This Country Economic Memorandum (CEM)
is the first for Burundi since the 1980s. It has been
developed in collaboration with the government of Burundi.
The CEM has been prepared in cooperation with the African
development bank and the U.K. department for international
development. Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the
world, and has suffered from many years of civil conflict
and its consequences. In the last years, peace has been

Government of Azerbaijan (GoA) and the
World Bank have a long history of partnership in addressing
the needs of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the
country. The purpose of this study was to start identifying
gaps and areas for further engagement. The report would not
have been possible without the support of GoA counterparts.
The report pursues the argument that in order to expand the
choice of IDP livelihoods it is possible to build upon and

Fourteen years of civil conflict
(1989-2003) have destroyed Liberia's social and
economic infrastructure and brought the economy nearly to a
halt. Workers who came of age during the conflict are
largely unskilled, and the supply of workers exceeds demand
by a substantial margin. The negative effects of
unemployment, underemployment, and low productivity on
economic growth have made employment the most urgent demand

After 20 years of neglect by
international donors, agriculture is now again in the
headlines because higher food prices are increasing food
insecurity and poverty. In the coming years it will be
essential to increase food productivity and production in
developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and
with smallholders. This however requires finding viable
solutions to a number of complex technical, institutional

This paper explores the reduction of
food insecurity in Bolivia, adopting a supply side approach
that analyzes the role of agricultural spending on
vulnerability. Vulnerability to food insecurity is captured
by a municipal level composite -- developed locally within
the framework of World Food Program food security analysis
-- that combines welfare outcomes, weather conditions and
agricultural potential for all 327 municipalities in 2003,

The past decade has witnessed a major
global shift in thinking about water, including the role
that water infrastructure plays in sustainable development.
This rethinking aims to better balance the social, economic,
and environmental performance aspects in the development and
management of large dams. Additionally, it reinforces
efforts to combat poverty by ensuring more equitable access
to water and energy services. There is also growing

The Tajik government in its Poverty
Reduction Strategy Paper for 2010-12 set an ambitious target
of doubling Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in a decade.
Tajikistan clearly has the potential to grow at more than
seven percent a year as it has done in the recent past, but
it is not going to be easy. The potential for
'catch-up' growth from the depths of the recession
of the 1990s is largely exhausted, the external environment

This report argues that in the future
Moldova will need to develop a second engine of growth from
exports of goods and services. We argue that Moldova needs
to resurrect agro-based exports, to raise their value by
exporting to higher value markets, and develop service
exports in order to provide job opportunities for
underemployed tertiary graduates. To be successful in doing
so, the government will need to implement deep fiscal and

This research report examines the
technical efficiency and impact of the Zambia Fertilizer
Support Program (FSP). The FSP was launched by the
Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) in 2002 as a
temporary measure to provide subsidized hybrid maize seed
and fertilizer packages to smallholder farmers and to
promote the participation of private traders in supply. When
the FSP was announced, the Government indicated that farmers

Although Bulgaria now implements the
European Union's (EU's) "common"
agricultural policy (CAP), national policymakers still
maintain responsibility to tailor CAP implementation to meet
the specific development needs of the country. The National
Rural Development Program (NRDP) very appropriately lays out
the challenges that Bulgarian agriculture and rural
development face, but the early implementation of a

Lesotho began a structural economic
transformation in the early 1990s. The transformation has
brought higher, more secure incomes to households while the
government succeeded in dramatically improving access to
services such as education, health, water, and
transportation. Yet today, Lesotho faces a number of serious
development challenges, including a high rate of chronic
poverty, entrenched income inequality, and most troubling

The country water resources assistance
strategy for Zambia provides an analysis of the role of
water in the economy and identifies the specific challenges,
development opportunities and policies which inform an
agreed framework for priority areas of assistance. Zambia
lies entirely within the catchments of the Zambezi and Congo
rivers and all internal runoff is shared by downstream and
parallel riparian countries. This strategic geographic