The 2008 World Development Report identifies competition as an important variable of the rural investment climate. Competition triggers innovation and the productivity gains that drive economic growth, and with it the creation of jobs. Employment is generally the principal pathway that people...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

The demand for verifiable evidence of results and impacts of development agricultural programs and projects is growing. However, most of the indicators that development practitioners have traditionally used in tracking progress toward achieving projects' objectives focus on the workings of the...

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...

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...

Disparity in growth rates between Upper and Lower Egypt has been dramatic. While national per capita income averaged 3 percent growth annually beginning in the mid 1990s, and growth rates in metropolitan areas approached 8 percent -- Upper Egypt experienced negative per capita growth rates...

This note recounts that by the early 2000s, the Government of Mexico and the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform, in particular, had come to see investment in "the more dynamic young segment of the population endowed with more human capital" as the key to revitalizing the moribund rural economy of...