This document summarizes the approach
that the global partnership for oceans (GPO) will take in
its work with countries to help improve the health of the
oceans and reduce coastal poverty. Restoring the health of
the world's ocean is a global challenge that can and
must be solved if one has to alleviate poverty, build
resilient communities, and foster strong coastal economies.
The natural systems underpinning the health of the ocean and

The urgent need to limit anthropogenic
carbon emissions has led to a global initiative to Reduce
Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+).
But designing national architectures for REDD+ that
integrate local actions on forests with national-level
outcomes and do so effectively, efficiently, and equitably
continues to be challenging. One option to facilitate the
design and implementation of REDD+ is to learn from the

Within the next two decades Indonesia
aspires to generate prosperity, avoid a middle-income trap
and leave no one behind as it tries to catch up with
high-income economies. These are ambitious goals. Realizing
them requires sustained high growth and job creation, as
well as reduced inequality. Can Indonesia achieve them? This
report argues that the country has the potential to rise and
become more prosperous and equitable. But the risk of

Serbia's economy is out of balance
and performing below its potential. Since the post,
Yugoslavian transition, Serbia's economy has been
running on one engine, the non-tradable sector and expansion
of domestic demand. This was financed with ample capital
inflows, which were sharply reduced since 2008 as the global
economic crisis escalated. While this consumption-led growth
produced some improvements in living standards, it was not

Ukraine is renowned as the breadbasket
of Europe thanks to its black soils ( Chernozem black
because of the high organic matter content) which offer
exceptional agronomic conditions. One-third of the worldwide
stock of the fertile black soils, which cover more than half
of Ukraine s arable land, a large variety of climatic zones,
and favourable temperature and moisture regimes, offers
attractive conditions for the production of a large range of

Over the past century or so, a wide
assortment of pre-harvest agreements, joint ventures, deals,
and pledges that can be termed contract farming have been
brokered between farmers and buyers. During the 1980s and
1990s, contract farming was frequently criticized as a
potentially exploitative arrangement, which favored the more
powerful buyer and left the small-scale farmer and the
environment vulnerable to abuse. More recently, there is

Enabling the Business of Agriculture
2015 is a pilot assessment report on the agribusiness sector
enabling environment in 10 countries. This progress report
covers the methodology, key insights and lessons learned
from the pilot effort. Enabling the Business of Agriculture
2015 is a first step toward identifying areas and data sets
that can be used to build indicators in subsequent phases of
the project; the indicators will measure and monitor

This paper uses a stochastic dynamic
programming model to characterize the optimal
savings-consumption decisions and the role of livestock
inventories as a buffer stock in rural Ethiopia. The results
show that relatively land-rich households use accumulation
and liquidation of cattle and other animal inventories for
partial consumption smoothing, while low-income households
appear not to do so. The results highlight the need for

This paper studies the credit market
implications and real effects of one the largest borrower
bailout programs in history, enacted by the government of
India against the backdrop of the 2008-2009 financial
crisis. The study finds that the stimulus program had no
effect on productivity, wages, or consumption, but led to
significant changes in credit allocation and an increase in
defaults. Post-program loan performance declines faster in

With global food crises and food price volatility in recent years, agricultural subsidies have once
again gained prominence as a policy instrument in many developing countries. In Mongolia too,
subsidies to the agriculture sector mainly through government budgetary transfers, have
increased over time. These gained prominence in 2008 when a global, regional (the drought in
Russia, and Kazakhstan, the two main suppliers to Mongolia), and the national food production

The development and business communities
involved in the African agriculture and agribusiness sectors
have recently experienced a strong resurgence of interest in
promoting value chains as an approach that can help design
interventions geared to add value, lower transaction costs,
diversify rural economies, and contribute to increasing
rural household incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
countries. Enhancing value chain competitiveness is