The overall objective of the
Comprehensive Assessment of the Agricultural Sector (CAAS)
is to provide an evidence base to enable appropriate
strategic policy responses by the Government of Liberia
(GoL) and its development partners in order to maximize the
contribution of the agriculture sector to the
Government's overarching policy objectives. Given the
strong relationship between growth in agricultural

This report presents policy, market, and
agriculture transition in the Northern Uplands of Lao
People's Democratic Republic aims to contribute to such
a dialogue by providing: (a) a policy-relevant typology of
the structural characteristics and transition patterns of
the principal small-holder agriculture systems in the
Northern Uplands; and (b) recommendations to strengthen
Government's facilitation of a more sustainable and

This report focuses on the potential and
opportunities for smallholder commercialization in Zambia.
The paper discusses the framework for Zambia's
smallholder commercialization strategy, the current state of
smallholder agriculture in Zambia, key issues, support from
agribusiness to smallholders, and development of potential
and opportunities for smallholder commercialization. The
paper concludes with three strategy areas: how to strengthen

This report shows that after a decade of
moderate growth but little or no long term change in rural
poverty in Pakistan, agricultural output, rural incomes,
rural poverty and social welfare indicators all showed
marked improvements between 2001-02 and 2004-05. However,
longer term trends suggest there is little reason for
complacency. The agricultural GDP per capita growth rate
(1999- 2000 to 2004-05) was only 0.3 percent per year; rural

The objective of this paper is to: (a) review World Bank's pest management activities during 1999-2004; (b) assess those in view of the changes in the external and internal contexts; (c) identify appropriate opportunities of engagement on pest and pesticide issues; and (d) suggest means to further promote sound pest management in the World Bank operations. The importance of sound pest management for sustainable agricultural production is being recognized by many developing countries.

The main focus of this book is land
redistribution. To forge greater consensus among
practitioners of land reform, and to enable them to make
better choices among the many options, the book describes
and analyzes alternative broad paths of implementation,
using examples and the detailed implementation mechanisms
that were used in those examples. The objectives of this
book are to review and analyze: a) the growing consensus on

This book challenges policy makers who
oversee the rice sector in Southeast Asia to reexamine
deep-rooted precepts about their responsibilities. As an
essential first step, it calls on them to redefine food
security. Fixating on national self-sufficiency has been
costly and counterproductive. In its stead, coordination and
cooperation can both improve rice production at home and
structure expanding regional trade. To enhance regional food

The Government of Malawi has since 2005
been pursuing a growth strategy mainly based on increasing
the volume of agricultural exports. This entails that Malawi
should endeavor to improve the competitiveness of its
agricultural commodities so as to gain an increasing share
of the regional and international markets. This paper
analyzes the competitiveness of the country's key
agricultural commodities -- tobacco, maize, cotton, and rice

Agriculture and agroprocessing are
important in Zambia's economy, representing more than
40 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and contributing
about 12 percent of national export earnings. Agriculture
employs some 67 percent of the labor force and supplies raw
materials to agricultural industries, which account for some
84 percent of manufacturing value-added in the country.
Smallholder agriculture dominates the rural economy. It

This book provides an overview of the
World Bank's Eco2 cities : ecological cities as
economic cities initiative. The objective of the Eco2 cities
initiative is to help cities in developing countries achieve
a greater degree of ecological and economic sustainability.
The book is divided into three parts. Part one describes the
Eco2 cities initiative framework. It describes the approach,
beginning with the background and rationale. Key challenges

Cotton is a major source of foreign
exchange earnings in more than 15 countries across all
regions of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) and a crucial source of
cash income for millions of rural people in these countries.
The crop is, therefore, critical in the fight against rural
poverty. The World Bank and other development institutions
have been and are currently assisting many cotton exporting
countries of SSA to improve their cotton sector performance

This study documents the long-term
welfare effects of household non-traditional agricultural
export (NTX) adoption. The analysis uses a unique panel
dataset, which spans the period 1985-2005, and employs
difference-in-differences estimation to investigate the
long-term impact of non-traditional agricultural export
adoption on changes in household consumption status and
asset position in the Central Highlands of Guatemala. Given