Following a strong performance in 2012,
Malaysia's economy hit a soft patch in the first
quarter of 2013. Economic growth has been supported by the
strong, broad-based performance of domestic consumption and
investment from public and private sources. The acceleration
of investment growth has been a key feature of the recent
growth trend. Public and private consumption has also
underpinned growth. Accommodative fiscal and monetary

This paper examines some of the concepts
surrounding the idea that forests and trees can contribute
to making households more resilient to food insecurity. The
paper begins with a discussion of the widely accepted
definitions of food security, and the implications for our
understanding of the role of forests and trees in
contributing to food security. Authors discuss the origins
of the idea of resilience, adaptability, and transformation

This study's objectives are: (i) to
present the pros and cons of existing and alternative brick
technologies in Bangladesh with specific focus on pollution
and energy efficiency; (ii) to estimate the private and
social benefits of these technologies (iii) to summarize
China's experience in the development of the brick
industry, as the world leader brick producer and (iv) to
provide concrete recommendations for adopting cleaner

Ghana, like many other African
countries, had made a commitment in 2003 to allocate at
least ten percent of their national budgetary resources to
develop the agricultural sector by 2008, following the
adoption of the Comprehensive African Agriculture
Development Programme (CAADP), with an aim towards realizing
food security and poverty reduction. This Agriculture Public
Expenditure Review (AgPER) for Ghana analyzes data on public

Transforming agriculture in Africa is
not simply about helping Africa; it is essential for
ensuring global food security. But Africa s agriculture is
also of critical importance when it comes to meeting the
world s future needs for food and fiber. With the global
population expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050, food
security producing enough food of sufficient quality and
making it accessible and affordable for consumers around the

Financing projects and programs to
mitigate impacts of, and adapt to, the climate change is a
matter of necessity not choice. This green expenditure
policy note looks at factors facilitating the access to
international financial instruments for Latin America and
the Caribbean (LAC) countries that support mitigation of and
adaptation to climate change. This policy note explores two
questions: (i) does the quality of government institutions

This report evaluates the requirements
for an assessment of climate change impacts on agriculture
to guide policy makers on investment priorities and phasing.
Because agriculture is vital for national food security and
is a strong contributor to Brazil's GDP growth, there
is growing concern that Brazilian agriculture is
increasingly vulnerable to climate variability and change.
To meet national development, food security, climate

The Congo Basin has the largest forest
cover on the African continent. Of the 400 million hectares
that the Basin comprises, about 200 million of them are
covered by forest, with 90 percent being tropical dense
forests. The Congo Basin's logging sector has a
dualistic configuration. It boasts a highly visible formal
sector that is export oriented and dominated by large
industrial groups with foreign capital and an informal

This paper reviews Pakistan's
agriculture performance and analyzes its agriculture and
water policies. It discusses the nature of rural poverty and
emphasizes the reasons why agricultural growth is a critical
component to any pro-poor growth strategy for Pakistan. It
supports these arguments by summarizing key results from
recent empirical analysis where the relative benefits of
agricultural versus non-agricultural led growth are

Twenty million people in Central America
cook with biomass using open fires or rudimentary stoves.
The number of people using biomass for cooking in the region
will remain significant for a long time due to high
incidence of poverty, high Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) prices
coupled with unsustainable LPG subsidies, as well as
relatively easy access to fuel wood in the region. Providing
these people with clean and efficient cooking solutions is

"Ecosystem services" has
become a catch-phrase for the complex connections between
the natural environment and human well-being. This paper
considers the impact of changes in the supply of ecosystem
services, and programs to increase their supply, on
near-term growth of gross domestic product. It focuses on
the relationship between locally generated versus
transboundary services and growth in developing countries,

The impacts of climate change on
agriculture are projected to be significant in coming
decades, so response strategies, and their likely costs,
should be evaluated now. That is why this study produced an
open-access, crop-climate-economic impact modeling platform
for Latin America and the Caribbean, that can be extended to
other regions, then modified and improved by users as new
crop, climate, and economic datasets become available. The