqualand, land is held under an evolving form of communal tenure. This study, using in-depth interviews with both women farmers and non-farmers in Namaqualand, explores women's attitudes towards land and their experience of agriculture. It finds that women gain access to land for residential and productio...

Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC)

South Africa has a range of land tenure systems, both formal and informal. Land administration in the "formal" areas is highly developed, and is based on a central deeds registry and sophisticated cadastral information systems. Much of the population residing within these areas, however, is invisible to the formal system, because it occupies inform...

Land reform policy in South Africa is intended to redress the grave racial imbalance in land holding and secure the land rights of historically disadvantaged people. In the Eastern Cape, all aspects of land reform have experienced severe difficulties in implementation but important innovations have taken place in areas such as developmental restitu...

Rights are increasingly enshrined in legislative frameworks in southern Africa and rights-based approaches are increasingly seen as a core component of development. But how can rights be made real for poor people in rural areas? Research in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe sheds light on the practice of rights claiming on the ground, in the co...

Different forms of decentralisation are occurring in parallel, often in ways that cause confusion, ambiguity, high transaction costs and conflict, in southern Africa. Case studies in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe show how political authorities with downward accountability to electorates co-exist and sometimes conflict with decentralised ser...

Drawing on research carried out by the Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa (SLSA) programme, this article gives a brief overview of some of the diverse ways people make a living in harsh physical and economic environments in Zambezia province, Mozambique, Chiredzi district Zimbabwe and South Africa's Wild Coast. It describes the contexts of...

Drawing on case study material from the Sustainable Livelihoods in Southern Africa programme, this article examines the turn to strategies for development in southern Africa, which seek to boost the access of the rural poor to new markets and investment opportunities. It investigates the prospects for "pro-poor" engagement with the private sector,...

This article examines the politics of land in southern Africa and, in particular, current processes of land reform in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It argues that, despite the considerable attention given to land issues in the region over the past 20 years, fundamental reform that shifts assets and opportunities in favour of the rural poor...

Farm invasions in Zimbabwe have highlighted the pressing need for land reform throughout the southern African region. In South Africa, where the racial disparities in land holding are most severe, the events in Zimbabwe have raised the temperature of the land debate and led to calls for land invasions by some rural groups. The ANC-led government, f...

This paper deals with the evolution of the land tenure system, and the prospects for tenure reform in one of South Africa's black communal areas. It is based on a case study of the Arabie-Olifants irrigation scheme, located approximately 20 kilometres south of Lebowakgomo in the former ‘homeland’ of Lebowa, now part of Northern Province. Research a...

A major historical weakness of redistributive land reforms has been their frequent failure to create conditions for sustainable farm and other enterprises managed by land reform communities, as a result of problems of integration with wider local social, economic and environmental planning. However the methods of impact assessment currently applied...

Redistribution of land is widely seen as having the potential to significantly improve the livelihoods of the rural poor and to contribute towards economic development. Nine years into the transition to democracy, however, the underlying problems of landlessness and insecure land rights remain largely unresolved. In line with its neo-liberal macro-...

This paper reviews the types of business models, or landuse models, being implemented in land reform projects involving the transfer of rural land to communities and other groups in South Africa, under both the restitution and redistribution programmes. It draws heavily on the series of Diagnostic Studies prepared as part of the Sustainable Develop...

This report examines the efforts of the Groenfontein-Ramohlakane Trust to develop and use the land in (Mpumalanga) that has been restored to the community in terms of the Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994 (‘Restitution Act’). It examines the nature and content of the post-settlement support received and draws lessons from the community’s ex...

This report focuses on the restitution case of the Bjatladi Communal Property Association (CPA) and the development and use of the land that has been restored to it in terms of the restitution programme. It examines the nature and content of the post-settlement support which they have received, and draws lessons from their experience of a strategic...

"South Africa's land reform programme has been dominated by the redistribution of sizable properties to large community based groups. Emerging evidence suggests that newly created communal property institutions are widely failing to carry out their functions in terms of land administration, and that as the result, many land reform projects are fail...