This paper investigates the impacts of cotton marketing reforms on farm productivity, a key element for poverty alleviation, in rural Zambia. The reforms comprised the elimination of the Zambian cotton marketing board that was in place since 1977. Following liberalization, the sector adopted an outgrower scheme, whereby firms provided extension services to farmers and sold inputs on loans that were repaid at the time of harvest. There are two distinctive phases of the reforms: a failure of the outgrower scheme, and a subsequent period of success of the scheme.

This paper concerns an NGO intervention in agricultural commodity markets known as Fairtrade. Fairtrade pays producers a minimum unit price and provides capacity building support to member cooperative organizations. Fairtrade's organizational capacity support targets those factors believed to reduce the commodity producer's share of returns. Specifically, Fairtrade justifies its intervention in markets like coffee by claiming that market power and a lack of capacity in producer organizations 'marks down' the prices producers receive.

Anderson and Martin examine the extent to which various regions, and the world as a whole, could gain from multilateral trade reform over the next decade. They use the World Bank's linkage model of the global economy to examine the impact first of current trade barriers and agricultural subsidies, and then of possible outcomes from the World Trade Organization's Doha round.

Conservation of high-biodiversity tropical forests is sometimes justified on the basis of assumed hydrological benefits - in particular, the reduction of flooding hazards for downstream floodplain populations. However, the "far-field" link between deforestation and distant flooding has been difficult to demonstrate empirically. This simulation study assesses the relationship between forest cover and hydrology for all river basins intersecting the world's tropical forest biomes.

This paper examines whether the Sub-Saharan African economies could gain from multilateral trade reform in the presence of trade preferences. The World Bank's LINKAGE model of the global economy is employed to examine the impact first of current trade barriers and agricultural subsidies, and then of possible outcomes from the WTO's Doha round. The results suggest moving to free global merchandise trade would boost real incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa proportionately more than in other developing countries or in high-income countries, despite a terms of trade loss in parts of the region.

Many countries are reforming their economies and setting macroeconomic policies that have direct and indirect impact on the performance of the irrigation sector. One reason for the movement toward reform in the water sector across countries is that water resources are increasingly becoming a limiting factor for many human activities. Another reason for increased pressures to address water policy issues is that many countries are in the process of removing barriers to trade, particularly in agricultural commodities.

Tunisia has successfully shifted from
resource-based exports dominated by oil and gas to
manufactures and services. The economy is now driven mainly
by textile, electrical, mechanical, and food processing
exports; tourism and related activities; and production of
olives and cereals. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth
has been rising consistently, increasing from 3 percent
annually over 1985-90 to more than 5 percent annually over

This volume analyzes the economic
challenges confronting Turkey in its quest to accede to the
European Union (EU). It focuses on the extent to which
Turkey is ready to join the Single Market, comply with the
EU's body of economic regulations and directives, the
Acquis Communautaire, and meet the Maastricht criteria for
fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies. This book
also provides an assessment of Turkey's national

The book presents estimates of total
wealth for nearly 120 countries, using economic theory to
decompose the wealth of a nation into its component pieces:
produced capital, natural resources and human resources. The
wealth estimates aims to provide a unique opportunity to
look at economic management from a broader and comprehensive
perspective. The book's basic tenet is that economic
development can be conceived as a process of portfolio

A major problem in the Europe and
Central Asia (ECA) agricultural sector and rural areas
during the transition was the breakdown of the relationships
of farms with input suppliers and output markets. The
simultaneous privatization and restructuring of the farms
and of the up- and downstream companies in the agrifood
chain have caused major disruptions. The result is that many
farms and rural households face serious constraints in

The study develops a new method to
measure the impacts of climate change on agriculture called
the Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ) Model. A multinomial logit is
estimated to predict the probability of each AEZ in each
district. The average percentage of cropland and average
crop net revenue are calculated for each AEZ. Then an
estimate of the amount of cropland in Africa and where it is
located is provided. Using current conditions, the model

Mauritius is facing a sharp transition from dependence on trade preferences to open competition in the global economy. And it must do so in an unusually difficult environment. After 20 years of remarkable performance, the economy has fallen off a high growth plateau of about 6 percent toward the 2-3 percent range. The creation of new jobs is now too slow to prevent an increase in unemployment. Domestic investment has fallen, the external accounts have shifted from surplus into deficit by $300 million, and the country has sporadically lost reserves.