Institutional Architecture

Collective Action

These institutions are rules of behaviour that govern the provision of public goods such as roads and schooling, and control the production of public 'bads' such as crime and environmental degradation. IPPG researchers have been studying why collective action for the provision of public goods that matter for growth are more likely to emerge in some countries as compared to others, and the effects of collective action institutions on economic well-being.

There are five IPPG projects which fall under this area:

The project based in Mali on farmer organisations, undertaken through AERC, is currently in its second phase, the discussion paper related to first phase on 'Institutions and organisations the responses of farmers' organisations to institutional change in the Office du Niger', is available, along with five briefing papers; more information on the second phase can be found below.
The second project by Steve Wiggins 'State, business and farmers in agricultural development' is now complete and the related discussion paper 'Institutions and agricultural growth in Bolivia and New Zealand' is available.
The third project 'Access to public infrastructure, governance and the dynamics of poverty in Perú', is being undertaken through RIMISP – more information can be found below.
The fourth project is being undertaken by Ashwini Swain, an IPPG-sponsored research student, on 'Electrifying rural India: interrogating the potentials of micro-institutions for efficient and effective service delivery';
'Groups, influence costs and institutional change' based in Tanzania, is being undertaken by Shireen Mahdi.

Institutional architecture and pro-poor growth in Mali: responses from cotton and rice farmer organisations

Isaie Dougnon, University of Bamako, Mali

Most current discourses on growth and poverty in Mali pay attention to two dominant organisations: the Office du Niger (ODN) for rice production and the Compagnie Malienne de Développement du Textile (CMDT) for cotton production. These two organisations remain the most important from a pro-poor growth perspective and both have been undergoing institutional reform. In the PRSP document 'Lutte contre la pauvreté au Mali' (The struggle against poverty in Mali)', it is argued that increases in irrigated areas in the ODN region will lead to an increase in non-traditional activities such as sugar and vegetable production, along with rice production and to achieve this goal, the Malian state is opening these sectors to foreign and national investors. The cotton parastatal, CMDT, meanwhile, is undergoing considerable change in preparation for its privatisation in 2008; the cotton farmers' organisation is standing against privatisation and would like to know what social policy will be implemented.

One of the key issues with which the IPPG is concerned is how organisations (both formal and informal) interact with institutions (both formal and informal) and how organisations form, respond or adapt to changing institutional arrangements. Changing institutional arrangements in the rice (ODN) and cotton (CMDT) sectors in Mali provide a good case study for exploring these questions, and the purpose of this project is to do just that. Since change in the institutional architecture and the organisational response to this is very much a matter of changing political and power relationships, this work will provide important insights into how political processes shape economic behaviour and prospects, and how those affected respond to these changes.

Access to public infrastructure, governance and the dynamics of poverty in Perú

Javier Escobal, GRADE

The main aim of this research is to improve our understanding about how growth interacts with infrastructure endowments in distinct institutional and governance settings to enhance or hinder income generating opportunities for the poor in Perú.

To achieve this aim we have two objectives: first, we will test the plausibility of our hypothesis that poverty dynamics are quite different under different settings; these settings are characterised by different combinations of infrastructure endowments and different institutional settings. Second, we will analyse the individual trajectories of different institutional settings in order to assess to what extent does the likelihood of them facing increasing income-generating opportunities depend not only on overall growth, but also on the infrastructure and governance settings in which they live. By improving our understanding about the interrelated role of growth and infrastructure endowments in distinct institutional and governance settings, we intend to provide additional new evidence on two key ideas: (i) that while economic growth may indeed be a necessary condition for the sustainable reduction of poverty, it is not a sufficient condition; and (ii) that particular combinations of public infrastructure and regional governance structures may allow poverty to be more responsive to growth.

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Last modified: 31 March 2009