Recruiting and retaining leaders and public servants at the grass-roots level in developing countries creates a potential tension between providing sufficient returns to attract talent and limiting the scope for excessive rent-seeking behavior. In China, researchers have frequently argued that village cadres, who are the lowest level of administrators in rural areas, exploit personal political status for economic gain.

This study provides strategic
orientations and recommendations for Bank client countries
and suggests approaches for the Bank's role in a
rapidly changing industry with high economic potential. It
identifies priorities and options for policy adjustments,
catalytic investments, and entry points for the Bank and
other investors to foster environmentally friendly,
wealth-creating, and sustainable aquaculture. The objectives

The objective of this paper is to
determine the ability of farmers in Africa to detect climate
change, and to ascertain how they have adapted to whatever
climate change they believe has occurred. The paper also
asks farmers whether they perceive any barriers to
adaptation and attempts to determine the characteristics of
those farmers who, despite claiming to have witnessed
climate change, have not yet responded to it. The study is

This study estimates the vulnerability
of Latin American agriculture to climate change using a
Ricardian analysis of both land values and net revenues.
Examining a sample of over 2,500 farms in seven countries,
the results indicate both land value and net revenue are
sensitive to climate. Both small farms and large farms have
a hill-shaped relationship with temperature. Estimating
separate regressions for dryland and irrigated farms reveals

This study uses the Ricardian approach
to examine the economic impact of climate change on
agriculture in Zimbabwe. Net farm revenue is regressed
against various climate, soil, hydrological and
socio-economic variables to help determine the factors that
influence variability in net farm revenues. The study is
based on data from a survey of 700 smallholder farming
households interviewed across the country. The empirical

Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD)
is a fundamental component of Ethiopia's economic
growth and poverty reduction strategy. The agricultural
development strategy under Agriculture Development Led
Industrialization (ADLI) and Sustainable Development and
Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP) focused on enhancing the
productive capacity of smallholder farmers, promoting crop
diversification, shifting to a market based system, ensuring

This paper uses a computable general
equilibrium model to assess the welfare impact of commodity
price inflation in Tanzania and possible tax policy
responses in the short, medium, and long term. The results
suggest that global commodity inflation since 2006 may have
had a significantly negative impact on all Tanzanian
households. Most of the negative impact comes from the rise
in the price of oil. In contrast, food price spikes are

Policies to promote adaptation climate
risks often rely on the willing cooperation of the intended
beneficiaries. If these beneficiaries disagree with policy
makers and programme managers about the need for adaptation,
or the effectiveness of the measures they are being asked to
undertake, then implementation of the policies will fail. A
case study of a resettlement programme in Mozambique shows
this to be the case. Farmers and policy-maker disagreed

Poverty and Social Impact Analysis
(PSIA) is an approach used increasingly by governments,
civil society organizations, the World Bank, and other
development partners to examine the distributional impacts
of policy reforms on the well-being of different
stakeholders groups, particularly the poor and vulnerable.
PSIA has an important role in the elaboration and
implementation of poverty reduction strategies in developing

Rural poverty remains a crucial part of the poverty picture in Argentina. This paper used a rural dataset collected by the World Bank in 2003. Findings show that extreme income poverty in rural areas reached 39 percent of the people or 200,000-250,000 indigent families.

In the wake of reforms to establish a free market in land-use rights, Vietnam is experiencing a pronounced rise in rural landlessness. To some observers this is a harmless by-product of a more efficient economy, while to others it signals the return of the pre-socialist class-structure, with the rural landless at the bottom of the economic ladder. The authors' theoretical model suggests that removing restrictions on land markets will increase landlessness among the poor, but that there will be both gainers and losers, with uncertain impacts on aggregate poverty.

This report is a summary of research work coordinated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) China in 2003-2005, to prepare Implementation Guidelines for Poverty and Environment Work (IGPEW) in China. This report describes the research in two provinces, Yunnan and Sichuan, relating to the government's on-going Village-Based Integrated Poverty Reduction Plan for Poorer Western Regions. In addition, an English version of the implementation guidelines for poverty and environment work, and of the checklist, has been prepared by combining the documents produced in the two provinces.