The World Bank Group has a unique
opportunity to match the increases in financing for
agriculture with a sharper focus on improving agricultural
growth and productivity in agriculture-based economies,
notably in Sub-Saharan Africa. Greater effort will be needed
to connect sectoral interventions and achieve synergies from
public and private sector interventions; to build capacity
and knowledge exchange; to take stock of experience in

Fourteen years of civil conflict
(1989-2003) have destroyed Liberia's social and
economic infrastructure and brought the economy nearly to a
halt. Workers who came of age during the conflict are
largely unskilled, and the supply of workers exceeds demand
by a substantial margin. The negative effects of
unemployment, underemployment, and low productivity on
economic growth have made employment the most urgent demand

This paper discusses the progress made
by Cambodia from the early 90s to 2007, in reduction of
poverty incidence. Reduced poverty occurred in both urban
and rural areas, and was experienced by rich and poor, and
by men and women. Households, including those in the poorest
groups, have improved their housing quality, increased
ownership of motorbikes, televisions, and mobile phones, and
are better able to access and afford schools and healthcare.

This 2010 report, Valuation of
Environmental Services in Sri Lanka : A Case Study of Soil
and Watershed Benefits in the Southern Province, uses
valuation tools to evaluate environmental services to allow
policymakers to efficiently address sustainable economic
development and environment protection within the country s
economic policy. The Government of Sri Lanka has committed
to a 10-year development framework of increased growth and

After 20 years of neglect by
international donors, agriculture is now again in the
headlines because higher food prices are increasing food
insecurity and poverty. In the coming years it will be
essential to increase food productivity and production in
developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and
with smallholders. This however requires finding viable
solutions to a number of complex technical, institutional

The agricultural season in Bosnia and
Herzegovina (BH) begins earlier than in most European
countries, shipping costs are relatively low, and land and
labor prices are more favorable than in other southern
European countries. As a result, the country's
agriculture sector should be well positioned to compete on
the export markets. With 20.6 percent of all employed in BH,
agriculture remains an important sector for employment,

This report shows that trends in farm
mechanization are attributable to differing approaches to
reform and differing agricultural resource endowments. The
level of reform determines the pattern and extent to which
labor and capital change, with land reform and commodity
market liberalization as the underlying forces for change.
These reforms substantially raise the incentives to invest
as a means to increase productivity and incomes. In

This paper explores the reduction of
food insecurity in Bolivia, adopting a supply side approach
that analyzes the role of agricultural spending on
vulnerability. Vulnerability to food insecurity is captured
by a municipal level composite -- developed locally within
the framework of World Food Program food security analysis
-- that combines welfare outcomes, weather conditions and
agricultural potential for all 327 municipalities in 2003,

This case study is one of six
evaluations of the implementation of the World Bank's
1991 Forest Strategy. This and the other cases (Cameroon,
China, Costa Rica, India, and Indonesia) complement a review
of the entire set of lending and nonlending activities of
the World Bank Group and the Global Environment Facility.
The World Bank has clearly diminished its lending presence
in the Amazon in the past decade. It has moved from the

The Romanian government recognizes that
there are current and future problems related to the risk of
old-age poverty among elderly farmers, and has been working
on sustainable solutions to avert this risk. The main
objective of this report is to provide recommendations to
the policy makers in Romania in designing a non-contributory
program for poor elderly, including farmers. To this end,
the report (i) evaluates the current semi-subsistence

The past decade has witnessed a major
global shift in thinking about water, including the role
that water infrastructure plays in sustainable development.
This rethinking aims to better balance the social, economic,
and environmental performance aspects in the development and
management of large dams. Additionally, it reinforces
efforts to combat poverty by ensuring more equitable access
to water and energy services. There is also growing

In this issue: the impact of migration
on rural poverty and inequality in China; how would a global
expansion of biofuel production effect developing countries?
How resilient were emerging economies to the global crisis?
Small but effective: India's targeted unconditional cash
transfers; good countries or good projects? Fiscal policies
for growth in Africa in light of the crisis; and
employability and skills of newly graduated engineers in India.