The objective of this paper is to: (a) review World Bank's pest management activities during 1999-2004; (b) assess those in view of the changes in the external and internal contexts; (c) identify appropriate opportunities of engagement on pest and pesticide issues; and (d) suggest means to further promote sound pest management in the World Bank operations. The importance of sound pest management for sustainable agricultural production is being recognized by many developing countries.

This report summarizes the findings of a
study undertaken by the World Bank at the request of the
Government of Rwanda. The study had three main objectives:
(i) Validate the argument that agriculture has potential to
become a leading engine of pro-poor growth in Rwanda and
identify potential sources of rapid and sustainable growth
within the agricultural sector; (ii) identify key actions
that will be needed to unlock these sources of agricultural

This paper investigates the role of
services in the household response to trade reforms in
Vietnam. The relative response of the households and income
growth after a major trade liberalization in rice are
analyzed aiming to answer the following questions: What type
of households, in which locations, having access to what
type of services, benefited more from the reforms? It
focuses on services that have an impact on transaction costs

In this paper, the authors have assessed the incidence and determinants of pesticide poisoning among rice farmers in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Blood cholinesterase tests suggest that the incidence of poisoning from exposure to organophosphates and carbamates is quite high in Vietnam. Using the medical test results as benchmarks, the authors find that farmers' self-reported symptoms have very weak associations with actual poisoning. Regression analysis of blood tests reveals a lower incidence of poisoning for farmers who avoid the most toxic pesticides and use protective items.

Population growth combined with economic growth will increasingly stress water resources and this has the potential to be the dominant environmental and possibly the most important development issue facing Bangladesh in the coming half century.

This report for Iraq - country water
resources assistance strategy (CWRAS) addresses these
objectives in two parts. The first part, which is largely
descriptive, reviews existing conditions and summarizes
Iraq's considerable accomplishments over the past
decades in developing and managing water resources. The
second part investigates challenges and priorities-how to
balance the needs of short-term reconstruction and the

Tanzania's National Strategy for
Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP) sets an ambitious
target of 6 to 8 percent annual economic growth to achieve
rapid reduction in poverty. This report focuses on three
issues that are central to the success of Tanzania's
poverty reduction efforts: 0 what factors explain
Tanzania's recent acceleration in economic growth; has
the accelerated economic growth translated into reduced

Many countries are reforming their economies and setting macroeconomic policies that have direct and indirect impact on the performance of the irrigation sector. One reason for the movement toward reform in the water sector across countries is that water resources are increasingly becoming a limiting factor for many human activities. Another reason for increased pressures to address water policy issues is that many countries are in the process of removing barriers to trade, particularly in agricultural commodities.

The rationale for public investment in rural roads is that households can better exploit agricultural and nonagricultural opportunities to use labor and capital more efficiently. But significant knowledge gaps remain as to how opportunities provided by roads actually filter back into household outcomes and their distributional consequences. This paper examines the impacts of rural road projects using household-level panel data from Bangladesh.

It has often been assumed that payments
for watershed services (PWS) would go mostly to poor land
users, thus contributing to poverty reduction, but there has
been little empirical verification to date. This paper uses
data from highland Guatemala to assess the potential for PWS
to reduce poverty by examining whether the recipients of
payments for environmental services are likely to be poor.
The watersheds in which PWS would be feasible due to the

The report documents poverty in Zamia
along a number of dimensions, including material
deprivation, human deprivation, vulnerability, destitution,
and social stigmatization. The report identified a number of
basic actions to facilitate growth in the rural sector;
these include (1) a (revived) system of regular manual
maintenance of rural roads; (2) simple systems of animal
disease control; animal movement control; health inspection

Awami League's Election Manifesto
2008 appropriately recognizes the importance of ensuring
food security for all in Bangladesh. Food Security requires
increasing agricultural growth which in turn is a key factor
in reducing poverty in the country. Food security also
requires increasing agricultural production and protecting
consumers. Sustained production increases, in turn, require
technology-driven increases in the productivity of crops