Lao PDR has experienced high levels of
economic growth in recent years and the incidence of poverty
has fallen dramatically since the 1990s. Yet, this report
shows that Lao households continue to be highly vulnerable
to regular seasonal fluctuations, as well as agricultural
shocks and natural disasters. The report also highlights the
importance of health shocks, injury and death for household
welfare. Households adopt a variety of strategies to cope

The bank has a long relationship with
Uruguay's agricultural sector, expanding over a period
of more than 60 years in which several projects and various
analytical and advisory assistance initiatives have been
implemented. The main purposes of the present report are: a)
to analyze the main characteristics of family agriculture as
well as its development potential and constraints; b) to
examine Uruguay's current agricultural policy and

The agri-food sector is an important
part of the Ukrainian economy. Agriculture could make an
even larger contribution to economic growth and the vitality
of rural areas in Ukraine than is currently the case.
Ukraine has the agro-climatic potential to be a major player
on world agricultural markets. Agricultural competitiveness
in Ukraine also suffers from inadequate systems to test and
document food product quality and food safety.

This paper provides an overview of the
history of development research at the World Bank and points
to new future directions in both what we research and how we
research. Six main messages emerge. First, research and data
have long been essential elements of the Bank's country
programs and its contributions to global public goods, and
this will remain the case. Second, development thinking is
in a state of flux and uncertainty; it is time to reconsider

Over the last two decades Samoa has
suffered major damage from two cyclones in 1990-91, minor
damage from a third cyclone in 2004, and an earthquake
tsunami in 2009. Changes in the scale and impact of these
types of natural disasters are likely to be important
consequences of climate change for the country because the
increases in sea level and in average sea surface
temperatures will increase theintensity and damage

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 report shows that some investors
still perceive Aceh as a risky place to do business, despite
being relatively peaceful for almost four years. Security
incidents, relatively common in post-conflict environments,
deter businesses and individuals from investing in Aceh,
robbing the economy of necessary capital and innovation.
Other consequences of the conflict, including forms of
illegal taxation, also hurt investment. The Government of

This study builds a profile of the
status of poverty and vulnerability in Malawi. Malawi is a
small land-locked country, with one of the highest
population densities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and one of the
lowest per capita income levels in the world. Almost 90
percent of the population lives in rural areas, and is
mostly engaged in smallholder, rain-fed agriculture. Most
people are therefore highly vulnerable to annual rainfall

This paper examines the impacts of
natural disasters on schooling investments with special
focus on the roles of ex-ante actions and ex-post responses
using panel data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Malawi. The
importance of ex-ante actions depends on disaster risks and
the likelihood of public assistance, which potentially
creates substitution between the two actions. The findings
show that higher future probabilities of disasters increase

This paper presents the conceptual framework for a training program on
integrating disaster risk reduction and climate-change mitigation into
Agriculture and Rural Development Department (ARD) programming. Its
target audience consists of World Bank task team leaders and their national
counterparts and partners working in agriculture and rural settings.

The challenges facing the water sector in Egypt are enormous and require the mobilization of all resources and the management of these resources in an integrated manner. Changes in the way water resources are currently allocated and managed are inevitable. Accordingly, a National Water Resources Plan for Egypt (NWRP) was launched. The NWRP is a comprehensive document which describes how Egypt will safeguard its water resources in the future, both with respect to quantity and quality, and how it will use these resources in the best way from a socio-economic and environmental point of view.

Climate models generally indicate that
climate volatility may rise in the future, severely
affecting agricultural productivity through greater
frequency of yield-diminishing climate extremes, such as
droughts. For Tanzania, where agricultural production is
sensitive to climate, changes in climate volatility could
have significant implications for poverty. This study
assesses the vulnerability of Tanzania s population to