Adam Loch, Henning Bjornlund and Geoff Kuehne
Prolonged drought and climate change uncertainty have created an urgent need to re‐distribute water away from irrigators and back to environmental flows. Previous approaches to…
Abstract
Purpose
Prolonged drought and climate change uncertainty have created an urgent need to re‐distribute water away from irrigators and back to environmental flows. Previous approaches to achieve this objective have had mixed results. The current approach focuses on purchasing water from irrigators to bolster river flows for ecosystem health. However, governments are purchasing entitlements, not allocations, which do not provide large amounts of water for the money that is spent. This paper aims to review the policies and events that have driven this process.
Design/methodology/approach
Following a the review of the policies and events, the paper identifies how the regulatory/market‐based approaches have resulted in a status quo or path dependent situation, to the detriment of achieving sustainable water use.
Findings
Previous approaches have so far simply maintained path dependency, i.e. the consumptive pool at more or less existing levels. Government intervention to purchase entitlements from irrigators for the environment through water markets is meant to break the status quo, but questions whether this can be achieved from a solitary focus on entitlement recovery.
Practical implications
It is suggested that both historical approaches offer less reform value, and that appropriate market intervention is warranted. However, entitlement water purchasing alone may limit provision of wet water to key environmental sites during critical periods and perpetuate a continuation of the path dependency arrangements.
Originality/value
A suggested expansion of the water‐purchasing programme that utilises allocation based products to meet adaptive environmental flow strategies is provided. Such an approach may offer a more suitable framework for dealing with the uncertain outcomes of climate change and ecosystem needs.
Details
Keywords
Ernest Sogah, John Kwaku Mensah Mawutor, Isaac Ofoeda and Freeman Christian Gborse
The impact of government expenditure on economic performance has been a topic of discussion at both the sectoral and aggregate national levels. Despite its theoretical importance…
Abstract
Purpose
The impact of government expenditure on economic performance has been a topic of discussion at both the sectoral and aggregate national levels. Despite its theoretical importance, evidence from literature indicates that this relationship has not been universally accepted across different countries and sectors. Given the significance of agriculture in African economies, particularly in Ghana, and the role of government in this sector, this study examines the impact of government expenditure on agricultural productivity in Ghana from 2000Q1 to 2022Q4.
Design/methodology/approach
Specification of the model was done based on the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration bound test approach.
Findings
The results revealed that the studied variables cointegrated in the long run. Government expenditure was found to induce agriculture production both for the long run and short run within the period of the study, implying that government expenditure matters in inducing agriculture productivity in Ghana.
Originality/value
The study employed the ARDL methodology to investigate government expenditure and agriculture production contagion in Ghana, which has been specifically overlooked by previous studies. It is suggested that the Government of Ghana as well as others in similar environment should increase investment into the agriculture to boost the productivity of the sector.