This issue of the Thematic Research Notes discusses the causes and impact of migration among communities in Africa as well as predicted future migration trends.

For more than 30 years, China has undergone economic reforms and development that have led to successful economic growth and poverty reduction. The country has also made considerable efforts to reduce the income gap between urban and rural populations, balance regional development, and conserve natural resources. In 2003, IFPRI developed a strategy specifically tailored to its work in China and expanded its national program.

The Pakistan Strategy Support Program (PSSP) conducted this Rural Household Panel Survey (RHPS) during March-April 2012 in three provinces of Pakistan (Punjab, Sindh, and KPK). The survey aims to provide the quantitative basis to identify and address the urgent economic policy priorities related to the implementation of the Planning Commission’s Framework for Economic Growth.

In recent years, the countries of Latin America have made radical changes in their development strategies, including decentralization of government, privatization, and deregulation of markets. These changes have already affected the livelihoods of millions of the region’s inhabitants and promise to reshape the region’s food and agricultural system well into the 21st century.

This brief is based on Information and Communication Technologies for Development and Poverty Reduction: The Potential of Telecommunications, ed. Maximo Torero and Joachim von Braun (Johns Hopkins University Press and IFPRI, 2006) "The variety of views about ICTs reveals that their role in development is unclear, especially without convincing evidence of their impact—and little research has been conducted on the direct and indirect links between ICTs and poverty reduction.

Economic shocks including food price shocks, environmental shocks, social shocks, political shocks, health shocks, and many other types of shocks hit poor people and communities around the world, compromising their efforts to improve their well-being. As shocks evolve and become more frequent or intense, they further threaten people’s food and nutrition security and their livelihoods.

India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is one of the largest public works programs globally. Understanding the impacts of NREGS and the pathway through which its impacts are realized thus has important policy implications. We use a three-round 4,000-household panel from Andhra Pradesh together with administrative data to explore short- and medium-term poverty and welfare effects of NREGS.

Discussion paper

Farmers in rural Bangladesh face multiple sources of uninsured risk to agricultural production and household assets. In this paper, we present results from an experimental demand-elicitation exercise in rural Bangladesh to shed light on smallholder farmers’ interest in formal insurance products. We propose a suite of insurance and savings products, and we randomly vary the price of one insurance option (area-yield insurance) and the presence of one of the savings options (group savings).

Zambia is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Despite substantial reform during the 1990s, the economy has remained heavily dependent on urban-based mining. Copper's long-standing dominance led to a strong bias against agriculture, which undermined the sector's growth and export potential. Consequently poverty has remained concentrated within marginalized rural areas. Recent volatility in copper exports and growing foreign debt indicate the need for further economic diversification and pro-poor growth.

Using a participatory rural appraisal approach, a series of qualitative studies were conducted in four countries facing negative impacts of climate change—Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya and Mali—in order to determine men’s and women’s perceptions of climate change, adaptive approaches, and the degree to which assets and group participation play a role in adaptation strategies. Similarities were found across countries in terms of perceptions of climate change, impacts, and strategies for adaptation.

This 2014–2015 Global Food Policy Report is the fourth in an annual series that provides a comprehensive overview of major food policy developments and events. In this report, distinguished researchers, policymakers, and practitioners review what happened in food policy in 2014 at the global, regional, and national levels, and—supported by the latest knowledge and research—explain why. This year’s report is the first to also look forward a year, offering analysis of the potential opportunities and challenges that we will face in achieving food and nutrition security in 2015.