Scaling-up community-driven development. Evidence from the Philippines

Abstract

Community-driven development programmes are an increasingly common component of poverty reduction strategies. Most have been on a small-scale so far, but efforts are being made to scale successful experiences up to the country level. This article quantifies the impact of the community-driven ‘farming system development’ (FSD) adopted by the Philippine government in selected rice-producing agrarian communities and simulates the potential effects of scaling FSD up to the country level using a general equilibrium framework. Results show that the FSD approach could be an effective poverty reduction strategy, instigating poor farmers to diversify towards nontraditional crops and the rice processing industry to benefit from lower prices; however, existing rice import quotas severely constraint the size of such potential benefits.

Notes

¹The opinions and judgements expressed in this paper only reflect those of the authors not the FAO or its member governments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ugo Pica-Ciamarra1

1The opinions and judgements expressed in this paper only reflect those of the authors not the FAO or its member governments.