This policy paper focuses on the
incentive framework for Pakistani agriculture, with emphasis
on trade and price policies. It first presents a synthesis
of major trends in the performance of the sector and
analyzes Pakistan's extraordinarily complex, opaque and
discretionary, and continually-changing trade regime. It
presents a disaggregated analysis of the border measures for
the selected products (trade and price interventions vary by

This report assesses the challenges and
opportunities for the development of the Khatlon oblast in
Tajikistan. The report argues that the rise in the strategic
significance of Khatlon must be matched by responses in
public policy and a strong upturn in private investment to
strengthen economic prospects. The report identifies four
key reform imperatives for stimulating growth in the oblast.
These are: (i) promoting cities and internal connectivity to

The paper provides an up-to date and
selective review of the literature on how social safety nets
contribute to growth. The evidence is carefully chosen to
show how safety nets have the potential to overcome
constraints on growth linked to market failures, and is
organized into 4 distinct pathways: i) encouraging asset
accumulation by changing incentives and by addressing
imperfections in financial markets caused by constraints in

This report presents the outcome of the
World Bank's analytical and advisory work to assess the
status of water resources development and the key water
issues and challenges facing the country. The Bank has also
reviewed its history of cooperation with the Government of
China in recent decades, and notes the remarkable
achievements China has made in developing the water sector.
The report proposes solutions for tackling the enormous

Agriculture plays an important role in
the economies of most countries in Africa. However, few
African countries have been able to capitalize on the
sector's considerable potential to contribute to
economic development through commercialization. Few have
created an enabling environment for agricultural finance in
which lenders and other agents are encouraged to develop
innovative financial products that are well tailored to meet

Agricultural growth rates in the Latin
America and the Caribbean (LAC) region have been much slower
than the rest of the developing world. In the regions of
East Asia, South Asia and Middle East and North Africa, the
annual growth of agricultural Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
in 1980-2004 exceeded 3 percent, while growth in Sub-
Saharan Africa averaged almost 3 percent. This paper
attempts to present an overview of the agricultural sector

Reducing emissions from deforestation
and forest degradation and enhancing carbon stocks (REDD+)
has raised the profile of benefit sharing in the forest
sector. Sharing benefits, however, is not a new concept.
Previous work on benefit sharing (associated with
intellectual property, forest and agriculture concessions,
mining, and so forth) has focused on clarifying the concept
and examining how benefit sharing could feed into broader

The Multi Donor Fund for Aceh and Nias
(MDF) and the Java Reconstruction Fund (JRF) have played
significant roles in the remarkable recovery of Aceh, Nias
and Java, following some of the worst disasters in Indonesia
in recent years. The MDF and the JRF, which is patterned
after it, are each considered a highly successful model for
post-disaster reconstruction. This paper presents lessons
from the MDF and JRF's efforts to facilitate

Many key development outcomes depend on
women's ability to negotiate favorable intrahousehold
allocations of resources. Yet it has been difficult to
clearly identify which policies can increase women's
bargaining power and result in better outcomes. This paper
reviews both the analytical frameworks and the empirical
evidence on the importance of women's bargaining power.
It argues that there is sufficient evidence from rigorous

International migration has profound
implications for human welfare, and African governments have
had only a limited influence on welfare outcomes, for good
or ill. Improved efforts to manage migration will require
information on the nature and impact of migratory patterns.
This book seeks to contribute toward this goal, by reviewing
previous research and providing new analyses (including
surveys and case studies) as well as by formulating policy

The design, implementation, and
monitoring and evaluation of livestock sector public and
private sector investments are based on evidence and
information generated by a multitude of data collection
systems, including regular and one-off, or ad-hoc, surveys.
This note reviews the major survey methods that are
regularly implemented by developing country governments,
including: the agricultural and livestock census;

As countries develop, they restructure
away from agriculture and urbanize. But structural
transformation and urbanization patterns differ
substantially, with some countries fostering migration out
of agriculture into rural off farm activities and secondary
towns, and others undergoing rapid agglomeration in mega
cities. Using cross-country panel data for developing
countries spanning 1980-2004, the analysis in this paper