Agricultural and Rural Development Notes

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This series on commodity risk management aims to disseminate the results of World Bank research that describes the feasibility of developing countries’ ability to utilize market-based tools to mitigate risks associated with commodity price volatility and weather.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 12
  • Publication
    Pull Mechanisms for Overcoming Market Failures in the Agriculture Sector: Initial Lessons Learned with Case Illustrations from AgResults’ Kenya On-Farm Storage Pilot
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-08) Mainville, Denise; Narayan, Tulika
    After the food crises of 2007-2008 and the growing realization that donor resources were not sufficient to meet global agricultural development challenges, the AgResults initiative was launched at the June 2012 G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico as an innovation to boost private sector engagement in meeting these challenges. AgResults initiative comprised of seven pilot projects that incentivize the private sector to develop and deliver innovative products to smallholder farmers in settings where markets for these products are otherwise underdeveloped. Each pilot provides financial incentives to the private sector actors to encourage them to enter the market, but the incentives are paid only after they achieve predefined results. This Knowledge Note reflects the initial findings from the external evaluator’s ongoing research to evaluate the pilots. The authors conclude by identifying the critical steps involved in design of a pull mechanism. Throughout, the authors draw on examples from the AgResults On-Farm Storage pilot in Kenya to illustrate their guidance.
  • Publication
    Gender and Governance in Agricultural Extension Services : Insights from India, Ghana, and Ethiopia
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010-03) Madhvani, Sonia; Pehu, Eija
    The gender and governance in rural services insights from India, Ghana, and Ethiopia report aims to generate policy-relevant knowledge on strategies for improving agricultural service delivery, with a focus on providing more equitable access to these services, especially for women. The project has been implemented in India, Ghana, and Ethiopia. These countries were chosen to capture variation in important macro-factors, especially the level of economic development; various aspects of governance, such as political system and party system; the role of women in society; and strategies adopted to promote gender equity. The project focused on agricultural extension as an example of a critical agricultural service. In India, the main problem is the lack of overall capacity resulting from a past policy of not hiring agricultural extension providers. The study indicates that access to agricultural extension is low in Ghana, despite the fact that an extension agent-to-farmer ratio is comparatively high. Agricultural extension is a high for the Ethiopia government priority, but coverage of extension services across regions varies widely, and extension agents have limited discretion to adapt technology packages to the context of individual communities. The gender gap in access to extension can also be improved.
  • Publication
    Awakening Africa’s Sleeping Giant : Prospects for Commercial Agriculture in the Guinea Savannah Zone and Beyond
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06) Morris, Michael
    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, and Africa's dependence on imported food crops has increased. While the poor performance of African agriculture can be attributed partly to adverse agroecological conditions, experience from elsewhere in the developing world suggests that significant progress is possible. The Guinea Savannah covers some 600 million hectares in Africa, of which about 400 million can be used for agriculture. Less than ten percent of this area is currently cropped, making it one of the largest underused agricultural land reserves in the world.
  • Publication
    Managing Drought Risk for Food Security in Africa : An Innovative Solution in Malawi
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-01) Syroka, Joanna; Bunte, Kara
    Malawi periodically experiences drought leading to shortages of grain on the domestic market and a sharp increase in consumer prices. Consumers, including many of the poorest farmers in the country, experience difficulty obtaining enough grain to meet their family requirements. One method to reduce the risks of grain shortfalls is to improve the capacity of farmers to produce enough grain even when drought occurs, for example, through input subsidies and efforts to improve water use efficiency. An additional measure is to finance the establishment and distribution of strategic grain stocks. However, in the occasional year when drought is most extreme, supplementary assistance will still be needed in the form of expensive food imports and, possibly, food aid.
  • Publication
    Land Reform in Mozambique
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-12) Van den Brink, Rogier J. E.
    This brief includes the following headings: rationale, objectives, and basic features of the 1997 land law; acquiring land-use rights; obstacles to transferring urban land-use rights; promote the productive use of Direito de Uso e Aproveitamento dos Terras, or DUATs; and enforce the land tax.
  • Publication
    Financial Services for Developing Small-Scale Irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-09) Larson, Gunnar
    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 has experienced increasing dependency on food imports that its countries cannot afford. Yet an estimated 700,000 hectares of arable land in Africa remains uncultivated. It is land that could become productive through small-scale irrigation using basic technology to draw on small-water resources, such as tube wells, and dambos. The technologies can be applied to cultivate smallholder plots of up to five hectares. Employing them will enable up to 4 million low-income households to intensify agricultural production and increase productivity. Small-scale irrigation can increase agricultural productivity and production, thus contributing to economic growth in rural areas and increased well-being among small holder farmers. Its potential to increase and stabilize food supply is especially important in light of the ongoing food crisis, and especially in Africa. Expanding the use of small-scale irrigation requires farmers to have access to financial services. The many constraints and obstacles that rural financial institutions in Africa confront must be purposefully navigated if financial services are to fulfill this role. Effectively tailoring financial services and products to support irrigation in different settings and among different client groups will be essential to success. Carefully targeting grant funding to the very poorest subsistence farmers and clearly separating it from lending will be likewise be critical to the sustainability of these financial services.
  • Publication
    Cameroon - Debt Relief Grant under the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-02) Mastri, Lawrence
    The objective of debt relief grant operation was to provide Cameroon the assistance required by IDA under the enhanced HIPC Debt Initiative upon Cameroon reaching the completion point, thus contributing to improving Cameroon's overall debt sustainability and supporting the government's implementation of its poverty reduction strategy through increased spending from the fiscal savings. The policy areas supported by the program are those linked to the conditions for reaching the completion point under the enhanced HIPC debt initiative, namely: (i) preparation of a poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP), and satisfactory implementation for at least one year; (ii) the maintenance of a stable macroeconomic framework and continued satisfactory performance under the IMF's Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) program; (iii) use of budgetary savings from the interim debt service relief; (iv) the satisfactorily implementation of the structural reforms supported by the Third Structural Adjustment Credit (SAC III) financed by IDA; (v) implementation of governance and anti-corruption measures in the areas of judicial reform, budget execution, procurement reform, and the creation of regulatory agencies; and (vi) implementation of key social reforms, including combating malaria and HIV/AIDS. Some of the lessons are as follows: (i) formulate a realistic timeframe for the government to meet the triggers of the completion point; and (ii) ensure that the government puts in place a strong focal point/unit to coordinate and monitor the implementation of the completion point triggers and facilitate related post completion point actions.
  • Publication
    Cultivating Knowledge and Skills to Grow African Agriculture
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-12) Agwe, Jonathan
    This Program states that larger investments in agricultural research, extension, and education systems are required to achieve the targeted increase in agricultural output of 6 percent a year over the next 20 years.To enhance the quality and productivity of Agricultural Education and Training (AET) in Africa, the case for improving its agricultural education capacities is compelling in view of their seminal role in agricultural development elsewhere in the world. AET development was an integral part of strategies of countries that grew agriculture successfully, such as Brazil, India, and Malaysia. The analytical work carried out on AET in Africa identified some priorities as key to modernize agricultural education in Africa These priorities are: 1 Political will must be generated in support of agricultural development by educating the public about its role in economic growth and poverty reduction, creating capacities for lobbying, joining forces with other stakeholders, and sustaining these efforts over two or three decades.(2) It is desirable to assess and re-balance AET enrollment profiles away from secondary level vocational training towards diploma, degree, and post-graduate levels (3) It is essential to replenish human capital by strengthening and expanding national Master of Science programs, laying the foundation for Ph.D. programs, and tackling the conundrum of incentives for staff retention.(4) Finances must be managed proactively by making more efficient use of existing resources, mobilizing non-public resources, and persuading donors to finance operating costs.(5) Much better gender balance must be achieved among AET graduates. African universities and other institutions of higher learning ultimately will be responsible for replenishing the stock of human capital in national research and extension services, and for providing them with the broader set of skills necessary to grow agriculture in the 21st century.
  • Publication
    Africa’s Growing Soil Fertility Crisis : What Role For Fertilizer?
    (2007-05) Agwe, Jonathan; Morris, Michael; Fernabdes, Erick
    Reversing Africa's decades-long decline in soil productivity levels poses a major challenge, and one that cannot be addressed without increased use of appropriate fertilizer nutrients. The 2006 World Bank Africa Fertilizer Strategy Assessment was undertaken to inform policy makers, providing them with guidelines on measures to effectively raise fertilizer use. This Note draws upon the material prepared for the above fertilizer strategy assessment, summarizes the information on the approaches to enhancing fertilizer supply and use in Africa, and identifies some future steps.
  • Publication
    Addressing Unequal Economic Opportunities : A Case Study of Land Tenure in Ghana
    (Washington, DC, 2006-09) World Bank
    The author examine this relationship in the context of agriculture in Ghana's Eastern Region. Our work traces the connection from a set of complex and explicitly negotiable property rights over land to agricultural investment and, in turn, to agricultural productivity. Using survey and focus group data, we find that while the land tenure institutions may have some benefits, they result in drastically lower productivity for those not connected to the political hierarchy. This paper discusses the following topics: land transactions and land rights, land tenure is a political process, and a safety net of sorts.