The workshop brings diverse perspectives from outside the World Bank, providing a forum in which to exchange ideas and debate in the course of developing the World Development Report (WDR). Participants at the 2006 Berlin Workshop gathered to discuss challenges and successes pertaining to agriculture and development. Agriculture is the major sector contributing to economic development in many poor countries. Three out of every four poor people in developing countries live in rural areas. As globalization accelerates, development policies should tackle future challenges in agriculture arising from the scarcity of natural resources and globalization. The author highlights the paramount importance of redefining the framework for agriculture, providing us with food for thought and putting forward suggestions that need greater reflection and more detailed discussion. The contribution focuses on three main topics. First, the author presents some considerations on global agricultural development and trade. The author describes the different approaches to agricultural development...

Agricultural development depends to a great extent on how successfully knowledge is generated and applied. Investments in knowledge, especially in the form of science and technology, have been featured prominently and consistently in most strategies to promote sustainable and equitable agricultural development at the national level. Although many of these investments have been quite successful, the context for agriculture is changing rapidly-sometimes radically-and the process of knowledge generation and use has been transformed as well. It is increasingly recognized that traditional agricultural science and technology investments such as research and extension, although necessary, are not sufficient to enable agricultural innovation. As this paper will demonstrate, new perspectives on the nature of the agricultural innovation process can yield practical approaches to agricultural development that may be more suited to this changing context. This paper includes the following headings: (i) reasons for assessing the value of the innovation systems perspective; (ii) the innovation systems concept - a framework for analysis; (iii) research methodology and case study descriptions; (iv) innovation system capacity - a comparative analysis of case studies; (v) reviewing the innovation systems concept in light of the case studies; (vi) toward a framework for diagnosis and intervention; and (vii) conclusions.

The purpose of this sourcebook is to pull together into a single document a collection of common sense tips and recommendations based on actual practices and experience around the world. The sourcebook aims first and foremost to help strengthen Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) capacity at the national and sub-national levels, and to ensure a consistency of approach and methodology so that, at the global level, sufficient reliable and timely information can be accessed from the different countries and used to make cross-country comparisons and to calculate development indicators at the global level. The sourcebook is specifically targeted towards countries where conditions are less-than-ideal, particularly with respect to the availability of relevant information. The sourcebook also shows how a service delivery approach can be used to select indicators which can generate useful, easy-to-measure early outcome measures. It suggests that greater use be made of qualitative indicators, such as access, use and satisfaction. The sourcebook devotes considerable attention to the need for a strong statistical infrastructure and reviews the range of different statistical instruments available.

The purpose of this sourcebook is to pull together into a single document a collection of common sense tips and recommendations based on actual practices and experience around the world. The sourcebook aims first and foremost to help strengthen Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) capacity at the national and sub-national levels, and to ensure a consistency of approach and methodology so that, at the global level, sufficient reliable and timely information can be accessed from the different countries and used to make cross-country comparisons and to calculate development indicators at the global level. The sourcebook is specifically targeted towards countries where conditions are less-than-ideal, particularly with respect to the availability of relevant information. The sourcebook also shows how a service delivery approach can be used to select indicators which can generate useful, easy-to-measure early outcome measures. It suggests that greater use be made of qualitative indicators, such as access, use and satisfaction. The sourcebook devotes considerable attention to the need for a strong statistical infrastructure and reviews the range of different statistical instruments available.

The author looks at the feasibility and potential of instituting small-scale irrigation dams to reduce Ethiopia s dependence on rainfed agriculture and the associated food insecurity. He develops a theoretical framework to assess the welfare implications of irrigation development programs and provides empirical evidence from microdam construction and reforestation projects in northern Ethiopia. The author pays particular attention to health-related costs of establishing small-scale irrigation dams in areas prone to waterborne diseases. While the theoretical analyses imply that the net welfare impacts of irrigation dams cannot be known a priori due to potential health costs, the empirical evidence shows that current agricultural yield and farm profit have increased in villages with closer proximity to the dams than in those more distant. The increased disease incidence due to standing pools of water has, however, led to significant declines in the returns from investment in irrigation water. Households with poor health are less likely to adopt productivity-enhancing as well as resource-conserving technologies, which are crucial for achieving the ultimate goal of sustainable agricultural development. The ensuing sickness has also led to reduction in labor allocation to off-farm activities. The findings underline the importance of weighing beforehand the magnitude of potential economic benefits against health costs of water development programs. The overall evidence...

Policy makers and development practitioners who are responsible for developing investment strategies to promote economic growth find many challenges in the changing face of agriculture in the twenty-first century. In addition to its productive role of providing food, clothing, fuel, and housing for a growing world population, agriculture assumes other roles, the importance of which has more recently been recognized. In addition to its essential role in food security, agricultural development is now seen as a vital and high-impact source of poverty reduction. It is also seen as a source of environmental problems and a contributor to global warming, water scarcity and pollution, and land degradation. At the same time its potential as a source of environmental services needs to be defined, monitored, and evaluated. Many of the issues facing the sector transcend national boundaries. The Global Strategy is the result of an extensive consultation process with national and international statistical organizations as well as with agriculture ministries and other governmental institutions represented in Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) governing bodies. Considerable input came from the United Nations statistical commission friends of chair working group and the 2009 meetings of the International Statistical Institute in Maputo and Durban. Other collaboration involved the FAO Biannual conference and discussions at the regional commissions on agricultural statistics attended by national directors of agricultural statistics...

This sector report on Challenges and Priorities for Rural Development analyzes why Upper Egypt has lagged behind the rest of the country and to help the Government of Egypt and stakeholders to define a framework for interventions to promote broad-based economic growth and human development that will reach the poor and improve welfare in rural Upper Egypt. To achieve this objective, the strategic framework for intervention proposed here has two dimensions. The first is to foster broad-based economic growth based on agricultural development and off-farm activities. The second is to enhance access to basic infrastructure and services by promoting local level planning and civil society engagement.

This report summarizes the conclusions of a team of World Bank consultants who visited Cameroon from May 5 to 23, 2013, from July 28 to August 3, 2013, and from February 18 to 22, 2014 to lend support to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MINADER), the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries, and Animal Husbandry (MINEPIA), the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF), and the Ministry of the Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development (MINEPDED), in the preparation of a Basic Agricultural Public Expenditure Diagnostic Review. The Cameroon government assigns a crucial role to agriculture in stimulating growth, combating poverty, and job creation. The objectives of the Basic Agricultural Public Expenditure Diagnostic Review in Cameroon are as follows: a) to learn from past experience of budget implementation in the agricultural sector, identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and deviations from the stated goals, and recommend remedial measures for existing and future programs, with the intention of improving their impact and making them more efficient and equitable; b) to initiate the creation of databases and formulate the required methodology to conduct regular comparable reviews...

The New Economic Mechanism was introduced in 1986 and since then the Lao Government has geared the country towards a market economy, encouraged the development of the private sector and decentralised management. Taking into account the fact that agriculture and forestry form the back bone of the country’s economy, the government has employed a two-pronged socio-economic development approach, one for the uplands and the other for the lowlands. In the former case the focus is on self-sufficiency in food, agricultural diversification and conservation of natural resources, while in the latter case it is on commercialised agriculture production, using agricultural intensification to both maintain the already existing market momentum and trigger industrial sector development, particularly agro-industry. An area-based approach is adopted to facilitate this development. Also, the government has committed itself to eradicating poverty and ridding the country of its LDC status by the year 2020.; no

This module provides guidance and a comprehensive menu of practical tools for integrating gender in the planning, design, implementation, and evaluation of projects and investments in climate-smart agriculture (CSA). The module emphasizes the importance and ultimate goal of integrating gender in CSA practices, which is to reduce gender inequalities and ensure that men and women can equally benefit from any intervention in the agricultural sector to reduce risks linked to climate change. Climate change has an impact on food and nutrition security and agriculture, and the agriculture sector is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. It is crucial to recognize that climate change affects men and women differently. The content is drawn from tested good practice and innovative approaches, with an emphasis on lessons learned, benefits and impacts, implementation issues, and replicability. These insights and lessons related to gender in CSA will assist practitioners to improve project planning, design...

Contrary to conventional economic theories, the relationship between income growth and agricultural employment is extremely diverse, even among regions starting from similar levels of development, such as Asia and Africa. Due to its labor-intensive Green Revolution and strong farm–nonfarm linkages, Asia's development path is mostly characterized by fast growth with relatively slow agricultural exits. In contrast to Asia, urban biased policies, low rural population density, and high rates of population growth have led a number of African countries down a path of slow economic growth with surprisingly rapid agricultural exits. Despite this divergence both continents now face daunting employment problems. Asia appears to be increasingly vulnerable to rising inequality, slower job creation, and shrinking farm sizes, suggesting that Asian governments need to refocus on integrating smallholders and lagging regions into increasingly commercialized rural and urban economies. Africa, in contrast, has yet to achieve its own Green Revolution, which would still be a highly effective tool for job creation and poverty reduction. However, the diversity of its endowments and its tighter budget constraints mean that agricultural development strategies in Africa need to be highly context specific...

This report addresses key structural, institutional, and sectoral policy impediments to achieving a higher, and sustained economic growth in the sector, and poverty reduction in rural areas of Iran. It focuses mainly on an assessment of agricultural development outcomes, a discussion of the agricultural policy agenda, and provides recommendations for future policy dialogue between the Bank, and the Government of Iran. On examining development outcomes, the report assesses the agricultural sector's contribution, which - though in decline - has displayed rapid growth (4.9 percent) during the course of the 1990's; identifies the strong rural content of poverty in Iran, where the proportion of the rural population living in households with income below the poverty line, is the highest; and, examines the increasing pressures on the natural resources, with deforestation and erosion reaching alarming proportions. Policy in the sector has been driven largely by the need to rely on domestic production, to meet the needs of a rapidly increasing demand. However...

In order for agricultural development to fulfill its potential role as a source of growth and reducer of poverty, it must be constantly renewed through knowledge and innovation. Getting resources into the hands of innovators and providing incentives for producers, agricultural service providers, and entrepreneurs to collaborate in developing and applying new methods and technologies is a priority among institutions concerned with agricultural knowledge. While grants have long been used to finance agricultural innovation, in many countries there has been a shift away from block grant funding and towards the use of innovation funds. These are used to provide incentives and resources for investment and collaboration between innovators, producer groups, private entrepreneurs, and public institutions. Innovation funds allocate grants to targeted applicants based on a system for evaluating the eligibility, relevance, and quality of applicants' proposals.

Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD) is a fundamental component of Ethiopia's economic growth and poverty reduction strategy. The agricultural development strategy under Agriculture Development Led Industrialization (ADLI) and Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP) focused on enhancing the productive capacity of smallholder farmers, promoting crop diversification, shifting to a market based system, ensuring food security at the household level and strengthening emergency responses, building up the fragile livelihoods of pastoral communities, and increasing rural water supply coverage. The series of policies put in place in the 1990s included a more supportive macro-economic framework, liberalized markets for agricultural products, and an extension and credit-led push on seed and fertilizer. Following the drought of 2002/03, the government increased its focus on safety nets, and the 2006 Plan of Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) emphasizes rural-urban linkages and the promotion of rural non-farm enterprises...

According to Myint's "vent-for-surplus" theory, development of the economies of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand from the nineteenth century on depended on the natural advantage of large tracts of unused "empty land" with low population density and abundant natural resources of the type typically found in Southeast Asia and Africa at the outset of Western colonization. When these economies were integrated into international trade, hitherto unused natural resources (primary commodities the indigenous people had not valued) became the source of economic development, commanding market value because of high import demand in Western economies. The major delta of Chao Phraya River was the resource base of vent-for-surplus development with rice in Thailand; tropical rain forests filled that role in Indonesia and the Philippines with respect to the production of tropical cash crops. This basic difference underlay differences in the distribution of farm size: the unimodal distribution of peasants or family farms in Thailand and the coexistence of peasants and large estate farms or plantations specializing in tropical export crops in Indonesia and the Philippines. Differences in agrarian development were also shaped by different policies toward the elites preemption of unused land. Under Spanish colonialism...

The objective of this policy note on land is to assist the Government of Moldova in improving the effectiveness of land management in agriculture, with a view to enhancing the sector's contribution to Moldova's economic growth and poverty reduction objectives. The note reviews the progress that has been made to date on land reform in Moldova, and provides rigorous economic analysis of the impacts of the reforms and the state of land markets today. It also makes recommendations on options for improving the functioning of land markets. This note is organized as follows. Chapter one explore in detail the progress of land reform, including changes in land ownership and land use since 1990; then describe the results of farm reorganization efforts, including some comparisons with farm structure in market economies. Chapter two examines the impacts of land reform on economic indicators such as productivity for different farm types. Chapter three analyze the development of land markets to date based on new information gathered for this work from the Cadastre Agency...

Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD) is a fundamental component of Ethiopia's economic growth and poverty reduction strategy. The agricultural development strategy under Agriculture Development Led Industrialization (ADLI) and Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP) focused on enhancing the productive capacity of smallholder farmers, promoting crop diversification, shifting to a market based system, ensuring food security at the household level and strengthening emergency responses, building up the fragile livelihoods of pastoral communities, and increasing rural water supply coverage. The series of policies put in place in the 1990s included a more supportive macro-economic framework, liberalized markets for agricultural products, and an extension and credit-led push on seed and fertilizer. Following the drought of 2002/03, the government increased its focus on safety nets, and the 2006 Plan of Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) emphasizes rural-urban linkages and the promotion of rural non-farm enterprises...

Three out of every four poor people in developing countries live in rural areas, and most of them depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. In many parts of the world, women are the main farmers or producers, but their roles remain largely unrecognized. The 2008 World development report: agriculture for development highlights the vital role of agriculture in sustainable development and its importance in achieving the millennium development goal of halving by 2015 the share of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger. Climate change and rising food prices are reminders of the need to focus on food security and agriculture for development; and the material presented in the gender in agriculture sourcebook suggests that accounting for the different roles of women and men and gender equality in access to resources and opportunities is a necessary condition for doing so. This sourcebook is a particularly timely resource. It combines descriptive accounts of national and international experience in investing in agriculture with practical operational guidance on to how to design agriculture for development strategies that capitalize effectively on the unique properties of agricultural growth and rural development involving women and men as a high-impact source of poverty reduction. It looks at gender equality and women's empowerment...

Myanmar is an agricultural country. It is estimated that the agriculture sector represents between 35 to 40 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and that up to 70 percent of the labor force (of 32.5 million) is directly or indirectly engaged in agricultural activities or depend on agriculture for their income. Given agriculture's important contribution to the economy, the modernization of the agriculture sector is a top priority in the economic and social development agenda of the Government of Myanmar. Among the government institutions supporting the agriculture sector, the Myanmar Agriculture Development Bank (MADB) plays an important role. MADB was established in June 1953 by the Government of Myanmar to support the development of agriculture, livestock, and rural enterprises in Myanmar. MADB is currently the largest financial institution serving the rural areas and financing agriculture activities. At the end of 2012, MADB served 1.87 million customers, mostly farmers, and had a network of 206 branches (which accounted for 23 percent of all banks' branches in Myanmar). Since its creation...

The Guinean government assigns a crucial role to agriculture in accelerating growth, reducing poverty, and creating jobs. This role is inscribed in Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) 3, which was approved by the government in May 2013, following PRSP 2 (2007-2010) and PRSP 1 (2002-2006). As part of the revival of its agricultural development strategy, the government through the Ministry of Agriculture expressed its desire for an agricultural public expenditure review to be carried out in order to learn from past experience and to improve performance in the medium term. This request was accepted by the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency. The cost of this review was met by the strengthening national comprehensive agricultural public expenditure in Sub-Saharan Africa program and co-funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the CAADP Multi-Donor Trust Fund. The goals of the 2003-2012 agricultural public expenditure review in Guinea are as follows: gain a better understanding of the country's performance in the context of the 2003 Maputo declaration; seek and recommend corrective actions for existing programs and suggest appropriate actions for future programs with a view to improving their impact and making them more efficient and equitable; and increase the visibility of the government and the DPs over the sector's absorptive capacity so that the decision may be made to allocate more resources to agricultural development.