2014 Social Accounting Matrix For Malawi A Nexus Project Sam

The purpose of this paper is used to document the different steps followed to construct the 2010/11 Social Accounting Matrix for Ethiopia. The SAM is an extension of the Standard Nexus Structure. It consists of 63 activity sectors, 67 commodity sectors, three types of factors of production: labor (rural and urban disaggregated by level of education), land, and capital (disaggregated by crops, livestock, mining and other sectors). The household sector is divided spatially into urban and rural households. Rural households are further disaggregated into households that earn crop and/or livestock incomes (i.e., farm households) and those that do no earn incomes from either source (i.e., nonfarm households). Households are further disaggregated into per capita expenditure quintiles. This SAM allows analyzing issues at the detailed level and to better understand the potential impacts of policy changes for both better off and more vulnerable households.

The 2014 Myanmar Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) follows IFPRI's Standard Nexus SAM approach, by focusing on consistency, comparability, and transparency of data. The Nexus SAMs available on IFPRI's website separates domestic production into 42 activities. Factors are disaggregated into labor, agricultural land, and capital, with labor further disaggregated across three education-based categories. The household account is divided into 10 representative household groups: Rural and urban households across per capita consumption quintiles. Nexus SAMs support the improvement of model-based research and policy analysis in developing countries and allow for more robust cross-country comparisons of national economic structures, especially agriculture-food systems.

This paper has been written for the 2020 ECAMA Lakeshore Conference. It extends and updates the initial results of modeling undertaken by IFPRI to assess the short-run impacts of COVID-19 control measures on the Malawian economy. We also consider the short-run effects of external shocks associated with disruptions in trade and tourism, investment, and remittance flows on the Malawian economy, as well as two medium- erm paths assuming either faster or slower recovery during the remainder of 2020 and 2021. Using a SAM multiplier model, we estimate GDP declines by around 16.5 percent during April/May 2020 due to social distancing measures. This leads to around 1.6 million people, mainly in rural areas, temporarily falling into poverty, although urban households suffer the largest income losses.

This Report describes the initial results of modeling undertaken by IFPRI to assess the short-run impacts of the COVID-19 control measures on the Malawian economy. We also consider the short-run effects of external shocks associated with disruptions in trade, investment, and remittance flows on the Malawian economy, as well as two medium-term paths assuming either faster or slower recovery during the remainder of 2020. This analysis has been undertaken in order to inform the policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Malawi and represents a first pass attempt to measure the short-term economic impacts of COVID-19 on the Malawian economic. It should be noted that, unlike NPC (2020) our estimates of the economic impact of the COVID-19 on the Malawian economy do not extend beyond 2020 and do not try to set a value on loss of life or life-years. They do, however, allow for detailed breakdown of the direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 on different sectors and sub-sectors of the Malawian economy.

Malawi’s economic future is dependent upon a transformation of the economy that will involve increased economic productivity overall and considerable movement of labor and capital out of agriculture and into manufacturing and services. A dynamic Computable General Equilibrium model of the economy of Malawi was used to better understand the development gains that would be realized by 2030 through significantly increasing separately the productivity of each of the three sectors of the Malawian economy – agriculture, industry, and services. The scenarios run in the model involved increasing by 20 percent from current levels the annual growth rate in total factor productivity for each of the three sectors. The results show important trade-offs in the choice of which sector should receive emphasis in any economic development strategy. A services-led strategy would result in higher economic growth overall and broadly rising incomes, contributing the most to a structural transformation of the Malawi economy. However, the principal beneficiaries of increased investment to improve productivity in the services sector will be better-off households. In contrast, an agriculture-focused strategy would better meet the needs of the poor and their access to food, but would result in continued lagging growth for Malawi’s economy and many poorer households continuing to be unable to obtain sufficient income to exit their poverty and realize much better lives for themselves and their children. The industrial sector currently is much smaller than either the agriculture or services sectors, particularly in terms of employment, so significant increases in productivity growth in industry results in smaller benefits overall than comparable increases in agriculture or services.

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) is pleased to present the first regionalized social accounting matrix (SAM) for Egypt. This SAM marks a major milestone in “localizing” development research and policy in Egypt and is expected to be most valuable for the development, implementation, and assessment of Egypt’s national and local development plans, like Egypt’s Sustainable Development Strategy 2030. In addition to standard SAMs, which combine many national datasets from institutions such as Central Banks, Ministries of Finance and Agriculture, and Statistical Bureaus, this regionalized SAM makes extensive use of sub-national level information such as the Economic Survey and Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIECS) produced by CAPMAS, regional GDP estimates by the Ministry of Planning, Monitoring and Administrative Reform, and the Agricultural Bulletins with information at the Governorate level produced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation. With this data it becomes possible to provide a detailed, socioeconomic status update for different regions within Egypt. As such, the disaggregated SAM allows for analyzing developmental issues at regional level and to better understand the potential impacts of policy changes at the local level.