Agricultural and Rural Development Notes

60 items available

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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 60
  • Publication
    Valuing Ecosystem Services in Zimbabwe
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-31) World Bank
    Valuing ecosystem services—the benefits humans obtain from earth’s many life-support systems—is an important step in devising interventions to achieve sustainable livelihoods and climate resilience. The services provided by healthy ecosystems are essential for supporting life. Their loss would have a disproportionately large impact on developing nations. This note highlights the evidence for the development of a scaled-up, integrated biodiversity and sustainable production landscapes investment project for Zimbabwe.
  • Publication
    Realigning Agricultural Support to Promote Climate-Smart Agriculture
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-11) World Bank Group
    This note, prepared by the World Bank Food and Agriculture Global Practice ahead of the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change examines the case for realigning agriculture support to promote climate-smart agriculture. From 2015 to 2017, the group of 51 countries analyzed provided approximately 570 billion US dollars annually in public support for agricultural producers, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Distortionary agricultural subsidies often result in large negative impacts, worsening rather than improving climate outcomes. Significant opportunities exist to realign public support to deliver public-good outcomes and, in particular, promote climate-smart agriculture (CSA).
  • Publication
    Indicators for Assessing Policy and Institutional Frameworks for Climate Smart Agriculture
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-09) Braimoh, Ademola; Rawlins, Maurice; Zhao, Yuxuan; Loundu, Wisambi
    Agriculture accounts for 40 percent of the land area and 70 percent of the freshwaterresources that humans use, and 24 percent of human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions. The scale of global emissions from agriculture and land-use change is increasingdue to population growth, growing consumption of meat and dairy products,and the rising use of nitrogen fertilizers,1 among other factors. Projections indicatethat emissions from human activities other than agriculture and land-use change couldincrease from 54 gigatons (Gt) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) to roughly 70 GtCO2-eq by 2050. To avoid dangerous global warming in which the global temperaturerises above 2 degree Celsius relative to preindustrial eras, global GHG emissions by2050 need to fall to roughly 21–22 Gt CO2-eq. Under business-as-usual practices,agriculture would contribute roughly 70 percent of these total emissions by midcentury.This implies that agriculture will need to cut its current emissions by two-thirdswhile simultaneously increasing food production.
  • 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
    Improving Nutrition through Multisectoral Approaches
    (Washington, DC, 2013-01) World Bank
    Nutrition sensitive agriculture aims to maximize the impact of nutrition outcomes for the poor, while minimizing the unintended negative nutritional consequences of agricultural interventions and policies on the poor, especially women and young children. It is agriculture with a nutrition lens, and should not detract from the sector's own goals. The agriculture sector is best placed to influence food production and the consumption of nutritious foods necessary for healthy and active lives. Agricultural productivity, focused primarily on staple grains, does not necessarily reduce under nutrition. Policies that strongly favor staple grains over other crops or foods may skew the balance from nutritious foods.
  • Publication
    Lessons from Scaling Up: Reducing Postharvest Loss through Mini Cold Storage Technology - Lessons from India
    (Washington, DC, 2012-06) World Bank
    The new 'lessons from practice: assessing scalability' report aims to provide specific tools and guidance to World Bank Task Team Leaders (TTLs) and other agricultural development specialists which can assist them in identifying the potential for scaling up small, innovative projects throughout the entire project cycle, from inception through completion. The report, developed in collaboration with the Heller school for social policy and management at Brandeis University, draws on lessons from the experience of the Development Marketplace (DM) in funding small innovation projects and offers strategic advice to agricultural practitioners on assessing the scalability of such projects. This note is based on a case study from India from the report.
  • Publication
    Agricultural Innovation Funds
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011-05) Rajalahti, Riikka; Larson, Gunnar
    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.
  • 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
    Rethinking Collaborative Arrangements with Local Partners
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010-01) Rosenbaum, Kenneth; Chandrasekharan Behr, Diji; Larson, Gunnar
    More forest area is being designated for use by local communities and indigenous peoples. In a growing number of countries legislation is being introduced to ensure that local partners share in the benefits of forest operations and participate as active stakeholders in the sustainable use of forest resources. Private sector investment in the forest sector is increasing as well. For businesses in an expanding range of investment settings, establishing and maintaining positive working relationships with local communities is an essential part of gaining access to natural resources, local skills and labor. Afforestation and reforestation activities and programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), including sustainable forest management (SFM) and forest restoration, seek to increase forest carbon sequestration, and their success or failure will rely in many respects on the effective cooperation of forest dependent people. These developments are giving partnerships and benefit-sharing arrangements between local and outside partners greater prominence than they have generally had in the past. The significance of these collaborative arrangements is increasing whether the local partner is a community, a user or producer association, or a group of individual landholders, and whether the outside partner is a private firm, a government agency, or a nongovernmental or civil society organization. The arrangements vary widely in purpose as well for the respective partners. Local partners may be interested in employment and income generating opportunities, in the security of their access to forest land, in the protection of resources that have traditional or other values, or in capitalizing on small business opportunities. Outside partners may be interested in gaining and securing access to forest products, in obtaining the cooperation of local communities in how forest resources are used, in alleviating rural poverty, or in managing risks and ensuring the provision of environmental services.
  • Publication
    Empowerment and Poverty Reduction through Infrastructure and Service Provision in Rural Pakistan
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010-01) Isa, Qazi Asmat; Ahmed, Naila; Larson, Gunnar
    Poverty in Pakistan is overwhelmingly rural. Some two-thirds of Pakistan's population, and over 60 percent of the country's poor, live in rural areas. In 2005, average per capita expenditures in rural areas were 31 percent lower than in urban areas. This inequality between urban and rural areas is re-enforced by inequality within and between rural areas. Owing to uneven access to land and useable water, most of the increased income that results from agricultural production accrues to higher income farmers-who typically spend a disproportionate amount of their income on urban goods and services. This inequality seriously limits the impacts of agricultural growth on rural poverty, and is a major cause of sustained poverty and low productivity among small farmers and rural nonfarm households. It also points to the importance of effectively targeting the poor in contexts in which resources intended for them are likely to be captured by more privileged groups.