World Bank Publications - Böcker

The unanticipated spike in international food prices in 2007-08 hit many developing countries hard. International prices for food and other agricultural products increased by more than 100 percent between early 2007 and mid-2008. Prices for food cereals more than doubled; and those for rice doubled in the space of just a few months. The food price increases were particularly hard on the poor and near-poor in developing countries, many of whom spend a large share of their income on food and have limited means to cope with price shocks. An estimated 1.29 billion people in 2008 lived on less than $1.25 a day, equivalent to 22.4 percent of the developing world population. In addition, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 923 million people were undernourished in 2007. Simulation models suggested that poverty rose by 100-200 million people and the undernourished increased by 63 million in 2008.The World Bank organised rapidly for short-term support in the crisis, launching a fast-track programme of loans and grants, the Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP). The GFRP mainly targeted low-income countries, and provided detailed policy advice to governments and its own staff on how to respond to the crisis. The Bank also scaled up lending for agriculture and social protection to support the building of medium-term resilience to future food price shocks. The International Finance Corporation responded by sharply increasing access to liquidity for agribusinesses and agricultural traders in the short and medium term, as well as new programmes to improve incentives for agricultural market participants.This evaluation assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank Group response in addressing the short-term impacts of the food price crisis and in enhancing the resilience of countries to future shocks.

This Toolkit provides an overall framework with practical tools and information to help policymakers design and implement corporate governance reforms for state-owned enterprises. It concludes with guidance on managing the reform process, in particular how to prioritize and sequence reforms, build capacity, and engage with stakeholders.

Trade can also lead to job losses and a concentration of work in lower skilled employment. Given the complexity and specificity of the relationship between trade and gender it is of upmost importance to assess the potential impact of trade policy on both women and men and to develop appropriate, evidence-based responses and policies to ensure that trade contribute to enhancing opportunities for all. Research on gender equality and trade has been held back by limited data and a lack of understanding of the connections between the economic roles women play as workers, consumers, and decision makers. Building on new analysis and new sex-disaggregated data, this report aims to advance understanding on the relationship between trade and gender equality and to identify a series of opportunities through which women can gain from trade.

The global economy has experienced four waves of rapid debt accumulation over the past fifty years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging and developing economies.

This report documents the productivity trends in Sub-Saharan Africa at three different dimensions; namely, the aggregate level, the sectoral level, and the establishment level. It characterizes the evolution of productivity in the region vis-à-vis other countries and regions as well as country groups in Africa classified by their degree of natural resources abundance and condition of fragility. The core of this volume rests upon the assessment of the implications on aggregate productivity of production decisions across agricultural farms and manufacturing firms in Sub-Saharan Africa. It produces and gathers evidence on aggregate productivity from the perspective of production units, using recent household surveys for farmers and firm-level surveys for select African countries, and frontier estimation techniques. The empirical work presented in this volume can provide further guidance for productivity analysis and the design of a policy agenda for the region.

The Development Research in Practice handbook is the quintessential desk reference for empirical researchers, policymakers, managers, and students. It provides an introduction to modern, transparent, and ethical research practices involving development data.

This book explores the economic and broader societal rationale for introducing drone technologies as a complement to the current transport and logistics systems in the East Africa context. Use cases include medical goods and food aid deliveries; land mapping and risk assessment; agriculture; and transport and energy infrastructure inspection.