Project Overview

The Structural Transformation of African Agriculture and Rural Spaces (STAARS) project is a collaborative venture between the African Development Bank (AFDB), CGIAR Research Program on Policies Institutions and Markets (PIM), Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP), African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), World Bank, and Cornell University.

This project builds on the predecessor Agriculture in Africa: Telling Myths and Facts project led by researchers at the World Bank and relies heavily on the data provided through the Living Standards Measurement Study Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) initiative.

STAARS Themes:

1. Dynamics of agriculture inputs use, technological change, and productivity growth in sub-Saharan Africa.
2. Rural factor market performance, labor exits and productivity in sub-Saharan Africa.
3. Food security, nutrition and health linkages in sub-Saharan Africa in sub-Saharan Africa.
4. Poverty dynamics and resilience against shocks in sub-Saharan Africa.

The objectives of STAARS project are five-fold:

1. Initiate a process whereby the demands for research useful to policymakers and their current challenges are considered in the design of academic research.
2. Perform rigorous analysis on publicly available and meticulously collected LSMS-ISA and other micro-level panel data sets.
3. Heighten the exposure of the LSMS-ISA data and encourage others, particularly young African scholars, to make use of the richness of these publicly available datasets.
4. Provide capacity building opportunities for African and Africa-based researchers by working with and alongside researchers at Cornell University.
5. Create a network of researchers using the data and enable these researchers to share thoughts on research questions, variable creation, and results.