Africa regional project 698-0543 · 1991 · agriculture

Grant to Williams College to conduct a study entitled, Policy and Rural Development: Two Communities in East Africa" to explore the people-level impacts of economic policy reform in Africa, using rural communities in Kenya and Tanzania as models. The project will also improve modestly the institutional capacity for structural adjustment in the two countries. The study will examine the relationship between government policy and rural development through investigation of two communities, which will be selected on the basis of similar agro-ecological potential and similar per capita income at the time of independence. Two communities that look promising for selection are Machame in the Kilimanjaro areas in Tanzania, and households in the coffee-growing zone in the Murang'a district in Kenya. While Kenya and Tanzania have similar endowments for the most part, their agricultural and macro policies have been widely divergent. The study will examine the effects of these policies in explaining the differences between the development paths of the communities. Principal areas of investigation will include land markets, labor markets, agricultural input markets, cropping patterns, invest

Source: DEC abstract, PD-FCV-477 (1991). The source's own text.