The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty looks at the complex relationships between economic growth, poverty reduction and trade, and examines the challenges that poor people face in benefiting from trade opportunities. Written jointly by the World Bank Group and the WTO, the publication examines how trade could make a greater contribution to ending poverty by increasing efforts to lower trade costs, improve the enabling environment, implement trade policy in conjunction with other areas of policy, better manage risks faced by the poor, and improve data used for policy-making.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, countries within Sub-Saharan Africa reached milestones that seemed impossible only ten years ago: macroeconomic stability, sustained economic growth, and improved governance. Continuing this pattern of success will require enhancing the region’s agricultural sector, in which a large proportion of poor people make a living. The authors of Strategies and Priorities for African Agriculture: Economywide Perspectives from Country Studies argue that, although the diversity of the region makes generalization difficult, increasing staple-crop production is more likely to reduce poverty than increasing export-crop production. This conclusion is based on case studies of ten low-income African countries that reflect varying levels of resource endowments and development stages. The authors also recommend increased, more efficient public investment in agriculture and agricultural markets and propose new directions for future research. The last ten years have been an encouraging time for one of the world’s poorest regions; this book offers an analysis of how recent, promising trends can be sustained into the future.
A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.
Agriculture employs three-quarters of the population of Malawi. It makes up more than forty percent of the economy and sixty percent of all exports. Yet productivity in agriculture--measured as the amount of output for a given amount of inputs--is considerably lower than it could be, given Malawi's agricultural resources. Efforts to expand the economy and reduce poverty must involve agriculture. Where should the Government of Malawi invest?
This report assesses the impact of the International Food Policy Research Institutes (IFPRI) Global Research Program on Priorities for Public Investment in Agriculture and Rural Areas (GRP-3). Initiated in 1998, the stated objectives of the research program were (1) to increase public investment for rural areas and the agricultural sector given that there is an underspending in the sector and (2) to better target and improve efficiency of public resources to achieve these growth and poverty reduction goals, as well as other development goals. GRP-3 evolved out of research on the impacts of alternative types of public spending on income and poverty outcomes in India and China that was conducted by staff of IFPRIs Environment and Production Technology Division (later the Development Strategy and Governance Division). Those studies indicated that public investments in infrastructurein particular, investments in roads, agricultural research and development (R&D), and educationyielded sizeable marginal benefits in terms of poverty alleviation and income generation in rural areas. This line of research was later expanded to encompass a number of countries in Africa and, to a lesser extent, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. A second major (and ongoing) thrust of the program is to support African governments in establishing public investment priorities and strategies for promoting rural economic growth and poverty alleviation. Major activities undertaken include providing analytical and institutional support to the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and evaluations of individual publicly-funded programs in several African countries. GRP-3 has generated an impressive array of published outputs. The great bulk of these emerged from the research conducted in India and China. A much smaller number of published outputs have been generated by the (more recently conducted) research in Africa; however, a substantial number of papers, book manuscripts, and monographs are in various stages of the publication process. Other important program outputs include a variety of public expenditure databases suitable for assessing the nature and effects of individual countries spending priorities. GRP-3 research has had substantial influence on public expenditure priorities in India and China. Most notably, published research in India played a key role in the institution of the Rural Roads Program that directed huge sums toward construction of roads connecting large numbers of previously unserved villages. Quantitative assessment of the positive impacts from these road investments indicates that IFPRI research can reasonably take substantial credit for lifting tens of thousands of individuals out of poverty and increasing agricultural GDP by billions of rupees. Additionally, in both China and India, GRP-3 research has influenced recent policy conversations that have led to increased spending on agricultural R&D and education. Overall, the program has substantially met its stated objectives in Asia. GRP-3 research in Africa has yet to fully meet the programs objectives, in large part because the policymaking process in the countries where IFPRI has been active are still not far enough advanced for the research outputs to have translated into actual policies. Still, some important outcomes have emerged: The work IFPRI has conducted in support of CAADP has successfully shepherded 19 countries through the Compact process. However, the Compacts are intermediate products; it remains to be seen the extent to which governments follow through on the plans contained within them. IFPRIs compilations of disparate public expenditure data in a large number of countries represent a useful local public good for use by research and practitioner communities outside of IFPRI. In addition, IFPRIs role in guiding the formation and operation of a regional strategic assessment and knowledge support system (ReSAKSS) has boosted, if not created, institutional capacity for future monitoring and evaluation activities. Research on the impact of public investments in the agricultural sector has been useful to the donor community by providing empirical backstopping for ongoing policy dialogues with governments. However, the difficultand often contentiouspolitical environment in which those dialogues occur has meant that policy outcomes are still materializing (and far from certain).
Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.
This book analyses the diffusion and implementation of Aid Effectiveness Principles in Kenya’s agricultural sector. Although Aid Effectiveness Principles represent a significant step in aid and development discourse, studies on its implementation remain inadequate, especially in the African context. This book combines the perspectives of the Kenyan government, donor representatives and small-scale farmers. The discussion on Kenya brings in comparative perspectives and, therefore, would have broader relevance to the African region, in general. It highlights a disconnect between the government and farmers concerning the ownership concept, where farmers lack a voice in important policy matters. The book shows that donors have exploited the weaknesses in government responses to interpret The Principles in ways that suit their strategic interests. Consequently, the book argues that the diffusion of Aid Effectiveness Principles has taken the form of symbolic imitation – a form of policy diffusion where the policymakers choose policies for their symbolic value rather than their effectiveness.
