This paper reviews past studies on the
costs of land degradation in Ethiopia, with a view to
drawing implications for policies, programs, and future
research on sustainable land management (SLM). Given the
wide range of methods and assumptions used in the studies,
their findings concerning annual costs of land degradation
relative to agricultural gross domestic product (AGDP) are
of remarkably similar magnitude. The minimum estimated

This paper assesses the relation between
access to markets and cultivated land in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Making use of a geo-referenced panel over three decades
(1970-2005) during which the road network was significantly
improved, the analysis finds a modest but significant
positive association between increased market accessibility
and local cropland expansion. It also finds that cropland
expansion, in turn, is associated with a small but

Livestock systems globally are changing
rapidly in response to human population growth,
urbanization, and growing incomes. This paper discusses the
linkages between burgeoning demand for livestock products,
growth in livestock production, and the impacts this may
have on natural resources, and how these may both affect and
be affected by climate change in the coming decades. Water
and land scarcity will increasingly have the potential to

With the aim of promoting national food security, the Vietnamese government enforces the designation of around 35 per cent of agricultural land strictly for paddy rice cultivation. We investigate the economic effects of adjusting this policy, using an economy-wide model of Vietnam with detailed modelling of region-specific land use, agricultural activity, poverty and food security measures.

The goal of this report is to take stock
of the existing evidence on the impact of the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) on poverty, to examine the
current challenges that an extension of CARP would face, and
to suggest directions toward achieving progress on land
reform given the financial and policy constraints faced by
the program. The report starts by examining the nature and
relevance of the challenges that an extension of the land

In a five-month period, man-made fire cost Indonesia $16.1 billion or 2 percent of GDP in 2015. An estimated 2.6 million hectares – an area four times the size of Bali – burned. While the 2015 fires were some of the worst in recent years (in part as a result of el Nino), they are by no means a singular event. Wide-scale fire crises occur annually in Indonesia. Indonesia’s fire story is not just one of loss and damage; fires contribute to significant economic upside for a diverse, if concentrated, group of actors.

The Malawi Urbanization Review aims to
provide fresh perspectives on urbanization in Malawi, by
analyzing the current and potential contribution of
urbanization to long-term national development and the
current institutional and financial capacity of local
governments to manage the process. Analyses presented in
this report are particularly timely as Malawi is planning
for the coming half decade through the Malawi Growth and

Since 2013 The World Bank Group has
partnered with the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction
and Recovery and the U.K. Department for International
Development to address some of these gaps in evidence and
methodologies. The Disaster Risk Finance Impact Analytics
Project has made significant contributions to the
understanding of how to monitor and evaluate existing or
potential investments in disaster risk finance from a

There is no doubt that the poorest
people are already and will continue to be most severely
impacted by climatic changes, including shifting trends as
well as more frequent and severe extreme events. Yet, new
insights on the dynamics and distribution of poverty point
to the need to comprehend where the poor and poorest are,
how they are poor, and why their poverty constrains their
abilities to cope with and adapt to occurring and predicted

This study analyzes the long-term
impacts of large-scale expansion of biofuels on land-use
change, food supply and prices, and the overall economy in
various countries or regions using a global computable
general equilibrium model, augmented by a land-use module
and detailed representation of biofuel sectors. The study
finds that an expansion of global biofuel production to meet
currently articulated or even higher national targets in

Myanmar is going through a critical transformation
in its development path - from isolation and
fragmentation to openness and integration; and
from pervasive state control, exclusion, and individual
disengagement, to inclusion, participation,
and empowerment. This dual shift is happening
against a backdrop of broader political reforms that
started in 2011 when a new administration took office.
The country’s transition after the planned elections in
2015 will be a major test of the progress on political

The project ( 1996-2001 - US$22 million
credit ) was uniquely designed as a risk management
instrument - it conceived the establishment of a viable,
government-run system of drought management, through early
warning systems, contingency plans, mitigation and quick
response. The design also devolved responsibility to the
district and community level, encouraging civil servants and
other district development actors to empower local