The issue of regional differences in
development has moved to the center of the development
debate in Sri Lanka, partly after the release of regional
poverty data. For the past many years, there have been
significant and increasing differences between the Western
province and the rest of the country in terms of per capita
income levels, growth rates of per capita income, poverty
rates, and the structure of provincial economies. The

The study includes four sections: i)
brief production background; ii) description of the
Argentine soybean value chain; iii) evolution of the main
policies and institutional regimes in Argentina; iv) lessons
learned related to the political economy and the industrial
organization. The study describes the main policies
implemented in Argentina during the last two decades which
had impact on the structure of the soybean value chain and

The bank has a long relationship with
Uruguay's agricultural sector, expanding over a period
of more than 60 years in which several projects and various
analytical and advisory assistance initiatives have been
implemented. The main purposes of the present report are: a)
to analyze the main characteristics of family agriculture as
well as its development potential and constraints; b) to
examine Uruguay's current agricultural policy and

Ethiopia's rural non-farm sector is
significant and participation is increasing. The sector is
particularly important for women and poorer households.
Non-farm enterprises provide income-earning opportunities to
those lacking alternative options and supplementary income
for farming households. This report is organized into seven
chapters. The first chapter lays the analytical groundwork
for assessing the rural investment climate in Ethiopia and

Many investments in infrastructure are
built on the belief that they will ineluctably lead to
poverty reduction and income generation. This has entailed
massive aid-financed projects in roads in developing
countries. However, the lack of robust evaluations and a
comprehensive theoretical framework could raise questions
about current strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the
second Cameroonian national household survey (Enquete

This report forms part of the technical
assistance provided by the World Bank under the Non-lending
Technical Assistance Program for the Caribbean
'market-based agriculture risk management in the
Caribbean.' The program is largely financed by the
European Union All Agriculture Commodities Program (AACP)
Initiative and contributions from the International Fund for
Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the World Bank. This

The objectives of this Country
Environmental Analysis (CEA) were to assess the
environmental quality in the Philippines with a focus on how
this affects human welfare and sustainability, measure and
analyze the biophysical significance and monetary cost of
environmental degradation and derive priority areas of
action, assess the Philippines government's capacity to
manage the environmental challenges identified, and identify

The Government of Lao PDR (GoL)
announced that its 7th national socio-economic development
plan, covering 2010 through 2015, will focus on achieving
the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and exiting least
developed country status by 2020. To achieve these goals,
one of the priority areas in the 7th National Socio-Economic
Development Plan (NSEDP) is to reduce vulnerability to
shocks by providing and improving social safety nets (SSN).

This paper provides an overview of the
history of development research at the World Bank and points
to new future directions in both what we research and how we
research. Six main messages emerge. First, research and data
have long been essential elements of the Bank's country
programs and its contributions to global public goods, and
this will remain the case. Second, development thinking is
in a state of flux and uncertainty; it is time to reconsider

The report is structured as follows.
Section one examines the contribution of the rural economy
to the national economy, the structure of the farm and
non-farm sectors and their relative importance. Section two
describes policies and constraints affecting the wider rural
economy including, reforms in macro-economic management,
recent external influences and financial services before
discussing those which relate specifically to agriculture

This study documents the long-term
welfare effects of household non-traditional agricultural
export (NTX) adoption. The analysis uses a unique panel
dataset, which spans the period 1985-2005, and employs
difference-in-differences estimation to investigate the
long-term impact of non-traditional agricultural export
adoption on changes in household consumption status and
asset position in the Central Highlands of Guatemala. Given

This report summarizes the findings of
the study on Competitive Commercial Agriculture for Africa
(CCAA). The objective of the CCAA study was to explore the
feasibility of restoring international competitiveness and
growth in African agriculture through the identification of
products and production systems that can underpin rapid
development of a competitive commercial agriculture. The
CCAA study focused on the agricultural potential of