Agriculture and Rural Development Series – serie

As production from capture fisheries stagnates, aquaculture is changing the face of our waters. This book provides guidance on sustainable aquaculture to decision makers in the international development community and in client countries of international finance institutions. The study focuses on several critical issues and challenges: harnessing the contribution of aquaculture to economic development; building environmentally sustainable aquaculture; creating the enabling conditions for sustainable aquaculture; and developing and transferring human and institutional capacity in governance, technologies, and business models, with lessons from Asia to Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

The 'Forests Source Book' provides practical operations-oriented guidance for forest sector engagement toward the goals of poverty reduction, conservation and economic development. Intended to guide World Bank lending activities and projects, the 'Forests Source Book' offers information useful to a broad audience of practitioners, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations. The Source Book was developed in partnership with members of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, including the Food and Agriculture Organization. The 'Source Book' provides background on key issues, lessons learned, and recommendations for practitioners on a number of topics including private sector engagement, forest governance, sustainable plantation and commercial harvesting, and forest information management systems. Giving insight into the complex interplay between different realms of development work that effect or are affected by forests, the Forests Sourcebook is a valuable tool for any stakeholder involved in development or business projects that could have impact on forests.

The Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook provides an up-to-date understanding of gender issues and a rich compilation of compelling evidence of good practices and lessons learned to guide practitioners in integrating gender dimensions into agricultural projects and programs. The Sourcebook draws on a wide range of experience from World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and other donor agencies, governments, institutions, and groups active in agricultural development.

Despite 250 years of land reform all over the world, important land inequalities remain, especially in Latin America and southern Africa. While in these regions, there is near consensus on the need for redistribution, much controversy persists around how to redistribute land peacefully and legally, often blocking progress on implementation. This book focuses on the 'how' of land redistribution in order to forge greater consensus among land reform practitioners and enable them to make better choices on the mechanisms of land reform.

Bioenergy has been critical to humanity since the cave dwellers first used wood to cook their food and stay warm at night. Ancient forms of bioenergy ' firewood and cow dung patties ' remain primary fuel sources for rural and poor people. New sources of bioenergy including 'black liquor', biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol and many more, have great promise and generate great controversy. This book gives an overview of bioenergy developments and examines the main issues and possible socioeconomic implications of these developments and their potential impacts on land use and the environment, especially with respect to forests. The paper presents an introduction to bioenergy, provides a background and overview of solid biomass and liquid biofuels, and examines opportunities and challenges at the regional and country level. It also examines potential impacts for specific types of bioenergy.The book does not pretend to be definitive, especially with respect to the controversial interplay of subjects like the impact of bioenergy on food prices, but it does try to suggest the tradeoffs that need to be examined in considering bioenergy policies, and it has five main findings: Solid biomass will continue to provide a principal source of energy and should not be overlooked. There will be major land use implications resulting from bioenergy developments. It is critical to consider tradeoffs, including those related to poverty, equity and the environment, when considering bioenergy policies. There is considerable potential for greater use of forestry and timber waste as a bioenergy feedstock. The climate change impacts of bioenergy development are uncertain, and highly location and feedstock specific.

This book provides policy-relevant knowledge on strategies to improve service delivery in rural areas especially to rural women. The study covers key economic services, such as agricultural advisory services and related social services, including rural water supply. It presents analytical work from four countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, India and Sri Lanka, and provides a syntheses of 'best fit' practices in the different country contexts.

Cotton is a rare economic success story in Sub-Saharan Africa. While the continent's share of the world's agricultural trade fell by about half from 1980 to 2005, its share of world cotton exports more than doubled. Cotton is a major source of foreign exchange earnings in more than 15 countries of the continent and is a crucial source of income for millions of rural people. ""Organization and Performance of Cotton Sectors in Africa"" provides an in-depth comparative analysis of the outcomes of the reforms that have been implemented in Sub-Saharan cotton sectors and of the linkages between sector organization and performance. The book highlights challenges facing cotton sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa and demonstrates how reform in the sectors is the key to sustaining growth, improving competitiveness and reducing rural poverty. It provides national and regional policy makers with a number of recommendations based upon the observable lessons of past reform programs.

Economic losses in marine fisheries resulting from poor management, inefficiencies, and overfishing add up to US$50 billion per year. Taken over the last three decades, these losses total over US$2 trillion, a figure roughly equivalent to the GDP of Italy. The Sunken Billions: The Economic Justification for Fisheries Reform argues that well-managed marine fisheries could turn most of these losses into sustainable economic benefits for millions of fishers and coastal communities. According to this book, the bulk of losses occur in two main ways. First, depleted fish stocks mean that there are fewer fish to catch, and therefore the cost of finding and catching them is greater than it might be. Second, fleet overcapacity means that the economic benefits of fishing are dissipated due to redundant investment and operating costs. The book stresses that the figure of US$50 billion represents a conservative estimate, as it excludes losses to recreational fisheries and marine tourism as well as losses due to illegal fishing. The Sunken Billions argues that strengthened fishing rights can provide fishers and fishing communities with incentives to operate in an economically efficient and socially responsible manner. Phasing out subsidies that enhance redundant fishing capacity and harvesting effort will improve efficiency. Greater transparency in allocation of fish resources and greater public accountability for fisheries management and health of fish stocks will help eco-labeling initiatives to certify sustainable fisheries.

The role of agriculture in sustainable development and poverty reduction for the vast majority of developing countries cannot be overemphasized. Forty-five percent of the developing world's population lives in households involved in agriculture, and twenty-seven percent in smallholder households, and most depend on agriculturefor their livelihoods. The agricultural sector generates on average twenty-nine percent of gross domestic product (GDP), employs sixty-five percent of the labor force in agriculture-based countries, and is a key to generating overall growth. This book attempts to address these questions and challenges, by examining how agricultural innovation arises in four African countries, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, through agribusiness, public policies, and specific value chains for food staples, high value products, and livestock. Determinants of innovation are not viewed individually but within the context of a complex agricultural innovation system (AIS) involving many actors and interactions. The country reports are based on qualitative interviews with agribusiness representatives about their experiences in this area. The synthesis chapter preceding the country reports presents the main findings of the country reports, links common themes, and distills lessons learned.

The development and business communities recently have experienced a tremendous resurgence of interest in promoting value chains development as a way to add value, lower transaction costs, diversify rural economies, and contribute to increasing rural household incomes. This Guide is designed for those who want to know more about value chain-based approaches and how to use them in ways that can contribute to sound operational decisions, improved market linkages, and results for enterprise and industry development. Using real examples, mostly from African countries, this book reviews and iillustrates a range of concepts, analytical tools, and methodologies centered on the value chain that can be used to design, implement, and evaluate agricultural and agribusiness development initiatives that strive to enhance productivity and competitiveness.

Does what economies export matter for development? If so, can industrial policies improve on the export basket generated by the market? This book approaches these questions from a variety of conceptual and policy viewpoints. Reviewing the theoretical arguments in favor of industrial policies, the authors first ask whether existing indicators allow policy makers to identify growth-promoting sectors with confidence. To this end, they assess, and ultimately cast doubt upon, the reliability of many popular indicators advocated by proponents of industrial policy.

This book aims to provide key pieces of information needed for informed debate about large-scale land acquisition by drawing on the experience from past land expansions, discussing predictions for potential future demand, and providing empirical evidence of what is happening on the ground in the countries most affected by the recent increase in demand for land. It complements demand side considerations with a detailed assessment of the amount of land, whether currently cultivated or not, that might potentially be available for agricultural cultivation at the global and country levels. It then describes in some detail the policies in place to manage land acquisition processes and analyzes how these policies may affect outcomes.This information can help governments in land abundant countries to assess how best to integrate increased demand for land into their rural development strategies and provide opportunities and benefits to all involved, including existing smallholders. This is particularly important as many of these countries also have high yield gaps. It also highlights how, in cases where land acquisition by large investors makes sense from a social, economic, and environmental perspective, governments can create an environment that can help to attract outside investment that contributes to broad-based growth and poverty reduction.

Research, education, and extension investments, while usually necessary, are often insufficient alone to bring knowledge, technologies, and services that enable farmers and entrepreneurs to innovate. Efforts to strengthen research systems and increase the availability of knowledge have not increased innovation or the use of knowledge in agriculture at the pace or the scale required by the intensifying and proliferating challenges confronting agriculture. Agricultural Innovation Systems: An Investment Sourcebook contributes to the identification, design, and implementation of the investments, approaches, and complementary interventions most likely to strengthen agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and to promote innovation and equitable growth. The Sourcebook provides a menu of tools and operational guidance, as well as good practice lessons, to illustrate approaches to designing, investing in, and improving these systems.Managing the ability of agriculture to meet rising global demand and to respond to the changes and opportunities will require good policy, sustained investments, and innovation - not business as usual. Experience indicates that aside from a strong capacity in R&D, the ability to innovate is often related to collective action and coordination, exchange of knowledge among diverse actors, incentives and resources available to form partnerships and develop business, and an enabling environment. While consensus is developing about what is meant by 'innovation' and 'innovation system,' no detailed blueprint exists for making agricultural innovation happen at a given time, in a given place, for a given result. That said, the AIS approach, which looks at these multiple conditions and relationships that promote innovation in agriculture in specific contexts, has moved from a concept to a subdiscipline with principles of analysis and action.Drawing on approaches that have been tested at different scales in different settings, this Sourcebook emphasizes the lessons learned, benefits and impacts, implementation issues, and prospects for replicating or expanding successful practices.The Sourcebook reflects the experiences and evolving understanding of numerous individuals and organizations concerned with agricultural innovation, including the World Bank. It targets the key operational staff who design and implement lending projects in international and regional development agencies and national governments, as well as the practitioners who design thematic programs and technical assistance packages. The Sourcebook can also be an important resource for the research community and nongovernmental organizations.

Increased global demand for land posits the need for well-designed country-level land policies to protect long-held rights, facilitate land access and address any constraints that land policy may pose for broader growth. While the implementation of land reforms can be a lengthy process, the need to swiftly identify key land policy challenges and devise responses that allow the monitoring of progress, in a way that minimizes conflicts and supports broader development goals, is clear.The Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) makes a substantive contribution to the land sector by providing a quick and innovative tool to monitor land governance at the country level. The LGAF offers a comprehensive diagnostic tool that covers five main areas for policy intervention: Legal and institutional framework; Land use planning, management and taxation; Management of public land; Public provision of land information; and Dispute resolution and conflict management. The LGAF assesses these areas through a set of detailed indicators that are rated on a scale of pre-coded statements (from lack of good governance to good practice). While land governance can be highly technical in nature and tends to be addressed in a partial and sporadic manner, the LGAF posits a tool for a comprehensive assessment, taking into account the broad range of issues that land governance encompasses, while enabling those unfamiliar with land to grasp its full complexity. The LGAF will make it possible for policymakers to make sense of the technical levels of the land sector, benchmark governance, identify areas that require further attention and monitor progress. It is intended to assist countries in prioritizing reforms in the land sector by providing a holistic diagnostic review that can inform policy dialogue in a clear and targeted manner.In addition to presenting the LGAF tool, this book includes detailed case studies on its implementation in five selected countries: Peru, the Kyrgyz Republic, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Tanzania.