Indonesian agriculture is at a
crossroads. Supporting the livelihood of millions of
Indonesians, it needs to underpin renewed and robust growth
of the economy; and be a key component of the
Government's poverty alleviation strategy. The
challenge for the future is to reinvigorate productivity
gains among rural producers, and provide the foundation for
long run sustainability of these productivity gains.

This report focuses on the potential and
opportunities for smallholder commercialization in Zambia.
The paper discusses the framework for Zambia's
smallholder commercialization strategy, the current state of
smallholder agriculture in Zambia, key issues, support from
agribusiness to smallholders, and development of potential
and opportunities for smallholder commercialization. The
paper concludes with three strategy areas: how to strengthen

This report, which has been prepared by
the World Bank in cooperation with the National Statistical
Committee, provides an assessment of poverty in the Kyrgyz
Republic using the most recent data available. The objective
of this report is to understand to what extent economic
growth has reduced poverty and led to improved living
conditions for the population during 2000-2005. The report
also attempts to answer three questions about the Kyrgyz

This sector report claims that in the
three years between 2002 and 2005 alone, almost 235,000
people have moved out of poverty in Albania. Strong economic
growth and large inflow of remittances are at the center of
this impressive achievement. However, low productivity of
predominantly small family farms has put a drag on rural
growth prospects. Moreover, Ndihma Ekonomike (NE) program,
the means-tested income support program is small in scale,

This study was conducted with the main objective of determining the linkages between poverty and land management in Uganda. The study used the 2002/03 Uganda National Household Survey in eight districts representing six major agro-ecological zones and farming systems. Farmers in these districts deplete an average of 179 kg/ha of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which is about 1.2 percent of the nutrient stock stored in the topsoil.

This report is about balanced economic development in the Northeast of Thailand. It is about growth and poverty reduction, cities and villages, enterprises and workers, skills and education, infrastructure and trade, and rice and silk. Northeast economic development is only part of Thailand's development challenge, but it is among the most important. We look back at how the Northeast has fared in terms of growth, poverty reduction and social capital over the last decades relative to other regions in Thailand.

Nonfarm activity plays an increasingly important role in rural household income. Based on data from the Living Standards Measurement Study in the provinces of Hebei and Liaoning, the authors study the distribution of nonfarm income in rural China. First, they assume nonfarm income as an exogenous transfer to total income to decompose the Gini index. Second, they assume nonfarm income as a potential substitute for farm income to take household choices into account and simulate household income.

Using recent advances in modeling
climate-related risks and adjusting state of the art
catastrophic risk modeling techniques to drought, the study
conducts an innovative long-term assessment of drought risks
in Andhra Pradesh, India, and suggests strategies to reduce
their impact, under several economic, drought management and
climate change scenarios. The analysis deepens an
understanding of climate risk adaptation strategies,

Delivering on the Promise of Pro-Poor
Growth contributes to the debate on how to accelerate
poverty reduction by providing insights from eight countries
that have been relatively successful in delivering pro-poor
growth: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ghana, India, Indonesia,
Tunisia, Uganda, and Vietnam. It integrates growth analytics
with the microanalysis of household data to determine how
country policies and conditions interact to reduce poverty

Economic shocks at birth have lasting
effects on children's health several years after the
shock. The authors calculate height for age z-scores for
children under age five using data from a Rwandan nationally
representative household survey conducted in 1992. They
exploit district and time variation in crop failure and
civil conflict to measure the impact of exogenous shocks
that children experience at birth on their height several

This report shows that after a decade of
moderate growth but little or no long term change in rural
poverty in Pakistan, agricultural output, rural incomes,
rural poverty and social welfare indicators all showed
marked improvements between 2001-02 and 2004-05. However,
longer term trends suggest there is little reason for
complacency. The agricultural GDP per capita growth rate
(1999- 2000 to 2004-05) was only 0.3 percent per year; rural

This report presents an update on the
economic challenges facing Ethiopia with a focus on the
shared goal of accelerating equitable growth. The starting
point is the Government's own Plan for Accelerated and
Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), which is in
the process of finalization, and is designed to cover the
period 2005-2010. This report proposes that the growth
strategy should more explicitly adopt a