An additional year of schooling leads to 2.8% increase in well being. Households with
an extra adult male are better off. An additional member in the household causes a
decrease in welfare by 22.3%. The effect of age is not significant at 5% but at 10%.
Land owned and rented in as well as credit, all have strong positive effect on
household well-being. Business and durable assets are significantly and positively
associated with welfare.
5. Broader implications
Parallel Models world-wide and prospects for improvement
The model was adapted in a number of other developing countries such as Burkina
Faso, Benin, Mozambique, Ghana, Eritrea, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Senegal,
Vietnam, Cambodia, and Nicaragua with donor support from DANIDA, EU, AsDB,
IFAD, and the World Bank. Several smallholder poultry development projects
evolved in parallel with the Bangladesh model, not replications, in Cameroon, China,
Egypt, Indonesia, Lesotho, Malawi, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the 1980s and
1990s. These projects though not replications of the Bangladesh semi-scavenging
model per se, but it is likely that some lessons from the early experiences of the
Bangladesh model were used in the design of these projects. These projects vary in
size, composition and organizational mechanism for implementation; however all are
targeted to the poor, especially women. An analysis of 12 projects in nine countries by
IFAD show that eight projects support semi-intensive system based on confinement or
semi confinement, and three support scavenging system. These projects promote
exotic/improved breeds or local breeds. In five projects, poultry and eggs are sold
within the project areas, and in three cases outside the project areas. With regard to
the remaining four projects, there was either no information available, or the
intervention was not directly related to marketing. Among the types of support
provided for poultry development, 10 projects provided credit support, 7 provided
support for veterinary services, a project in Egypt provided facilities for the
production of the pathogen-free eggs that are used for the production of Newcastle
Disease vaccine. This project also provided beneficiaries with improved and
vaccinated day-old chicks (Nabeta, 2002; Islam and Jabbar, 2003). These activities
enable farmers with skills of using and adapting new technologies.
Institutional development
From the experience of poultry projects, the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural
University (KVL) in Denmark established the Network for Smallholder Poultry
Development in 1996 with Danida funding. Activities since the start of the Network
have contributed towards the building up of resource bases and institutional capacity
related to village poultry production in the Danida programme countries and in Denmark.
This Network has been coordinating and implementing poultry projects in many
countries, developing databases and organising workshops and seminars. A
comprehensive communication and networking system has been developed and utilised
for exchange of information and ideas. This includes a well-visited Internet homepage
with relevant links. Activity reports of the Network with valuable information are being
made available in the internet by its Coordination Unit.
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