Djiby Thiam

IEA – Could you walk us through the key moments that shaped your path – from your earliest exposure to economic thinking to what sparked your interest in the field, and ultimately what drew you to academic research?

Djiby – My interest in economics was particularly triggered by the need I had developed from quite early on to better understand the structure of societies and their rules of engagement to maintain social cohesion. My appetite for social sciences was something profound, although, at school, my major topics of interest were mainly science and mathematics. I have always been interested in societies in general, and African societies in particular, given the many transformations the continent has undergone over the past decades. To help me improve my understanding, I first started by going through some African classics, not necessarily related to economics, but quite insightful, to learn about some forms of commonalities observed across different African spaces. I read African literature quite a bit: Sembene Ousmane, Aminata Sow Fall, Peter Abrahams, Miriam Tlali, Cheikh Anta Diop, John Maxwell Coetzee, Chinua Achebe, Assia Djebar, Wole Soyinka, Nawal El Saadawi, Ngugi Wa Thiong’O, Nurridin Farah, to name just a few. These readings have been crucial in helping me develop an overview of some African problems and how past trajectories and modern initiatives, often from private endeavors across the continent, are co-existing to produce a new matrix of ideas and solutions. Some of the writings of Samir Amin and Cheikh Anta Diop have helped me develop a deeper understanding of the role of economics, particularly political economics, in transforming societies and addressing social challenges. Both were quite pragmatic and elegant in the way they were able to convince the reader about the need to propose alternative economic avenues that better reflect the features of each region. This sparked my interest in studying economics.

Later down the line, during my studies, and throughout my readings of other authors and diversified sources that were more specific to economic development, mainly influenced by American and European readings, I realized that Africa was well endowed with natural resources, yet the living conditions of some communities residing around those resources remained rudimentary at best. Some communities lacked access to water despite receiving abundant rainfall and hosting multiple production facilities that pollute their surroundings. Additionally, some communities struggle to ensure food and energy security, despite having all the necessary resources for self-sufficiency. Wanting a more structured and evidence-based understanding of these dynamics, I embarked on a PhD journey at Gretha (now Bordeaux School of Economics, University of Bordeaux, France).

After completing my PhD, I realized my passion for research, working with data, and using models to represent real-world dynamics, which led me to continue in academia. In 2012, I joined the Center for Development Research at the University of Bonn in Germany as my first academic post.

IEA – In your research on water economics in Africa, what strategies have proven most effective in improving water resources management?

Djiby – Most of my research focuses on environmental and resource economics. Since my work is based in Africa, I could not overlook issues related to development economics, as they are central to the region’s broader objectives. Over the years, I have been involved in many projects exploring the role of public policies, institutions, and governance structures to improve water resources management. My first experience with water-related research was at the Center for Development Research, in Bonn, Germany. Before that, during my PhD at the University of Bordeaux, France, my work was mainly focused on energy economics.

Over the past years, my team and I have developed several economic tools that offer an improved understanding of the extent to which policy frameworks could be designed to facilitate sustainable water management in Africa.  We have addressed different facets of water resource management: demand management strategies through enhanced adoption of water-saving technologies, water use efficiency in agriculture, the interplay between groundwater extraction and infrastructure sustainability, quality of institutions in fostering performance in water management, as well as the potential economic impacts that might result from accessing water in rural communities. We have learned quite a lot through this process. We demonstrated that evidence-based approaches can serve as a reliable method for improving natural resource management. Different strategies have emerged as potential first-best solutions. For example, having a better understanding of end-users’ profiles and preferences helps better tailor the policy intervention to their features and reduce transaction costs.  We also learned that some policy packages that combine the introduction of incentives and some forms of regulatory standards could assist in reducing the damages groundwater extraction might cause to infrastructures. These findings could be useful to many municipalities across Africa.

IEA – Your study on weather index-based crop insurance in West Africa highlights various factors influencing farmers’ adoption. What are the main barriers, and how can they be addressed?

Djiby – Crop insurance is often used as a risk mitigation strategy to reduce the vulnerability farmers in the developing and developed world might face in the presence of future climate-related hazards. Many African countries are piloting such initiatives, to see whether they could be upscaled or not. West Africa, like other parts of Africa, is already facing severe negative consequences of climate change with acute revenue losses, internal and international climate-induced migration, and enhanced levels of malnutrition caused by drought, to name just a few. Therefore, in that context, with colleagues from Burkina Faso, Nigeria, South Africa, the US, and the UK, we looked at case studies in Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and South Africa. These case studies have helped us identify factors that could facilitate the widespread adoption of the insurance scheme across these countries. We also reemphasize the importance of public support to facilitate the uptake of crop insurance schemes. Most of the African farmers are small-scale, and they operate on a small scale. This prevents them from producing big for larger markets. There is a huge potential that remains untapped. The African market today is quite different from what it used to be 30 or 40 years ago, with the emergence of significant middle-class consumers who can afford access to quality food. As a result, climate mitigation policies might have to be combined with fostering the growth of big farming structures that can invest in more sophisticated technologies to increase the resilience capacity of farming systems. Additionally, we found that using grid data, instead of weather data, seems to be more appealing both for farmers and insurance companies. Contracts designed based on grid data seem not to damage the reputation of the insurance company in the context of South Africa, hence, this offers an opportunity for firms to diversify their product portfolios through a supply of derivative insurance products. This seems also to reduce basis risk and lower premiums for farmers.