Publication: Planning Beyond the Next Harvest: Advancing Economic Stability and Agricultural Commercialization
Loading...
Published
2022-12
ISSN
Date
2023-01-08
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The 16th edition of the Malawi Economic Monitor (MEM) calls for urgent actions to stabilize the economy and enhance growth. As in the previous MEM, this includes addressing three key areas: i) Stabilizing the economy: While some progress is being made, there remains an urgent need for theimplementation of the announced macroeconomic reforms, including building foreign reserves, achieving fiscal consolidation goals for the current fiscal year, returning debt to a sustainable path through restructuring, implementing key fiscal governance and public financial management (PFM) reforms, and continuing the shift toward a more flexible exchange rate regime. ii) Stimulating agricultural export competitiveness and market-driven growth in the economy: In the context of an ongoing macroeconomic crisis, it will be essential to focus on reforms to catalyze growth. This includes a sustained emphasis on advancing agricultural commercialization, improving the productivity of firms, and increasing and diversifying exports. It will also be important to deliver on the planned reform of expensive and poorly targeted subsidies, such as those for the Affordable Input Programme (AIP), and remove distortions that constrain firms’ growth. iii) Protecting the poor and strengthening resilience: As another difficult lean season approaches, including the heightened risk of extreme weather events, it will be essential to advance implementation of the significantly expanded Social Cash Transfer Program and other assistance programs. In the context of fiscal pressures, it will also be important to continue prioritizing the deliveryof essential services to the most vulnerable, while improving the efficiency and effectiveness of social sector expenditure.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2022. Planning Beyond the Next Harvest: Advancing Economic Stability and Agricultural Commercialization. Malawi Economic Monitor;December 2022. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38394 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Next Season’s Green Bond Harvest(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2014-06)Capital markets have been a source of funding for green investments for a number of years, but until recently, financing was predominantly from equity. Private equity, venture capital, and government funding were the most accessible sources of capital when green technologies such as solar and wind were in early stages of development. More recently, as these technologies have been tested, proven, and refined, funders have naturally progressed along the capital structure towards public equity and debt financing to support growth and scale. At the same time, leading financial institutions have provided impetus for expanded green investing. International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Kellogg School of Management have collaborated to author this paper which attempts to cover the bounty of credit tools available for harvesting by issuers and sponsors, with the aim of attracting new investments to green industry. This paper is the first in a series to proffer avenues to enhance the financial environment towards addressing this gap. This paper presents a brief overview of efforts that can circumvent these barriers by introducing a mix of innovative products to attract different kinds of fixed income investors and draw more private capital into funding green technologies.Publication Next Generation Africa Climate Business Plan. First Progress Report: Forging Ahead on Development-Centered Climate Action(World Bank, Washington DC, 2023-05-02)The Next Generation Africa Climate Business Plan (NGACBP), launched in 2020, provides a platform to further galvanize climate action by prioritizing its focus on Sub Saharan Africa’s development challenges and priorities. The plan focuses on food security, energy, and environmental and water security while also proactively supporting countries to manage climate shocks and harness the urban transition through climate smart pathways as core strategic directions. Strategic areas of emphasis include the cross-cutting issues of climate-informed macroeconomic policies and green and resilient infrastructure. Two years after the plan’s release, this progress report aims to provide an update on the status of the NG-ACBP, highlighting key accomplishments and success stories, defining emerging areas of engagement, and setting out a roadmap for the next four years of the plan’s delivery. The latter is especially important as we ensure full alignment with the International Development Association (IDA) 20 policy commitments, the World Bank’s Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP), and regional priorities for Eastern and Southern Africa (AFE) and Western and Central Africa (AFW).Publication The Next Generation Africa Climate Business Plan(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)Economic growth and shared prosperity in Sub-Saharan Africa will be increasingly undermined if vulnerabilities to climate change are not addressed. Climate impacts, which are already being felt will escalate significantly, as early as 2030, causing many low-capacity countries to be even more vulnerable. Given the climate sensitivities of multiple engines of growth, agriculture, natural capital, and infrastructure, the urgency for countries to ramp up climate-smart development at scale and across the growth spectrum is an imperative. The Next Generation Africa Climate Business Plan provides a platform to further galvanize climate action by prioritizing its focus on the region’s core development challenges and priorities. The plan is grounded in the World Bank’s commitment to support climate-resilient and low carbon development across the developing world and its solid engagement in technical and financial assistance to support climate action in Africa.Publication Utility of the Future 4.0, Taking Water and Sanitation Utilities Beyond the Next Level(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-04)This document outlines the Utility of the Future (UoF) program’s methodology, which is divided into two main phases: the UoF Standard and UoF Advanced. The UoF Standard phase focuses on establishing a solid foundation for transformation through initial analysis, action planning, and strategic vision development. The UoF Advanced phase builds on this foundation by implementing a comprehensive business and investment plan, followed by an intensive one-year deep-change program. This approach aims to address both immediate and long-term needs, ensuring utilities are well-equipped to meet evolving demands and achieve sustainable success.Publication Hidden Harvest : The Global Contribution of Capture Fisheries(Washington, DC, 2012-05)This report provides a disaggregated profile of the world's small and large-scale fisheries and an estimate of its direct and indirect contributions to gross domestic product, food security, and rural livelihoods to uncover the hidden importance of the fisheries sector with a view to increasing its economic and environmental contributions in a sustainable manner. The study reveals serious information deficiencies that undermine decision makers' understanding of the importance of the fisheries sector. The study concludes that the contribution of the world's fisheries to national and global economies is greater than that generally recognized by decision makers and makes recommendations to reform, inform, and improve data collection regarding capture fisheries.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Philippines Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)Climate change poses major risks for development in the Philippines. Climate shocks, whether in the form of extreme weather events or slow-onset trends, will hamper economic activities, damage infrastructure, and induce deep social disruptions. Adaptation to the risks of climate change, including both extreme events and slow-onset problems, is thus critical for the Philippines. Policy inaction would impose substantial economic and human costs, especially for the poor. Adaptation cannot eliminate the costs of climate change, but it can substantially reduce them. Many adaptation responses also contribute to mitigation; conversely, many mitigation measures generate local co-benefits, such as reduced air pollution. Although the Philippines is a relatively low emitter of greenhouse gas (GHG), it can contribute to global mitigation efforts through an energy transition, including a shift away from coal. The investment costs of such adaptation measures and an energy transition are substantial but not out of reach. The Philippines Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) comprehensively analyzes how climate change will affect the country's ability to meet its development goals and pursue green, resilient, and inclusive development. The CCDR helps identify opportunities for climate action by both the public and private sectors and prioritizes the most urgent development challenges impacted by climate change in the Philippines.Publication Poverty and Equity Assessment for El Salvador 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-12)This report proposes an agenda for building on gains to re-accelerate poverty reduction among Salvadorans. The last World Bank Poverty Assessment for El Salvador, from 2015, proposed two key policy recommendations: (a) effective pro-poor spending and (b) reduction of crime and violence through better access to jobs and education. Nine years later, the authorities have managed to achieve a substantial reduction in crime and violence and have indicated an intent to build on such progress to establish a path toward an El Salvador where shared prosperity is achievable. In this report, we propose a three pillar structure to address poverty and inequality reduction: jobs, services, and social protection, with a cross-cutting set of primary conditions that articulates this structure.Publication Panama Poverty and Equity Assessment 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-12)Panama has been one of the fastest-growing countries in the region, with rapid economic expansion accompanied by significant poverty reduction. Driven by public and private investment as well as labor accumulation, the Panamanian economy grew by an annual average of 5.7 percent between 1990 and 2023, much higher than the regional average of 2.5 percent. This growth contributed to a significant reduction in poverty. Using the poverty line of US$6.85 per day per capita (2017 PPP), the share of Panamanians affected by poverty improved from one in two in 1989 to only one in ten lived in 2023. Nevertheless, Panama remains one of the most unequal countries in the world. While poverty in urban areas was 4.8 percent in 2023, poverty in indigenous regions (comarcas) reached 76 percent—15 times higher. Limited progress in reducing inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, contrasts with Panama’s achievements in other areas. Globally, Panama ranked 11th in inequality in 2000, with a Gini coefficient of 53.8. Two decades later, it ranked 8th, with a Gini coefficient of 50.9 as of 2022. This report examines Panama’s achievements and challenges in reducing poverty and inequality to inform policy options. With a special focus on the 2008–2023 period the report documents progress in poverty and equity in recent decades, highlighting access to basic services, expansion of quality jobs, improvement of human capital, and promotion of household resilience as critical policy priorities.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022)Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022: Correcting Course provides the first comprehensive analysis of the pandemic’s toll on poverty in developing countries. It identifies how governments can optimize fiscal policy to help correct course. Fiscal policies offset the impact of COVID-19 on poverty in many high-income countries, but those policies offset barely one quarter of the pandemic’s impact in low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries. Improving support to households as crises continue will require reorienting protective spending away from generally regressive and inefficient subsidies and toward a direct transfer support system—a first key priority. Reorienting fiscal spending toward supporting growth is a second key priority identified by the report. Some of the highest-value public spending often pays out decades later. Amid crises, it is difficult to protect such investments, but it is essential to do so. Finally, it is not enough just to spend wisely - when additional revenue does need to be mobilized, it must be done in a way that minimizes reductions in poor people’s incomes. The report highlights how exploring underused forms of progressive taxation and increasing the efficiency of tax collection can help in this regard. Poverty and Shared Prosperity is a biennial series that reports on global trends in poverty and shared prosperity. Each report also explores a central challenge to poverty reduction and boosting shared prosperity, assessing what works well and what does not in different settings. By bringing together the latest evidence, this corporate flagship report provides a foundation for informed advocacy around ending extreme poverty and improving the lives of the poorest in every country in the world. For more information, please visit worldbank.org/poverty-and-shared-prosperity.