Social protection intervention and agricultural participation in West Africa

Abstract

This study contributes towards the achievement of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1.3 which is to ‘implement appropriate social protection for all to mitigate risk and vulnerability’ by examining how social protection interventions contribute to agricultural participation in 15 West African countries which are members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Data for the study were sourced from the World Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA), World Development Indicators (WDI) and the World Governance Indicators (WGI) for the period 2005–2018. The study applied the generalised method of moments (GMM) to resolve the possible issue of endogeneity that may result from the pooled ordinary least squares (POLS) and fixed effects. Findings showed that social protection is a significant driver of agricultural participation. This is based on the fact that two social protection variables included in the model, social protecting ratings and policy for social inclusion, are positive and statistically significant in explaining the level of agricultural participation in ECOWAS. This implies that a percentage increase in the level of social protection ratings and policy for social inclusion may increase agricultural participation by about 7.36% and 3.94%, respectively. The study recommends that effective social protection policies and programmes should be designed to transform the agricultural sector in West Africa.