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Climate Volatility and Poverty Vulnerability in Tanzania

March, 2012

Climate models generally indicate that
climate volatility may rise in the future, severely
affecting agricultural productivity through greater
frequency of yield-diminishing climate extremes, such as
droughts. For Tanzania, where agricultural production is
sensitive to climate, changes in climate volatility could
have significant implications for poverty. This study
assesses the vulnerability of Tanzania s population to

Lessons from China for Africa

Reports & Research
May, 2012

China has been the most successful developing country in this modern era of globalization. Since initiating economic reform after 1978, its economy has expanded at a steady rate over 8 percent per capita, fueling historically unprecedented poverty reduction (the poverty rate declined from over 60 percent to 7 percent in 2007). Other developing countries struggling to grow and reduce poverty are naturally interested in what has been the source of this impressive growth and what, if any, lessons they can take from China.

The Pattern of Growth and Poverty Reduction in China

March, 2012

China has seen a huge reduction in the
incidence of extreme poverty since the economic reforms that
started in the late 1970s. Yet, the growth process has been
highly uneven across sectors and regions. The paper tests
whether the pattern of China´s growth mattered to poverty
reduction using a new provincial panel data set constructed
for this purpose. The econometric tests support the view
that the primary sector (mainly agriculture) has been the

Awakening Africa’s Sleeping Giant : Prospects for Commercial Agriculture in the Guinea Savannah Zone and Beyond

August, 2012

Stimulating agricultural growth is
critical to reducing poverty in Africa. Commercial
agriculture, potentially a powerful driver of agricultural
growth, can develop along a number of pathways. Yet many
developing regions have failed to progress very far along
any of these pathways. Particularly in Africa, agriculture
continues to lag. During the past 30 years the
competitiveness of many African export crops has declined,

The Perception of and Adaptation to Climate Change in Africa

June, 2012

The objective of this paper is to
determine the ability of farmers in Africa to detect climate
change, and to ascertain how they have adapted to whatever
climate change they believe has occurred. The paper also
asks farmers whether they perceive any barriers to
adaptation and attempts to determine the characteristics of
those farmers who, despite claiming to have witnessed
climate change, have not yet responded to it. The study is

Institutional Pathways to Equity : Addressing Inequality Traps

May, 2012

Inequalities and development:
dysfunctions, traps, and transitions by Anthony J.
Bebbington, Anis A. Dani, Arjan de Haan, and Michael Walton.
Asset inequality and agricultural growth: how are patterns
of asset inequality established and reproduced? By Rachel
Sabates. Beneath the categories: power relations and
inequalities in Uganda by Joy M. Moncrieffe. Inequalities
within India's poorest regions: why do the same

Tracking Results in Agriculture and Rural Development in Less-Than-Ideal Conditions : A Sourcebook of Indicators for Monitoring and Evaluation

August, 2012

The demand for verifiable evidence of
results and impacts of development agricultural programs and
projects is growing. However, most of the indicators that
development practitioners have traditionally used in
tracking progress toward achieving projects' objectives
focus on the workings of the development operation itself.
These performance indicators relate mainly to lower-level
inputs and outputs and are used to populate management

Property Rights in a Very Poor Country : Tenure Insecurity and Investment in Ethiopia

June, 2012

This paper provides evidence from one of
the poorest countries of the world that the property rights
matter for efficiency, investment, and growth. With all land
state-owned, the threat of land redistribution never appears
far off the agenda. Land rental and leasing have been made
legal, but transfer rights remain restricted and the
perception of continuing tenure insecurity remains quite
strong. Using a unique panel data set, this study

Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Europe's Transition Economies

May, 2012

The main purpose of this study is to
assess the changing landscape of agricultural protection and
taxation patterns in the region. The study is based on the
EU-10 sample, plus Turkey, as well as seven countries in the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS): Kazakhstan, the
Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan (the CIS-7). In
2000-04, these countries accounted for 89 percent of the

Financial Services for Developing Small-Scale Irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa

August, 2012

Food insecurity and income poverty are
rampant in Sub-Saharan Africa. Thirty-one percent of
children under the age of five are malnourished and some 72
percent of the population lives on less than US$2 day.
Forty-one percent lives on less than US$1 day. The
impoverished and hungry are concentrated disproportionately
in rural areas and rely mainly on the consumption and sale
of agricultural produce for their food and income. Africa

Afghanistan : Economic Incentives and Development Initiatives to Reduce Opium Production

June, 2012

This report is about how to
progressively reduce over time Afghanistan's dependence
on opium - currently the country's leading economic
activity - by development initiatives and shifting economic
incentives toward sustainable legal livelihoods.
Specifically, the report identifies additional investments
and policy and institutional measures to support development
responses that can counterbalance the economic advantages of

Assets, Livelihoods, and Social Policy

May, 2012

This series "New Frontiers of
Social Policy" aims to promote social development
through systematic attention to the underlying social
context and the social outcomes of development interventions
and public policy. This book series has been conceived and
produced for the broader development community, rather than
for social policy specialists alone. This book is
particularly, although not exclusively, relevant to those