The workshop brings diverse perspectives
from outside the World Bank, providing a forum in which to
exchange ideas and debate in the course of developing the
World Development Report (WDR). Participants at the 2006
Berlin Workshop gathered to discuss challenges and successes
pertaining to agriculture and development. Agriculture is
the major sector contributing to economic development in
many poor countries. Three out of every four poor people in

Income inequality in China has risen
rapidly in the past decades across regions, between rural
and urban sectors, and within provinces. The dynamics of
divergence across these sub-national areas have taken the
form of a "race to the top" - meaning that all
segments of the population, including the poor with low
education in lagging inland rural areas, have experienced
gains in average income. The largest gains have been

This paper examines broadly the
intergovernmental structure in the Middle East and North
Africa region, which has one of the most centralized
government structures in the world. The authors address the
reasons behind this centralized structure by looking first
at the history behind the tax systems of the region. They
review the Ottoman taxation system, which has been
predominantly influential as a model, and discuss its impact

This paper analyzes poverty in Haiti
based on the first Living Conditions Survey of 7,186
households covering the whole country and representative at
the regional level. Using a USD1 a day extreme poverty line,
the analysis reveals that 49 percent of Haitian households
live in absolute poverty. Twenty, 56, and 58 percent of
households in metropolitan, urban, and rural areas,
respectively, are poor. At the regional level, poverty is

This paper compares how results using
various methods to construct asset indices match results
using per capita expenditures. The analysis shows that
inferences about inequalities in education, health care use,
fertility, child mortality, as well as labor market outcomes
are quite robust to the specific economic status measure
used. The measures-most significantly per capita
expenditures versus the class of asset indices-do not,

The Government of China has placed
strong emphasis on addressing problems related to
agriculture, farmers, and rural society, with the
development of a "new socialist countryside"
designated as a top priority for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan
(2006-2010). The financing of public services in rural
areas will be a key determinant of the Plan's success.
This report analyzes the performance of the

The World Bank committed $30.6 billion
in transport-related projects during the past decade, making
it one of the largest sectors. The evaluation looks into the
Bank's experience in the sector, and assesses the
institution's interventions, the impact of rapid
transport sector expansion, and its readiness to meet the
challenges ahead.

This publication offers crucial lessons
for policy makers and development experts who may be
considering using small area poverty maps as tools of
economic development and helps add to our array of tools for
dealing with the political economy issues of poverty. It
represents a major contribution to a little understood
aspect of the well-known adage "location, location,
location," demonstrating that the conceptualization of

This paper examines how farmers have
adapted their livestock operation to the current climate in
each agro-ecological zone in Africa. The authors examine how
climate has affected the farmer's choice to raise
livestock or not and the choice of animal species. To
measure adaptation, the analysis regresses the farmer's
choice on climate, soil, water flow, and socio-economic
variables. The findings show that climate does in fact

The competitiveness of firms in open
economies is increasingly determined by access to low-cost
and high-quality producer services - telecommunications,
transport and distribution services, financial
intermediation, etc. This paper discusses the role of
services in economic growth, focusing in particular on
channels through which openness to trade in services may
increase productivity at the level of the economy as a

The policy reforms called for in the
transition from a socialist command economy to a developing
market economy bring both opportunities and risks to a
country's citizens. In poor economies, the initial
focus of reform efforts is naturally the rural sector, which
is where one finds the bulk of the population and almost all
the poor. Economic development will typically entail moving
many rural households out of farming into more remunerative

Mozambique, the only Lusophone country covered in the agribusiness indicators initiative, has had a turbulent history since independence. Civil unrest over some 20 years and frequent drought in southern Mozambique, coupled with floods near the many waterways that transect the country (mainly east-west), have inhibited an agricultural transformation. Even so, Mozambique could be a regional breadbasket. The country has much potentially usable arable land, along with access to river water for irrigation in many agricultural production zones, particularly in central and northern Mozambique.