Agricultural and Rural Development Notes

60 items available

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https://hdl.handle.net/10986/9390

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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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.
Kyrgyz Republic : Benefits of Securing and Registering Land for Development
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-02) Cook, Edward
The project initially focused on building upon the 1998 Registration Law to develop registration procedures, and on getting the Legislative Reform Office (LROs) up and running. Cost, affordability, and quality of services were important considerations. The Project benefited from the country's high education levels and relatively low labor costs. Since independence in 1991, the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic has sought to promote market reform. An important part of this reform is a program to privatize land and secure property rights in land and other immovable property. Prior to independence, all land was state property, with use rights granted to occupants. Most commercial buildings and structures were, likewise, state property. Rights to residential properties were presumed to be held by occupants, but there was no clear legal support or guarantee to these rights. The large majority of agricultural land was farmed collectively. Workers on these state and collective farms were allocated small household plots for their own production. The most essential success factor for the Project has been the continuity and strength of government commitment. Without the strength of leadership in the implementing agency, as well as the quality and extent of skills brought to oversee project implementation, none of the successes that have been achieved would have been possible.
Armenia : Title Registration Project
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-02) Adlington, Gavin; Saxen, Anu
This approach resulted in the fragmentation of agricultural holdings, with families owning noncontiguous plots. Land use was inefficient, owing in part to the low rate of use of agricultural machinery. Making land use and farming more efficient will require the establishment of a functioning land market. Granting farmers the right to sell, exchange, and lease their land will enable them to use it as collateral and to consolidate family plots. The overall aim of the Armenia Title Registration Project was to promote private sector development by implementing a transparent, parcel-based, easily accessible, and reliable registration system for land and other immovable property. The system was to provide a chronological record of property owners and their rights and obligations. The availability of this information was expected to reduce the transaction costs of title transfers and mortgage financing and lead to more secure property rights for parcels registered in the system. This in turn was expected to lead to higher land and real estate value, increased productivity, and the consolidation of fragmented rural land ownership. Increased use of property as collateral was expected to bring about general improvement in the efficiency of rural and urban real estate markets. The project was also intended to promote least-cost registration procedures by building on existing property information databases (adding only market-relevant information to these databases), and by contracting private surveyors.
Innovating to Reduce Risk : The Case of Livestock Insurance in Mongolia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-10) Belete, Nathan; Larson, Gunnar
The Mongolia Index Based Livestock Insurance Project (P088816) is piloting insurance plans in three provinces, Bayankhongor, Uvs, and Khenti. It consists of five components. The first provides the mechanism to pilot two index-based livestock insurance (IBLI) products. The second component of the project entails a variety of targeted promotional and public awareness activities to foster awareness and inform stakeholders about the details of the two products and the IBLI pilot. The third component supports the institutional framework and capacity necessary to expand the availability of the insurance products once the viability of IBLI instruments has been established. The fourth component monitors a variety of stakeholders during the IBLI pilot in tracking access by different social groups, monitoring how the two products are received, and in determining whether herders modify their behavior in response and, if so, how their behavior changes. The project's fifth component supports the project implementation unit in its management functions. The lessons learned also suggest themselves as potentially replicable by other project teams, and as warranting the attention of other governments that seek to manage the risks faced by livestock-dependent communities.
When Markets Do Not Work, Should Grants Be Used?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-04) van der Meer, Kees; Noordarn, Marijin
To deal with problems of inadequate markets and the persistence of deep poverty, development agency personnel designing projects have increasingly turned to grants to provide solutions. This paper examines the theory of grants, draws lessons from a review of their use in twelve projects that started mostly in the years 1998-2000, discusses findings, and recommends ways to deal with problems faced in grant projects. The paper recommends the following: guidance notes, standard guidelines and manuals, and training for task managers, emphasizing the need to explicitly identify market failures and justify the use of grants to address them, as well as providing frameworks for detailed design of grant schemes; detailed cost-benefit analyses of all grant-financed investments, to the extent that such investments are of an economic nature for which such analyses are possible; broader analyses of other investments such as community-driven development (CDD) projects and cash or food-for-work schemes; analysis of pilot interventions or stylized model investments; Project Appraisal Documents should include more details of implementation, and give more guidance to the implementers; and the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) should evaluate grant schemes with special attention to justification, economic evaluation, and implementation details.