Stefano Ponte (Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen)

Submitted: Thu, 24 Feb 2000

Stefano Ponte
Researcher
Centre for Development Research
1610 Copenhagen V
Denmark

e-mail:  spo@cdr.dk


My research interests include agricultural reforms, structural adjustment,
rural livelihoods, and agrarian change in Africa.  I received a Master's
with Honors in International Relations - International Development from
the University of Chicago in 1993/94, where I studied as a Fulbright
Scholar.  My Master's thesis on comparative agricultural policy and
performance in Kenya and Tanzania won the 1994 University of Chicago
Morton Kaplan Prize. 

As part of the PhD programme at the School of Development Studies at the
University of East Anglia, I have been working on a dissertation entitled
"Farmers and Markets:  Policy Reform, Rural Livelihoods and Agrarian
Change in Tanzania (1985-1996)." As fieldwork for this reseach project, I
spent over one and a half years in Tanzania, analyzing agricultural policy
reform and rural livelihoods.  The research design blended macro-level
policy analysis with micro-level study of farming households' reactions
and included:  collection and analysis of secondary data, in-depth
interviews, observation, Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs), and a
Farming Household Survey.  The expected completion date is December 1998. 

I am presently teaching economic analysis of development at Duke
University, a Master's course covering policy issues in various fields,
including population, agriculture, financial and fiscal policy,
international trade, governance, and the role of the state in development. 
I have also taught courses on African Politics and African Civilization
for the departments of Political Science and African Studies at UNC-Chapel
Hill.  While in Tanzania, I was a Regional Coordinator for the UN
Electoral Secretariat during the first multiparty elections of 1995.  I
coordinated teams of international electoral observers.  I was also
responsible for logistical preparations, deployment planning, and in-depth
observation for the pre-electoral environment, election day, and
tabulation of results. 

Papers and publications:

"Fast Crops, Fast Cash:  Market Liberalization and Rural Livelihoods in
Songea and Morogoro Rural Districts, Tanzania" Canadian Journal of African
Studies, (forthcoming 1999)

"Trading Images:  Discourse and Statistical Evidence on Agricultural
Adjustment in Tanzania (1986-1995)" in P. Forster and S. Maghimbi (eds.)
Agrarian Economy, State and Society in Contemporary Tanzania, Ashgate:
Aldershot (forthcoming 1998).

"Get Your Cash Fast:  Rural Households' Adaptations to Liberalized
Agricultural Markets in Two Tanzanian Districts" presented at the African
Studies Association Conference, Columbus, Ohio (13-16 November 1997).

"Free to Remain Poor?  Liberalization and Rural Poverty in Tanzania"
presented at the Workshop on Poverty Alleviation, Sokoine University of
Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania (25-28 March 1996), in Proceedings of the
1996 Sokoine University Workshop on Poverty Alleviation, Sokoine University
Press: Morogoro (1997).

"Briefing:  The Tanzania 1995 Elections" Review of African Political
Economy, No. 67 (1996), co-author with Lisa Richey.

"The World Bank and 'Adjustment in Africa'" Review of African Political
Economy, No. 66, pp. 539-558 (1995).

"Structural Adjustment Programs and Agricultural Performance: Beyond the
Policy Factor. Lessons from Kenya and Tanzania" M.A. thesis, University of
Chicago (1994).

"Project Evaluation: Theory and Practice in the United Nations System"
Laurea Dissertation, University of Padua (1993).