For more than 30 years, China has undergone economic reforms and development that have led to successful economic growth and poverty reduction. The country has also made considerable efforts to reduce the income gap between urban and rural populations, balance regional development, and conserve natural resources. In 2003, IFPRI developed a strategy specifically tailored to its work in China and expanded its national program.

The year 2011 highlighted ongoing challenges to global food security, from food price volatility, extreme weather shocks, and famine to unrest and conflicts. On the policy front, major devel­opments at the global and national levels both offered grounds for encouragement and pointed to areas where further action is needed.

India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is one of the largest public works programs globally. Understanding the impacts of NREGS and the pathway through which its impacts are realized thus has important policy implications. We use a three-round 4,000-household panel from Andhra Pradesh together with administrative data to explore short- and medium-term poverty and welfare effects of NREGS.

Depuis 2007, deux séries successives d’envolée des prix des denrées alimentaires ont causé la faim ou la malnutrition pour des millions de personnes dans le monde. Les mêmes facteurs qui avaient contribué à la hausse des prix en 2007-2008 ont refait surface en 2011 et ont pour nom : la baisse du taux de croissance de la productivité agricole, le niveau élevé du coût de l’énergie favorisant l’expansion de la production de biocarburants, la dépréciation du dollar américain, une forte demande des pays émergents en matière de produits agricoles et les bouleversements climatiques.

This 2012 Global Food Policy Report is the second in an annual series that provides an in-depth look at major food policy developments and events. Initiated in response to resurgent interest in food security, the series offers a yearly overview of the food policy developments that have contributed to or hindered progress in food and nutrition security. It reviews what happened in food policy and why, examines key challenges and opportunities, shares new evidence and knowledge, and highlights emerging issues.

Can more vigorous political competition significantly raise rural land values, or contribute to more robust land rental markets? Exploiting exogenous variation in the national popularity of Pakistan’s political parties during the 2008 elections, we show that provincial assembly constituencies with greater competition between political parties had significantly higher land values and more active land rental markets four years later.

The agriculture, nutrition, and health nexus came to prominence in 2011. With 1 billion people continuing to suffer from food insecurity, and with vitamin and mineral deficiencies compromising the nutrition and health of billions of people, the international development community began to ask how much more could agriculture do to improve human wellbeing if it explicitly included nutrition and health goals?

This 2012 Global Food Policy Report is the second in an annual series that provides an in-depth look at major food policy developments and events. Initiated in response to resurgent interest in food security, the series offers a yearly overview of the food policy developments that have contributed to or hindered progress in food and nutrition security. It reviews what happened in food policy and why, examines key challenges and opportunities, shares new evidence and knowledge, and highlights emerging issues.

The LANDac International Conference 2015 (the Conference) was held 8-10 July 2015 in Utrecht, The Netherlands. The Conference was hosted by LANDac, the Netherlands Academy on Land Governance for Equitable and Sustainable Development and organized on the occasion of LANDac’s first lustrum.

In the first of the Land Governance Booklet Series created by the NGO Uttaran, the history of land and waterbody governance in Bangladesh is explained. 

The contents of this booklet is as follows:

1. Introduction
2. History of Land Management in Bangladesh
3. History of Uttaran
4. Uttaran Land Projects
5. Timeline
6. Testimonials.

Download the full booklet here

Urbanization has increased dramatically across Asia, rising from 32% urban in 1990 to 48% urban in 2010. The highest rate or urbanization was in East Asia (2%) which was 59% urban in 2010. South-East Asia was 47% urban in 2010. South and Central Asia remain the least urbanized areas in Asia, and while the Pacific region overall has low levels of urbanization, that is changing quickly. The highest estimated rate of urban growth between 2010 2020 will be in South and South-West Asia (27%), South-East Asia (24%) and East and North-East Asia (20%) close behind.