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 summarizes the findings of
the study on Competitive Commercial Agriculture for Africa
(CCAA). The objective of the CCAA study was to explore the
feasibility of restoring international competitiveness and
growth in African agriculture through the identification of
products and production systems that can underpin rapid
development of a competitive commercial agriculture. The
CCAA study focused on the agricultural potential of

The issue of regional differences in
development has moved to the center of the development
debate in Sri Lanka, partly after the release of regional
poverty data. For the past many years, there have been
significant and increasing differences between the Western
province and the rest of the country in terms of per capita
income levels, growth rates of per capita income, poverty
rates, and the structure of provincial economies. The

Ethiopia's rural non-farm sector is
significant and participation is increasing. The sector is
particularly important for women and poorer households.
Non-farm enterprises provide income-earning opportunities to
those lacking alternative options and supplementary income
for farming households. This report is organized into seven
chapters. The first chapter lays the analytical groundwork
for assessing the rural investment climate in Ethiopia and

While the economic returns to using
chemical fertilizer in Africa can be large, application
rates are low. This study explores whether this is due to
missing and imperfect markets. Results based on a panel
survey of Ethiopian farmers suggest that while fertilizer
markets are not altogether missing in rural Ethiopia, high
transport costs, unfavorable climate, price risk, and
illiteracy present formidable hurdles to farmer

Standard approaches to decomposing how
much group differences contribute to inequality rarely show
significant between-group inequality, and are of limited use
in comparing populations with different numbers of groups.
This study applies an adaptation to the standard approach
that remedies these problems to longitudinal household data
from two Indian villages -- Palanpur in the north, and Sugao
in the west. The authors find that in Palanpur the largest

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

When a groundwater basin is exploited by
a large number of farmers, acting independently, each farmer
has little incentive to practice conservation that would
primarily benefit other farmers. This can lead to excessive
groundwater extraction. When farmers pay less than the full
cost of electricity used for groundwater pumping, this
problem can be worsened; while the problem can be somewhat
relieved by rationing the electricity supply. The research

This study documents the long-term
welfare effects of household non-traditional agricultural
export (NTX) adoption. The analysis uses a unique panel
dataset, which spans the period 1985-2005, and employs
difference-in-differences estimation to investigate the
long-term impact of non-traditional agricultural export
adoption on changes in household consumption status and
asset position in the Central Highlands of Guatemala. Given

The World Bank group, among the
world's largest development institutions, is a major
source of financial and technical assistance to developing
countries around the world. In fiscal 2009, the World Bank
group sponsored 767 projects with a total commitment of
$58.8 billion, distributed in credits, loans, grants, and
guarantees. This fiscal year's funding marks a 54
percent increase over the previous fiscal year and a record

China's progress in poverty
reduction over the last 25 years is enviable. One cannot
fail to be impressed by what this vast nation of 1.3 billion
people has achieved in so little time. In terms of a wide
range of indicators, the progress has been remarkable.
Poverty in terms of income and consumption has been
dramatically reduced. Progress has also been substantial in
terms of human development indicators. Most of the

This report " Country Social
Analysis (CSA) " focused on ethnicity and development
in Vietnam is a provocative analysis of marginality in
contemporary Southeast Asia. It seeks to understand the
macro social and political processes, and provides an
analysis of how social, political, and cultural factors
influence the opportunities and constraints to more
equitable, inclusive development. This study provides