Browsing by Author "Muchapondwa, Edwin"

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    Abalone conservation in the presence of drug use and corruption: Implications for its management in South Africa
    (International Journal of Sustainable Economy, 2015-05-28) Muchapondwa, Edwin; Brick, Kerri; Visser, Martine
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    Analysis of households? modern energy deprivations beyond connections and access in the Northwest zone of Nigeria
    (2023) Aboagye, Solomon; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    Access to modern energy is considered indispensable to the pursuit of economic growth and poverty alleviation. It also provides crucial support for the achievement of many sustainable development goals. Yet, Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa, has one of the lowest rates of net electricity generation per capita worldwide; with about 44% of its population lacking access to electricity. A remarkable 94% also lack access to any clean cooking technology despite the welldocument benefits of modern cooking solutions. The condition is worse in the Northwest zone of the country, the study area, as it hosts a substantial share of the country's population without access to electricity and modern cooking solutions. The above situation raises, at least, three research problems. Firstly, how does the current state of access to electricity impact on the profits of households' non-farm enterprise beyond connections to the national grid? Secondly, to what extent does an improvement in the attributes of modern cooking solution influence households' health outcomes against the backdrop of widespread use of biomass for cooking? Thirdly, can subsidies and credit regimes be effectively deployed to stimulate large-scale uptake of improved cookstoves? Consequently, chapter 2 evaluates the causal impact of access to electricity on the profits of households' non-farm enterprises as a latent poverty reduction pathway. Applying the generalized propensity score and inverse probability weighting of treatment methods of matching and estimation, the study found that on the basis of connections, access to electricity has limited positive causal effect on the profits of household's non-farm enterprises. However, moving beyond connections only and focusing on the attributes of electricity (i.e., the characteristics of the electricity services from the perspective of end-users which include electricity availability, reliability, affordability, quality as well as the capacity of the grid of electricity) among actual users of electricity the study established a strong positive causal impact of access to electricity on profits. Further analysis shows that in most instances, this impact however tends to be principally dependent on whether the enterprise is more profitable or otherwise. Chapter 3 assesses the attribute dimension of cooking-health nexus. Utilizing the probit and Heckman models respectively to the cough and health expenditure per capita specifications it is observed that when attributes such as exposure and safety of primary cookstove are improved, they tend to be important catalyst to reducing both cough incidence and total health expenditure per capita of the household. This important evidence could not have been learnt if the attribute dimension of the debate had not been evaluated. Ultimately, improvement in household's overall access to modern cooking solution is also associated with reduction in both cough incidence and total health expenditure per capita especially for households in higher tiers of access. Thus, a move towards clean cookstoves such as LPG/natural gas stoves, electric stoves while ensuring that households attain higher attribute tiers of modern cooking solutions could be expected to generate significant improvement in household's overall health. Chapter 4 examines the effectiveness of one-off subsidy and credit regimes in driving households' willingness to pay (WTP) for improved cookstoves (ICS). Using a heteroscedastic-corrected probit models, the results show that allowing households to pay over time coupled with a one-off subsidy of no less than 34% significantly increases the mean WTP to the extent that households are willing to pay even more than the subsidized price. Given that the regime mean WTP values are higher than the effective price of subsidized ICS, both WTP incentives are not likely to damage future pricing when ICS are eventually circulated through pure market mechanisms. Furthermore, we observe the underlying mean WTP to decline after 12 months. This suggests that a 12-month payment instalment could be the maximum effective credit duration required to drive adoption. Additionally, we observe that income, access to grid electricity, access to credit, financial inclusion are critical stimulants of WTP towards ICS.
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    An ARDL modelling approach to international tourism demand in Tanzania
    (2009) Bashagi, Asimwe; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    The objective of this study was to model the extent of international tourist demand in Tanzania. Thus, the study aimed to investigate the factors affecting international tourism demand. Domestic tourism prices, travel costs, alternative destination tourism prices, exchange rates, world income and taste formation were selected as the main determinants. Dummy variables for the September 2001 USA terror attack and the 1998 Tanzania US embassy bombing were also included in the model. The dummy variables were treated in two different ways, to capture the temporary and permanent effects these events had on tourism demand. The study applied the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach to modelling international tourist demand in Tanzania. The findings are consistent with economic theory and with empirical evidence from other studies. The model passed all diagnostic tests. Therefore, the results from this study may be used as a guide in formulating relevant tourism policy for Tanzania.
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    Climate change and wildlife utilization on private land: evidence from wildlife ranching in South Africa
    (2016) Otieno, Jackson Ongong'a; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    This thesis focuses on the economics of climate change and wildlife utilization in privately owned parcels of land in South Africa. A significant proportion of agricultural land in the Southern Africa region has undergone transition with many farmers opting to move away from livestock farming to either wildlife farming, ranching or conservancies. In other instances, farmers in areas which were predominantly under irrigation are also switching to wildlife land use. One of the biggest claims to this transition has been the effects of climate change on livestock and crop production. The increasing cost of production associated with worsening climate continue to force farmers into abandoning livestock and crop production in favor of wildlife, which has been considered more profitable in the marginal areas in the southern Africa region. However, several uncertainties engulf wildlife utilization on private land, this may hinder its ability to bring about development that might improve the welfare of the communities and those individuals who directly participate in wildlife conservation in the private areas. The most pressing issue in wildlife utilization on private land includes; i). Its effects on the welfare of the communities living around the wildlife farms, ranches or conservancies. The livelihood of these communities revolved around livestock and livestock production for employment, food provision and other socioeconomic and cultural provisions. Therefore, the transition from livestock to wildlife production inevitably can improve or worsen the living standards of these communities, ii). Sustainability of wildlife production as alternative land use in the face of prevailing and future climate scenarios. While it has been cited that wildlife and wildlife revenues are more resilient to climate change, there is every indication that climate change affects wildlife conservation, iii). The role of wildlife in climate change adaptation. Farmers in South Africa are known to mix wildlife with livestock as one way of adapting to climate change. Over time, such farms have transited into wildlife ranches. The issue therefore is how vulnerable are wildlife ranches compared to livestock and mixed wildlife-livestock ranches?
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    Climate-change adaptation among Smallholder farmers in zambia
    (2023) Ndhlovu, Obrian; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    In Zambia, climate variability has resulted in declining and more erratic rainfall. Soil fertility has also declined, mainly from over use and use of environmentally unfriendly farming methods. These factors have contributed to declining farm productivity and revenue, leading to increased poverty levels in rural areas and undermining efforts to achieve sustainable development goals on poverty eradication and ending hunger. The country has been promoting adaptation practices such as conservation farming, crop diversification and irrigation in order to help smallholder farmers adapt to the climate. Despite these efforts, observation suggests suboptimal levels of adaptation. In three substantive chapters, this thesis investigates the strategies smallholder farmers use to adapt to variability in rainfall, the impact of policy reforms on adoption of sustainable farming practices, and whether farmers find these practices beneficial. The thesis has the potential to inform policy on climate adaptation, the effectiveness of input support programme reforms on influencing farmer behaviour and the relevance of new climate smart agricultural technologies in the climate adaptation agenda. The thesis also proposes measures of household variables, such as education and gender, that capture information beyond the head of household as is common in the literature. Chapter 2 assesses farmers' responses to variability in rainfall and investigates drivers behind adaptation strategy choice, including the adoption of conservation farming and other climate adaptation strategies such as crop diversification and irrigation. The seemingly unrelated regression estimation is used to investigate the adoption of farming practices while the ordered Probit and Tobit models are used to analyse the magnitude and intensity of adoption, respectively. The chapter contributes to the literature on climate adaptation by analysing adoption in a more broader sense by looking at the diversity and intensity of adoption, employing methods that are robust to interrelationships among adaptation strategies, the use of unique data combining quantitative and qualitative data, which enables the chapter to provide context to the findings. The results show that the level of adoption of conservation farming, crop diversification and irrigation remains low. There is also evidence of adoption reversal. The major challenges to adoption include low level of access to complementing practices such as use of herbicides, the practice of open grazing, the entrenched culture of maize monocropping, which is exacerbated by general lack of structured input and output markets for alternative crops. This calls for the scaling up of agricultural extension services to support skills and knowledge acquisition for the adoption of new farming practices, including the use of herbicides. Chapter 3 evaluates the impact of input subsidy programme reforms on the adoption of crop diversification and rotation practices among smallholder farmers. The difference-in-differences approach in combination with propensity weighting/matching and endogenous treatment approach is employed. The findings have the potential to inform the ongoing reforms in the agricultural subsidy programme. While the analysis of agricultural input subsidy programme pursue primary objectives such as the impact on fertiliser use, crop yield and hunger or poverty, this chapter analyses the impact of such programmes in facilitating climate adaptation, which may be considered a secondary objective and not well understood. The chapter also employs a unique data structure that permits the identification of treatment effect. The results show that the opening up of the input subsidy to multiple crops had a significant positive impact on household crop diversification. The electronic voucher system, although having a positive impact on crop diversification and crop rotation, has been hampered by the general inertia in the private markets to provide certified inputs of other crops. In addition, the lack of assured markets for outputs of other crops compared to maize has worked against efforts to stimulate crop diversification and rotation. These results suggest that reforms to the subsidy programme must be complemented by parallel reforms in other aspects of agriculture, such as extension services and agricultural markets, if they are to be effective in catalysing or facilitating adaptation to rainfall variability. Chapter 4 uses plot level data to evaluate the effect of conservation farming on crop yields and downside risk measured using the skewness based measure. The chapter uses the multinomial endogenous treatment effects models to analyse the impact on crop yield and climate-resilience, respectively. The chapter contributes to literature by employing methods that account for the endogenous household level decision to assign CF practices on different crop plots and has the potential to inform the ongoing drive to promote climate adaptation among smallholder farmers. Plot level evidence shows that crops to which some components of conservation farming are applied tend to have higher yields when rainfall is low. Results also show that crops of farmers who adopt and implement some components of conservation farming are also more likely to survive. These results call for the promotion of the full adoption of conservation farming and other complementing technologies, especially in low rainfall agro-ecological zones, where its impact will be most appreciated
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    Economic analysis of participatory forest management in Kenya
    (2017) Okumu, Boscow; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    The failure of the centralized top down approach to management of common pool resources such as forests led policy makers and donors to conclude that devolution of forest management to local communities can be the only solution to such failures. Developing countries have thus resorted to devolution of forest management to forest adjacent communities through approaches such as joint forest management (JFM) and participatory forest management (PFM). PFM is part of the initiative towards devolution of power of management and decision making from government to local communities. Communities therefore self-organize into community forest associations (CFAs) or forest user groups to manage forest resources. In Kenya for instance, the recent and ongoing forest sector reforms as envisaged in the Forest Act (2005) and the Forest Act (2016) led to devolution of forest management through CFAs and provision of incentives such as plantation establishment and livelihood improvement scheme (PELIS), eco-tourism, harvesting of forest products among others. These efforts were aimed at deepening community participation in forest management and improving welfare of forest adjacent communities. However, despite the numerous efforts aimed at empowering communities to sustainably manage forest resources through PFM and provision of various incentives, the success of PFM in terms of efficiency, equity, accountability and environmental outcomes have been mixed. In this thesis, we contribute empirically to the understanding of how PFM can be successfully implemented and make suggestion for more inclusive, equitable and sustainable forest management in Kenya from a micro perspective using household and community level data collected from 22 CFAs in the Mau forest conservancy. We take into account the values and preferences attached to salient forest ecosystem services by local communities and how this can be used to design incentive schemes like PES to incentivize local communities and also influence devolution of forest management. We also assess the impact of existing incentives specifically PELIS on welfare of forest adjacent communities as well as the environment and the heterogeneous impact of the scheme on household welfare. We then look at the context specific factors influencing the varying levels of success among the CFAs. The thesis therefore, comprises of three separate, but related analysis chapters.
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    An economic and institutional analysis of community wildlife conservation in Zimbabwe
    (2015) Ntuli, Herbert; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    This thesis focuses on the economics and institutional aspects of community wildlife conservation in the context of local communities living adjacent to the Gonarezhou NationalPark in Zimbabwe. A significant proportion of wildlife in Zimbabwe, and in Southern Africa in general, is managed as a common pool resource by communities under community-based natural resource management. Several challenges threaten conservation efforts at both local and higher levels, thus hindering its ability to bring about development that might improve the welfare of poor rural communities participating in wildlife conservation. The most pressing issues in the wildlife sector include: inability to extract resource rents from wildlife conservation that in turn affect household welfare in terms of total household income and reduction in poverty and inequality, lack of capacity by local communities to solve collective action problems or lack of incentives to self-organise, and lack of comparable successful outcomes in CBNRM communities such as the wildlife conservancy communities. Learning from other successful communities that use community-based' models, such as wildlife conservancies, might provide important insights for policy makers and development practitioners. These issues are explored in three substantial papers included in this thesis. The thesis consists of five chapters starting with an introduction, followed by three papers and finally conclusions and policy implications. The study makes use of purpose-collected primary data from local communities living adjacent to Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe. The first paper investigates the effects of wildlife resources on community welfare. Specifically, the paper examines the contribution of environmental income to) total household income,) poverty reduction, and) reduction in income inequality. Furthermore, it investigates the impact of environmental income on households in different income categories, the role of wildlife in the portfolio of environmental income and the determinants of environmental income generated by different households. To achieve the objectives above, the paper makes use of income quintile analysis, the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty measure, Gini coefficient analysis, Ginidecomposition analysis, ordered logit regression model and instrumental variables estimation using heteroscedasticity-based instruments. The results show that the relative contribution of environmental income towards total household income is more pronounced in poor households, while the relative contribution of agricultural income is noticeable in wealthier households. In particular, wealthier households consumed more wildlife products in total than relatively poor households. However, poorer households derive greater benefit from the consumption of wildlife resources than wealthier households. Excluding wildlife compromised the relative contribution of environmental income and, at the same time, increased the relative contribution of farm and wage income. Environmental income has more impact in terms of poverty and inequality reduction in the lower income quintiles than in the upper quintiles. Wildlife income alone accounted for about 5.5% reduction in the proportion of households living below the poverty line. Furthermore, wildlife income had an equalizing effect, bringing about a 5.4% reduction in measured inequality.
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    The economic value of natural resources around the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and implications for the Khomani San in South Africa
    (2013) Dikgang, Johane; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    The term ‘bushmen’ is used generically to refer to the Khoisan. Although the term is still used in several countries in the Southern African region (SADC), it is considered derogatory by some. Culturally the Khoisan are divided into the hunter-gatherer San (originally a derogatory term used by the Khoi), and the pastoral Khoi (Barnard, 1992). Anthropologists from the West adopted the term ‘San’ extensively in the 1970’s, and this is now the preferred term in academic circles. This is a study in economic anthropology which seeks to fully understand the complexity of the economics of a hunter gatherer people in the Kgalagadi area. Despite the change in the lifestyle and values of the San people, they have and continue to provide valuable information in the fields of anthropology and genetics (see Thomas, 1958, 1989, 2006; Lee, 1976, 1979; Barnard, 1992; Hogan, 2008).
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    The economics of climate change vulnerability, adaptation and mitigation in Tanzania
    (2014) Komba, Coretha; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    In Sub-Saharan Africa, climate change is set to hit the agricultural sector the most severely and cause suffering particularly for smallholder farmers. To cushion themselves against potential welfare losses, smallholder farmers need to recognize the changes already taking place in their climate and undertake appropriate investments in adaptation. This study investigates whether these smallholder farmers in Tanzania recognize climate change and, consequently, adapt to it in their agricultural activities. The study also investigates the factors influencing their choice of adaptation methods. In order to achieve this, the study analysed data from 534 randomly selected households in a sample of districts representing the six of the seven agro-ecological regions of the country. The data shows that Tanzanian smallholder farmers have observed changes in mean and variance precipitation and temperature and responded to it. The farmers have generally used short-season crops, drought-resistant crops, irrigation, changing planting dates and tree planting to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change on their agricultural yields. In this study, selection bias is corrected using a Heckman sample selection model. A binary probit model is used as a selection equation to investigate the factors influencing a farmer’s decision to undertake any adaptation at all to climate change while a multinomial probit model is used as an outcome equation to investigate the factors influencing farmers’ choice of specific adaptation methods. The inverse Mill’s ratio reported selection bias in choosing three of the adaptation methods. The findings of the study suggest that the Tanzanian government needs to assist smallholder farmers overcome the constraints they face in their attempts to adapt. The government can play a significant role by promoting adaptation methods appropriate for particular circumstances e.g. particular crops for different agro-ecological zones.
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    Evaluating the prospects of benefit sharing schemes in protecting mountain gorillas in Central Africa
    (Natural Resource Modelling, 2015-05-28) Mukanjari, Samson; Birgit, Bednar-Friedl; Muchapondwa, Edwin; Zikhali, Precious
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    Impact of subsidized credit on agricultural performance and food security : comparison between commercial and smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe
    (2007) Musuna, Sophia; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    Agricultural credit has been seen as an important vehicle in agricultural development as it fosters adoption of advanced and more modern technology (Schultz, 1964). The problem which continues to haunt the smallholder farmers in developing countries has been identified to be the slow pace of adopting modern agricultural technology, and this severely impacts on their production levels causing high levels of poverty in this sector. This author attributes this problem to the inequality associated with the distribution of credit between commercial and smallholder farmers which then distorts its much acclaimed role in attainment of food security. Smallholder farmers are those farmers with 30 or less hectares of land for use in any agricultural activity (crop production or cattle rearing) and commercial farmers have more than 30 hectares (according to the Zimbabwean farming sectors). This paper analyzes the impact of the inequality in distribution of credit on food security and welfare using a case of farmers in Zimbabwe.
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    Optimal pricing for national park entrance fees in Zambia
    (2013) Chikumbi, Lydia Mwelwa; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    This study seek to investigate whether the optimal entrance fees for Zambia’s national parks with particular focus on the four most popular parks namely South Luangwa, Mosi-oa-tunya, Lower Zambia, and Kafue are optimal. This study collects data from tourists which it then uses to estimate the parks visitation demand functions, the price and income elasticities. Using price elasticity estimates, optimal conservation fees are estimated. The study employs the contingent behaviour approach to elicit park visitors’ behaviour in response to changes in entrance fees. This is done for both actual and hypothetical scenarios. The study reveals that demand elasticities estimated at the four parks are fairly different, demonstrating the heterogeneity characterizing both tourist behavior and park attraction and amenities. The cross price elasticity that was estimated showed that substitutability in visitation demand existed in all the four parks. This entails that increasing price at one park can effectively influence tourists to move from that park to another.
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    Price Volatility, Competitiveness, and Innovation in the South African Wine Industry
    (2022) Chikumbi, Lydia Mwelwa; Muchapondwa, Edwin; Scasny, Milan
    The South African wine industry is the eighth largest producer of wine in the world. Despite its progress since the 1990s, the industry has come under increased competition from other wine producers. The wine industry grew rapidly from 1994 until 2005 when it started to face major challenges that led to only a quarter of wine farmers producing at financially sustainable levels, reductions in the number of grape farmers and the area of vineyard under cultivation, and job cuts, low pay, and low prices. The most immediate constraints to the competitiveness of the wine industry are global competition, inadequate innovation, and volatile input costs of production. Therefore, this thesis contributes to the debate on these issues by (i) examining South Africa's wine competitiveness against other Southern Hemisphere New World (SHNW) producers; and (ii) investigating wine consumers' perceptions of and willingness to pay for product innovation by the South African wine industry; and (iii) investigating the impact of energy price volatility on South African wine prices. The main research questions/contributions are addressed in Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 as follows: Chapter 3 investigates the competitiveness of South African wines against rivals in the SHNW, and the determinants of their performance in the global wine market. The aim is to identify priority areas to focus on to enhance South Africa's competitiveness and sustain the industry. Global competition, especially among the SHNW producers, has been cited as one of the causes of the poor performance by the South African wine industry (Esterhuizen and Van Rooyen, 2006; Van Rooyen et al., 2011; Van Rooyen and Boonzaaier, 2018). The export market is critical for South African wines considering that half of its annual production is sold abroad (SAWIS, 2020). Also that exports attract higher earnings for the industry. Therefore, comparing the degree of South African wine competitiveness with other SHNW producers and investigating factors influencing specialisation will help identify priority areas to focus on to enhance South Africa's competitiveness and sustain the industry. The 1990 to 2018 panel data from Global Wine Markets is used for the analysis. Trade specialisation and their determinants are determined through (i) the computation of the Revealed Comparative Advantage, (ii) estimation of the Galtonian regression model and (iii) estimation of the panel regression model. The findings reveal that all countries migrated to higher price points with variable degrees of success. As a result, South African wines were relatively less competitive than their rivals. The study reveals the relative position of the South African wine industry and draws inferences on priority areas for enhancing competitiveness. Chapter 4 investigates wine consumers' perceptions of and willingness to pay for product innovation by the South African wine industry. The aim is to elicit information on whether consumers are ready to pay for wines made with natural preservatives (Rooibos & Honeybush), organic production, and a higher quality score. Determining whether consumers choose such wines is crucial as it would reveal whether wine players can exploit this source of avenue to save the struggling industry. It contributes to knowledge by being the first study to estimate the premium price for not having added SO2 in wine by substituting the conventional wine preservative with Rooibos and honeybush — a natural preservatives. The Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) approach elicited willingness to pay for the innovative alternative. Consumers' preferences for organic wine, wine quality, and cost were also examined. Results from the mixed logit model indicate that consumers are willing to pay additionally R60.40 per bottle of wine with natural preservatives, while they are ready to pay R19.45 more for organic wine and R1.55 for each point on quality score. Chapter 5 investigates the robustness of the empirical estimates obtained in chapter 4. Identified as a potential methodological issue in the DCE literature, the chapter contributes to knowledge by examining the influence of ‘price framing' on empirical estimates in environmental valuations. The tests are performed using data from a choice experiment on preferences for natural preservatives in wine. The same respondents completed a nearly identical DCE survey, one with a real price and another with a percentage price change. 611 respondents completed the survey, and a panel mixed logit model was used for the analysis. Results demonstrate that ‘price framing' significantly influenced respondents Willingness To Pay for wine attributes. The study sheds light on the establishment of guidelines for developing valid cost attributes in DCE. Chapter 6 investigates whether energy price volatility influences South African wine prices. The aim is to establish the extent to which energy price volatility affects wine prices. The implication of the findings is that a formula of dependence and risk between energy and wine markets could be established and used to protect the wine industry from spillovers and foster wine market stability. The study contributes to knowledge by thoroughly examining the volatility behaviours of energy (fuel and electricity) and wine prices. Using a Multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (MGARCH) model, the chapter estimates own- and cross-volatility spillovers and persistence between the South African energy and wine markets using monthly Consumer Price Index data from 2002 to 2018. Results from the analysis indicate positive and significant volatility effects, with a substantial spillover from the energy market to the wine market. The results also indicate that only fuel and wine prices move together in the long run.
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    Socio-economic analysis of community-based micro hydro electricity schemes in Kenya
    (2017) Karumba, Mary Muthoni; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    This thesis addresses three economic and social impediments to the successful deployment of community-based micro hydro grids using a case study from the Republic of Kenya. Kenya is one of the countries in Sub-Sahara Africa currently faced with low rural electricity access rates, but with abundant micro hydro resources spread across vast rural locations. Although majority of financial resources are channeled to grid extension in developing countries like Kenya, many rural households still live 'under the grid' because they cannot afford connection fees and/or cost of grid electricity. Such phenomenon has led to innovative solutions such as the concept of Community-Based Renewable Energy Schemes (CRES), facilitating joint exploitation of a local renewable energy (RE) resources. The government of Kenya in partnership with non-state actors set up demonstration points for Community-Based Micro Hydro Schemes (CBMHS) in two locations, and other communities have adopted this model by setting up their own electrification schemes in Kenya. However, the success of such schemes continues to be very limited in Kenya and other developing countries with majority of them disintegrating after few years of operation. This phenomenon is widely documented in literature, and a variety of barriers to success of such schemes continue to be interrogated in both published and unpublished academic literature. There are issues relevant to both establishment and continued operation of such electrification that have not received much scholarly research, but continue to largely limit delivery of sustainable and quality service, as well as hindering scaling up of these potentially useful rural electrification alternatives. These include: a) mismatch between the provided services by such group electrification schemes and the expectations of their consumers b) lack of supportive capacity for joint effort mobilization and capacity for self-governance within such schemes c) unsubstantiated claims of the capability of small scale renewable energy electrification impact on households that make them not to be considered as equally important energy solutions. This thesis makes a threefold contribution to the literature of rural electrification by firstly analyzing preference for properties of decentralized electricity delivery service in a field dominated by utility provided grid solutions. Secondly, the literature on governance of man-made common pool resources (CPR) is extended by providing evidence for the requirements for successful management of a small-scale electricity commons line a CBMHS. Lastly, the study produces reliable evidence regarding immediate or short-term changes to households anticipated from small scale electrification projects. Overall, the study presents lessons on implementing and sustaining rural communities' investments in decentralized RE electrification while demonstrating why such schemes should now form essential part of rural electrification delivery models. The three research issues are addressed independently in three chapters that follow the introductory chapter of this thesis.
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    The analysis of determinants and barriers of household sustainable energy transitions in Tanzania
    (2022) Rugaimukamu, Kevin Mutayebwa; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    The Tanzanian energy policy is centered around improving access, reliability, and affordability of modern energy services. Up to the year 2018, Tanzania was among a small group of countries that dominated both the top 20 lists of countries in the world with electricity and modern cooking energy access deficits, respectively. The country's electricity access has since increased but the number of households connected to electricity has increased at an uneven rate, with higher connection rates observed in urban areas. Nevertheless, access to modern cooking energy has continued to increase at a very slow rate. The country's household energy use portrays a heavy reliance on wood fuels (charcoal and firewood) for cooking with 90 percent of Tanzanian households using wood fuels for the activity. Nonetheless, it also depicts gradual and modest improvements in households' modern energy use, with regards to electrification and use of modern fuels for cooking particularly in urban areas (LPG and Electricity). This is despite the government's numerous initiatives put in place to spear head the transitions. The implementation of these initiatives has always been delayed and most of the time fallen short of the policy makers expectations, owing to both institutional and policy inefficiencies. This thesis investigates the economics of household energy transition in Tanzania and adds to the literature by looking at the determinants of household adoption of modern cooking fuels (LPG and electricity), looking at the role of social capital in smoothing the adoption of modern cooking fuels. Moreover, we investigate the impacts of these household energy transitions on household welfare indicators, and, lastly, we investigate the institutional challenges in implementing household energy transition initiatives with regards to electrification particularly in rural areas. We do this in three separate but related chapters that form the key components of a thesis constituted of five chapters, with the first and last chapter presenting the introduction and general conclusions of the thesis. The second chapter investigates the determinants of adoption of modern cooking fuels (LPG and electricity) in Tanzania. We model household energy transition to modern cooking fuels with an emphasis on the role of social capital. We utilize membership into key community groups; Savings and Credit Co-Operative Societies (SACCOS) and other self-help groups as a measure of social capital. We make use of three waves of the 2008-2016 Tanzanian panel data set from a nationally representative household panel survey that collects information on a wide range of topics such as agricultural production, non-farm income generating activities, consumption expenditure, and a number of other social-economic characteristics of the households. We employed panel data techniques to ascertain the role of social capital on household energy transitions in Tanzania. For robustness purposes, we ran two regression analyses, one incorporating the social capital variable as a dummy variable and the other as a continuous variable to observe the stability of our results. Moreover, beyond the panel data model specifications, we ran alternative model specifications to check the stability of our results. The third chapter investigates the impacts of household energy transitions on welfare indicators in Tanzania. We conducted two impact analyses, whereby we analyzed the impact of household's use of modern cooking fuels (LPG and electricity) on household welfare indicators (energy expenditure and health) and the impact of household use of electricity on household welfare indicators (energy expenditure, time use, study hours, acute respiratory health). We make use of two national representative data sets, that is the fourth wave of the national panel survey of 2014/15 and the 2015/16 Tanzanian Demographic and Health Survey and the Malaria Indicator Survey to analyze the impacts of household energy transitions on non-health and health related outcomes respectively. We used propensity score matching techniques to ascertain the impact of household energy transitions. We estimated the propensity scores, chose the appropriate matching algorithm to do the matching, assessed the matching quality and performed a sensitivity analysis of the results. The fourth chapter looks at the institutional barriers in implementing household energy transition programs in Tanzania, with an emphasis on rural electrification in Tanzania. We investigate if the political clergy and energy sector governing entities in Tanzania constrain the smooth implementation of rural electrification projects. Moreover, we investigate whether the current rules, laws, and regulations in the electricity supply industry and supporting sectors attract investments in rural electrification projects. Furthermore, we review policies, strategies, and interventions within the energy sector with regards to rural electrification. We use primary data collected from key informants in the sector and augmented this with secondary data from official reports and periodicals from key government and non-government entities in the electricity supply industry sector. We used qualitative data techniques to ascertain the key institutional barriers to rural electrification in Tanzania. The results of chapter two reveal that social capital plays an important role in household energy transitions. Households with membership in self-help groups or Savings and Credit Co-Operative Societies (SACCOS) were more likely to adopt modern cooking fuels (LPG and electricity). Membership in these groups help households raise awareness, gain technical information about, and bridge liquidity constraints on, new technologies including modern energy. Our results remained stable in the different specifications of the social capital variable and econometric models. The results also reveal that household income, household's head age, household size, and availability of biomass stoves and electricity connection to be important determinants of household's adoption of modern cooking fuels. Chapter three results revealed significant impacts of household energy transitions on household welfare indicators. Household use of modern cooking fuels was found to significantly reduce charcoal expenditures, and consequently amount of charcoal used in urban areas. Moreover, the results revealed that use of modern cooking fuels was associated with a reduction of respiratory infection for children under five years old. On the other hand, electrification was found to improve study hours, years of schooling and consequently, schooling outcomes. Moreover, we find suggestive evidence that electrification smoothens information flows and augments social campaigns, thus facilitate promoting issues like family planning. The chapter also reveals an elongation of the working day due to electrification. The results of the fourth chapter show institutional barriers pertaining to non-independence of institutions within the energy sector, deficiencies of the existing policies, strategies and interventions pertaining to rural electrification, the supporting framework's modus operandi not accustomed to serve the electricity supply sector, the uncertainties created by the laws and regulations governing the sector, and the institutional specific challenges such as financial constraints and shortage of staff facing the governing institutions in Tanzania formed some of the key bottlenecks hampering the timely implementation of and achieving of desired outcomes by rural electrification projects in Tanzania as perceived by the stakeholders in the Tanzanian electricity supply industry. The revealed results point to key policy implications, including putting in place policies to enhance the use of modern cooking fuels to cut down the excessive use of charcoal. Furthermore, the government should enhance its efforts not only in increasing access to electricity but also increasing the number of connected households especially in rural areas, so as to reap the associated benefits with regards to schooling, labor and family planning. Thus, raising awareness about modern fuels of energy for cooking through promotions and easing liquidity constraints could go a long way in enhancing the use of modern cooking fuels and increasing households' electricity connections. The best channel to enhance awareness and easing liquidity constraints is community-based groups. The government should promote financial inclusion through community groups to enhance among other things, household energy transitions by easing liquidity constraints. Moreover, encouraging the formation of such groups especially among women could amplify the dissemination of information about modern cooking fuels and heighten diffusion of new technologies, markedly in rural areas. Nevertheless, to smoothen government's implementation of households' energy transition initiatives, institutional barriers must be nullified. The government should review its interventions to make sure they cover all the constraints with regards to hurdles associated with household's energy transitions. Moreover, as the energy sector is a capital-intensive sector, the government should iron out any prohibitive policies, rules, laws, and regulations deterring investments in the sector. One of the polices to advocate for in attracting investment in the electricity supply industry is to push for the use of more renewables. Lastly the government should allow the energy governing entities in the country to exercise their mandate professionally and independently to elicit the desired outcomes. Furthermore, these institutions should be strengthened financially, expertise wise and eliminate bureaucracies in service delivery.
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    The economic impacts of tourism in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa: Is poverty subsiding?
    (Natural Resources Forum, 2015-05-28) Muchapondwa, Edwin; Stage, Jasper
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    The economic valuation of nature-based tourism in the South African Kgalagadi area and implications for the Khomani San ‘bushmen’ community
    (Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2015-05-28) Dikgang, Johane; Muchapondwa, Edwin
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    The Economic Value of Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and Implications for Adjacent Local Communities
    (2021) Kibira, Gerald; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    This study presents a theme on the Economic Value of Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and Implications for Adjacent local communities. Firstly, we introduce and develop a bio-economic model to examine optimal combination of livestock production and wildlife conservation designed for the Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania. The model incorporates a group of pastoralists who apportion a certain amount of effort between pastoralism and wildlife activities, that is, poaching which kills wildlife. The park agency has a significant role by defining the penalty to the community when its members are caught poaching. The Maasai who live adjacent to Serengeti National Park are found in Loliondo division, which is in Ngorongoro district. This paper articulates a bio-economic model for the two agents, optimizes the market problem for each agent, and relates the outcomes for the park agency and the Maasai community to the social planner's solution. The results show that the market outcomes are suboptimal than the social planner would recommend. Policy implications are that there should be a well-structured community organization that can have a significant impact on the growth of the wildlife stock, through obliging behavior. Such an organization might assist the community to realize a needed social outcome to protect the Serengeti's wildlife. In the second part of the thesis we argue that, National Parks are imperative to protect countries' natural inheritance. They are vital for conservation and offer valuable non-market recreation services to tourists. Benefits from these parks include employment creation, and export incomes. Because of low entrance fees, parks largely depend on fiscal transfers to fund their conservation activities. But dwindling government resources in Africa threaten the existence of national parks and other protected areas. Sustained effective conservation will have to be largely internally funded. Tourism is an important avenue of funds in these circumstances. We measure the nonmarket benefits of Serengeti National Park for international holidaymakers. We make use of data from an on-site survey at the park. We make use of individual Travel cost variables. Models accounting for all problems found in on-site surveys tend to outperform other models. Estimated consumer surplus is large, given the usually low entrance fees. Precise measurement of the travel cost variable is important to arrive at correct welfare estimates. In the third part of this study, we put on a twist in the Contingent Behavior (CB) methodology in the setting of a developing country, which has little application in the literature, which suggests a change in entrance fees at one park and queries how visitation patterns would then change at a substitute park. This allows us to estimate optimal entrance fees for revenue maximization and give an estimation of the demand function. The results indicate there is a possibility of maximizing revenue by raising entrance fee and the demand is elastic. The park agency is not advised to charge the revenue maximizing price because of competition from other parks, both locally and regionally. Nonetheless, the fact that we found that the fees can be raised significantly above the current fees to maximize the revenue collection is important.
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    The impact of household energy access on socio-economic outcomes in Zambia
    (2024) Chishimba, Sydney; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    This thesis focuses on evaluating the impact of household energy access on the socio-economic wellbeing of households in Zambia. The thesis consists of four studies that are interrelated to answer the broader objective. All estimations and descriptive statistics in this thesis use the World Bank/ESMAP dataset collected in 2017/2018 on Zambia. Consequently, the first study examines the effect of electrification technology on household socioeconomic outcomes. The study emphasizes the need to understand the differential impact of household adoption of grid versus off-grid (standalone solar home systems) electricity on nonfarm employment, monthly income, and expenditure of the household. Using the Inverse Probability Treatment Weighting estimation strategy, the results reveal heterogeneity in the impacts of the technology used in the electrification programme on household income and expenditure per capita. Therefore, the study observes that, though solar home systems technology offers benefits compared to non-connected, grid electricity offers better effects on household income and expenditure. The second study ditches restrictive traditional binary evaluation of electricity access on users' welfare in favour of the multitier evaluation framework. The study applies the Generalized Propensity Score approach with continuous multivalued treatment (electricity availability). The study estimates the dose-response function (average treatment effect) of the household's exposure to electricity in a typical day. The results confirm that availability of electricity is key to improving household livelihood. The longer the exposure to the electricity service, the higher the likelihood of reduced expenditure on alternative energy sources; the more time the households allocate to working away from home for pay; and the increased probability of being employed in the nonagriculture sector. However, increasing exposure to electricity within and across Tiers does not always improve livelihood as households may have limited productive use of the electricity service. Generally, the policy implication derived from the results is the importance of the duration of household exposure to electricity in the electrification programmes in developing countries. The third study estimates WTP for electricity services among non-connected households given the low rate of electricity access in Zambia. The study further estimates changes in WTP for electricity after introducing credit regimes where households are allowed to pay for extended periods of up to one and two years for grid and solar PV, respectively. Contingent valuation approach is applied with single bounded dichotomous responses. The results reveal that the willingness to pay is positive across the payment periods and technology (grid and solar PV). Further, average willingness to pay increases as payment period of the credit facility rises. However, the average willingness to pay for low-capacity standalone PV solar technology falls below market price in shorter payment periods (below 12 months) while for grid electrification and high-capacity standalone PV solar technology, the average willingness to pay is above the above market price across the payment periods. The results underscore the need to provide electricity beyond lighting for households to engage in economic activities. To accelerate electricity access among nonconnected households, we recommend improving households' access to credit financing or offer 2 subsides for them to pay for connection. Introduction of credit regimes increases households' WTP as it helps to smooth consumption among low-income households. The fourth study is motivated by how gender affects household access to cooking energy solutions and consists of two parts. The first part compares the gendered effects of decision-making on the choice of, and expenditure on cooking energy solutions at the household level. Probit and Heckman selection models are estimated for the household choice of, and expenditure on, cooking energy solutions, respectively. The results suggest that when women have strong bargaining power, the likelihood of choosing and having increased expenditure on improved cooking solutions is relatively high. Women's employment status and educational attainment positively increase their bargaining power in adopting improved cookstove, likelihood of participating in the market and household expenditure on improved energy fuel. The second part of the study assesses gendered effects of household access to improved cooking energy solution across multi-Tiers. The study adopts the Propensity Score with Regression Adjustment approach to estimate the effects of accessing improved cooking energy solutions. The study results suggest that the probability of experiencing reduced respiratory illness in higher Tiers as exposure to improved cooking solutions improves as opposed to lower Tiers (1 vs 0) where differentiated effects are low. Gendered results reveal that women experience reduction in respiratory illness of between 3.5% and 5.5% across the Tiers as exposure to quality of cooking energy solutions improves. For the men, the reduction in respiratory illness is only observed in higher Tiers when men tend to participate in cooking as the quality of access to cooking energy solutions improves. Regarding the overall effect on household time allocation to various activities, the results suggest that time saving improves significantly for cooking (between 16.36 and 43.16 minutes) and fuel collection and preparation (between 18 and 23 minutes) as households transition from traditional to improved cooking energy solutions across Tiers. Furthermore, significant increase in time allocated to studying (between 10 and 30 minutes) and income generating activities (between 22 and 44 minutes) is observed as households transition across the Tiers. Gendered results also reveal that women save more time from cooking and fuel collection and preparation in higher Tiers. Therefore, the transitioning process requires identification of users, decision makers and understanding the benefits of being empowered at household level so that policy formulations and training target the right individuals and avoid formulating gender-blind policies. Effectively, the thesis suggests that Zambia should encourage a mix of grid and off-grid solutions, leverage private energy markets with financing, and empower women for a swift energy transition. Several welfare indicators have been adopted in understanding the effects of electrification technology adoption, availability of electricity services, demand for electricity among nonconnected, and gendered access to cooking energy solutions
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    The impact of solid cooking fuels on the health of rural South African households
    (2021) Tatham, Julia; Muchapondwa, Edwin
    Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) from the combustion of solid cooking fuels has been proven to adversely affect the health of household residents. Those most affected by IAP are the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, specifically poor women and children residing in rural households. This study evaluates the impact of using solid cooking fuels on various health outcomes of residents in rural South Africa, using the nationally representative General Household Survey 2018. Propensity Score Matching Methods are used to address the confounding of variables associated with the use of solid cooking fuels and health outcomes. We find that the use of solid fuels significantly increases the risk of suffering from Acute Respiratory Illnesses (ARI's) as well as increasing the risk of residents reporting a poor health status. Our analysis goes on to evaluate separate gender and age groups and find some evidence that women and the elderly may suffer relatively more adverse health outcomes from the use of solid cooking fuels. Our results suggest that IAP from the combustion of solid fuels poses a threat to health of South Africans residing in rural households. Hence policy should focus on providing access to clean sources of energy for cooking in rural areas.