The majority of Papua New Guinea's population lives in rural areas, largely dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. Coffee and cocoa are the main cash crops, with half of the country's total workforce involved in their production, processing, and sale.
... Voir la suite Despite its importance, the quality and productivity of Papua New Guinea's coffee has been declining, largely due to a lack of replanting, limited incentives for smallholder farmers, and poor access to markets. The cocoa industry has been experiencing similar issues in addition to the threat posed by the cocoa pod borer. The Productive Partnerships in Agriculture Project (PPAP) aims to combat these problems in order to improve the livelihoods of smallholder cocoa and coffee producers, and promote rural development and poverty reduction more broadly.
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Solomon Islands is at high risk to natural hazards. Located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and within the cyclone belt, it is one of the 20 countries in the world most vulnerable to economic risk exposure caused by geological, hydrological and climatic hazards.
... Voir la suite This includes tropical cyclones, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, floods and droughts. There have been seven major disasters triggered by natural hazards in the past 30 years, causing loss of life and having a severe and adverse impact on the economy each time. Modelling predicts natural hazards and climate change will lead to an average direct loss of US$20.5 million - or 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) - annually for the next 50 years. In April 2014, 23 people, predominantly women and children, lost their lives after a low depression caused flooding that swept through Honiara and the Guadalcanal Plains. Total damage and losses from the floods is estimated at US$108 million or 9.2 percent of GDP.
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Malnutrition is one of India's most serious and persistent problems. While nutrition outcomes across India are poor, they are typically worse in tribal and backward areas.
... Voir la suite The South Asia food and nutrition security initiative (SAFANSI) has provided funding to the national rural livelihoods mission (NRLM) to strengthen the capacity of government and or communities to deliver effective food and nutrition security interventions in tribal and conflict-affected areas. This study seeks to examine how the NRLM can enhance the effectiveness of the program's core livelihoods focus, while strengthening the capacity of the Government of India (GoI) to deliver (or support) effective food and nutrition security (FNS) interventions in tribal and backward areas. In order to make sustainable and positive changes going forward, it will be critical to support FNS as a core approach for tribal areas. Empowered self-help groups can bridge service delivery gaps, increase awareness and utilization of programs, or advocate for improved coverage and service quality.
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Malnutrition is responsible for nearly half (45 percent) of all deaths in children under five. Children who are undernourished between conception and age two are at high risk for impaired cognitive development, which adversely affects the countrys productivity and growth.
... Voir la suite The World Bank is supporting nutrition-related interventions through multiple projects. For example, the PNPM Generasi Sehat dan Cerdas (National Program for Community Empowerment, Healthy and Bright Generation) has set nutrition-sensitive targets including improving the use of maternal and child health services and consumption of Vitamin A for children under five. In 2014, PNPM Generasi is expected to extend to three more provinces, and to include a new focus on stunting reduction by providing IYCF (Infant and Young Child Feeding) training to service providers and community volunteers to improve their counseling skills. In the PKH/Program Keluarga Harapan, a conditional cash transfer is being piloted to focus on improving the health and education services utilization including prenatal and postnatal check-ups, professionally attended birth, growth promotion and monitoring, Vitamin A supplementation, etc. At the policy level, the World Bank is supporting the Review of Double Burden of Malnutrition (DBM) in Indonesia to discuss the magnitude and causes of this emerging problem, and to improve the capacity and governance to address the DBM in the country.
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This paper investigates the link between competitive, well-functioning food markets and consumer welfare. The paper explores two key food markets in Kenya -- sugar and maize -- and argues that a variety of factors conspire to distort market prices upward.
... Voir la suite Distortionary factors include import tariff policy, nontariff barriers, potential anticompetitive conduct by firms, and direct state intervention in markets. Changes in sugar and maize prices are shown to have significant welfare effects on consumers. Equivalent income effects are estimated using the most recent available representative household survey data -- the Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey 2005/06. The paper shows that relaxing trade barriers to allow sugar prices to fall by 20 percent could reduce poverty by 1.5 percent. Similarly, adjusting government interventions in the maize market, which have been shown to inflate maize prices by 20 percent on average, could reduce poverty by 1.8 percent. The magnitude of the estimated income effects may vary based on updated household-level consumption data, assumptions regarding demand elasticities, and estimates of import parity prices for these staples. However, in all the scenarios, more competitive prices have a larger average effect on the poorest households in urban and rural areas, supporting the relevance of effective competition policies for poverty reduction strategies.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7179 JAN 01, 2015
Does the same question asked of the same population yield the same answer in face-to-face interviews when other parts of the questionnaire are altered?
... Voir la suite If not, what would be the implications for proxy-based poverty measurement? Relying on a randomized household survey experiment implemented in Malawi, this study finds that observationally equivalent as well as same households answer the same questions differently when interviewed with a short questionnaire versus the longer counterpart that, in a prior survey round, would have informed the prediction model for a proxy-based poverty measurement exercise. The analysis yields statistically significant differences in reporting between the short and long questionnaires across all topics and types of questions. The reporting differences result in significantly different predicted poverty rates and Gini coefficients. While the difference in predictions ranges from approximately 3 to 7 percentage points depending on the model specification, restricting the proxies to those collected prior the variation in questionnaire design, namely demographic variables from the household roster and location fixed effects, leads to same predictions in both samples. The findings emphasize the need for further methodological research, and suggest that short questionnaires designed for proxy-based poverty measurement should be piloted, prior to implementation, in parallel with the longer questionnaire from which they have evolved. The fact that at the median it took 25 minutes to complete the food and non-food consumption sections in the long questionnaire also implies that the implementation of these sections might not be as overly costly as usually assumed.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7182 JAN 01, 2015
The South Asia Food ; Nutrition Security Initiative was established in 2010 to address the South Asian Enigma - how chronic malnutrition remains intractable despite high economic growth - by fostering the crosscutting actions that will lead to measurable improvements in food and nutrition security.
... Voir la suite Since its formation in 2010, it has financed 53 activities, of which 21 are complete and 32 are under way. Looking back at the portfolio since its inception, one can see a trend. Its team started at the national, and even the international level, undertaking analyses and engaging governments on food and nutrition security issues. The high-level dialogue has yielded results with a Nutrition Action Framework in Afghanistan supported by five key ministries; food and nutrition data and priorities incorporated into Bangladeshapos;s current Five Year Plan; a multi-sector food security and nutrition report produced as a joint effort by multiple organizations. SAFANSIapos;s work at the national level, the community level, its focus on women, and activities in agriculture are reviewed in detail. Tools which have been created for practitioners by the development community and client governments are also highlighted.
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The development objective of the Forest Investment Program : Enhancing Natural Forest and Agro-forest Landscapes Project for Ghana is to improve forest and tree management practices by cocoa farmers, community resource management area (CREMA) communities, and forest reserve managers to reduce forest loss and degradation in selected landscape corridors in Ghanaapos;s high forest zone.
... Voir la suite Some of the negative impacts and mitigation measures include: (1) avoiding environmentally sensitive sites and unnecessary exposure or access to sensitive habitat; consult environmental protection agency (EPA) in the selection and use of such sites; (2) promoting buffer zones along the local streams to ensure their integrity and protection of other aquatic life forms; (3) ensuring that enrichment planting is done in patches of degraded areas along the slopes; (4) maintaining a constant phyto-sanitary observation to help prevent the outbreak and spread of any potential disease and pest into the whole plantation; (5) ensuring appropriate compensations are paid to project affected people (PAPs) as defined in the process framework; (6) educating and training community fire-fighting volunteers on fire hazards, prevention, and use of equipment and implementing regular drills; and (7) encouraging the use of personal protective equipment and apparels such as wellington boots and safety boots, gloves, overalls, and raincoats for field workers.
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Beyond the terrible toll in human lives and suffering, the Ebola epidemic currently afflicting West Africa is already having a measurable economic impact in terms of forgone output, higher fiscal deficits, rising prices, lower real household incomes, and greater poverty.
... Voir la suite These economic impacts include the costs of healthcare and forgone productivity of those directly affected but, more importantly, they arise from choices by others to avoid exposure to the disease, called aversion behavior. This report provides a systematic analysis of the channels of economic impact and the likely magnitude of that impact for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, as well as West Africa as a whole. The short-term (2014) impact of Ebola on economic output is on the order of US$359 million in foregone output in 2013 prices. Two alternative scenarios are used to estimate the medium-term (2015) impact of the epidemic. A low Ebola scenario corresponds to rapid containment within the three most severely affected countries, while high Ebola corresponds to slower containment in the core three countries, with some broader regional contagion. The estimates of the GDP lost as a result of the epidemic in the core three countries for 2015 alone sum to US$97 million under low Ebola (implying some recovery from 2014), and US$809 million under high Ebola (in 2013 dollars). Over the medium term, however, both epidemiological and economic contagion in the broader sub-region of West Africa is likely. This report uses a multi-country general equilibrium model to estimate the medium-term impact on output for West Africa as a whole. Under low Ebola, the loss in GDP for the sub-region is estimated to be US$2.2 billion in 2014 and US$1.6 billion in 2015. Under high Ebola, the estimates are US$7.4 billion in 2014, and US$25.2 billion in 2015. This analysis shows that the economic impacts are already very serious in the core three countries, particularly Liberia and Sierra Leone, and could become catastrophic under a slow-containment, high Ebola scenario. In broader regional terms, the economic impacts could be limited if immediate national and international responses succeed in containing the epidemic and mitigating aversion behavior. If, on the other hand, the epidemic spreads into neighboring countries, some of which have much larger economies, the cumulative two-year impact could reach US$32.6 billion by the end of 2015, almost 2.5 times the combined 2013 GDP of the core three countries.
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Some of the headings included in this issue of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) daily economic news are as follows: financial markets; high income economies; and developing economies in Europe and Central Asia; Latin America and Caribbean; and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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The second phase of the National Agricultural Technology Program (NATP-2) for Bangladesh will increase the agricultural productivity of smallholder farms and improve smallholders' access to markets in selected districts.
... Voir la suite The sub-projects proposed to be supported under the NATP-2 involve use of natural resources (soil, water, biodiversity) and may have an impact on these natural resources and on the surrounding environment through over exploitation and waste generation. The project affects the environmental baseline of the following sectors: agriculture, livestock and fisheries. This report highlights the key environmental issues in each sector. The climate change impacts and adaptation needs specific to the three sectors are also highlighted. Negative impacts to the agriculture sector include stress on water resources, occurrence of drought, arsenic contamination, nutrient and pest management, post-harvest losses and processing. Negative impacts to the livestock sector include scarcity of fodder, under-utilization of dung, loss of biodiversity, public health risk, air pollution, and poor hygiene. Negative impacts to the fisheries sector include feeding practices, processing, and fish diversity. Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to the impact of climate change for the reasons it is a low-lying and very flat country which is subject to riverine flooding and vulnerable to sea level rise, and because a large portion of its population is dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. To mitigate these environmental impacts, the program lists activities that are not supported by sub-projects under the NATP-2. The mitigating factors include: a) activities that involve drainage of wetlands for agricultural use; b) activities that involve pesticides that fall in WHO classes IA, IB and II and pesticides banned by the Government of Bangladesh; c) activities involving significant conversion or degradation of critical natural habitats; d) activities within Protected Areas (Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks); and d) withdrawal of groundwater for irrigation that contain arsenic higher than national standard (currently 50 ppb).
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This paper assesses the impact of three methodologies of food data collection on the welfare distribution, and poverty and inequality measures in Niger.
... Voir la suite The first methodology is a 7-day recall period, the second one is a usual month, and the third one is a 7-day diary. The paper finds that there is a difference in the distribution of welfare between, on the one hand, the two first methodologies (7-day recall and a usual month, which give results close to each other) and, on the other hand, the 7-day diary method. When considering annual per capita consumption, the 7-day diary lags the 7-day recall by 28 percent. This gap is not only at the mean of the distribution, it has been found at any level. These differences lead to differences in poverty and inequality measures even when alternate poverty lines are used. This study underscores the problem that many developing countries face when it comes to monitoring poverty indicators over time where different methodologies have been used over the years.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7090 NOV 01, 2014
This paper shows how a developing country, Lao PDR, imports high glutinous rice prices by exporting its staple food to neighboring countries, Vietnam and Thailand.
... Voir la suite Lao PDR has extensive export controls on rice, generating a sizable difference between domestic and international prices. Controls are relaxed after good harvests, leading to a surge in exports early in the season and rapidly rising prices later in the year. There is thus a strong case for removal of trade restrictions since they give rise to price spikes, keep the long-term price of glutinous rice low, and thereby hinder increases in income from agriculture. Although this is a case study of Lao PDR, the findings may equally apply to other developing countries that export their staple food.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7119 NOV 01, 2014
This is a statement by Kanayo Nwanze, at the ninetieth meeting of the Development Committee held on October 11, 2014. In May 2013, the report of the high-level panel of eminent persons on the post-2015 Development Agenda (HLP) acknowledged that poverty is often characterized by exclusion both from decisions and from full participation in civil, social and cultural life.
... Voir la suite Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum identified income disparity as the risk most likely to cause damage globally in the coming decade. And, also in 2014, the International Monetary Fund cautioned that income inequality may lead to slower or less sustainable economic growth. These three analyses speak directly to the multi-faceted impact of unequal prosperity. Inequality robs people of the capacity to achieve their full potential. This unharnessed capacity, in turn, undermines prosperity for all and threatens social order. Addressing inequality, then, is not simply the right thing to do for those who are marginalized; it is also an investment in sustainable development and global security. With this emerging consensus around the critical need to address inequality, the international community will be well advised to scale up investment in areas that can generate the greatest impact on income inequality: agriculture and rural development.
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The 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus disease in West Africa has taken a devastating human toll. Although the outbreak originated in rural Guinea, it has hit hardest in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in part because it has reached urban areas in these two countries, a factor that distinguishes this outbreak from previous episodes elsewhere.
... Voir la suite As of October 3, 2014, there had been 3,431 recorded deaths out of 7,470 probable, suspected, or confirmed cases of Ebola. This report informs the response to the epidemic by presenting best-effort estimates of its macroeconomic and fiscal effects. Any such exercise is necessarily highly imprecise due to limited data and many uncertain factors, but it is still necessary in order to plan the economic assistance that must accompany the immediate humanitarian response. The goal is to help affected countries to recover and return to the robust economic growth they had experienced until the onset of this crisis. This document presents the World Bankapos;s preliminary estimates of the economic impact of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa for 2014 (short term impact) and 2015 (medium term impact). Section 2 presents a single set of 2014 estimates for Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, based on available data on current economic activity as well as assumptions about the short-term impact. It also presents current data on the limited current impacts on other countries in the region. Section 3 presents estimates for the impact by the end of 2015 for Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, as well as estimates for West Africa as a whole. Because the epidemic and the behavioral responses to it have more time to diverge over the course of 2015, Section 3 presents two scenarios for 2015, which vary in the optimism of their assumptions regarding the epidemic and the success of donor and government policy and efforts to control it. The take-away messages from this analysis are a low Ebola scenario that corresponds to rapid containment within the three most severely affected countries, and a high Ebola scenario corresponds to slower containment in the three countries, with some broader regional contagion. A swift policy reaction by the international community is crucial. With potential the economic costs of the Ebola epidemic being so high, very substantial containment and mitigation expenditures would be cost-effective, if they successfully avert the worst epidemiological outcomes. To mitigate the medium term economic impact of the outbreak, current efforts by many partners to strengthen the health systems and fill the fiscal gaps in the core three countries are key priorities. Finally, this report does not take into account the longer term impacts generated by mortality, failure to treat other health conditions due to aversion behavior and lack of supply capacity, school closings and dropouts, and other shocks to livelihoods. It is truly focused on the short and medium-term inputs, over the next 18 months.
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Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult because the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records.
... Voir la suite This paper tests the use of radio frequency identification tags as a means of objectively measuring stock levels and stock flow in small retail firms in Sri Lanka. In principle, the tags offer the potential to track stock movements accurately. The paper compares the stock counts obtained from RFID reads to physical stock counts and to survey responses. There are three main findings. First, current RFID-technology is more difficult to use, and more time-consuming to employ, than had been envisaged. Second, the technology works reasonably well for paper products, but very poorly for most products sold by microenterprises: on average only about one-quarter of the products tagged could be read and there was considerable day-to-day variation in read-efficiency. Third, a comparison of survey responses and physical stock-takes shows much higher accuracy for survey measures. As a result, the study concludes that this technology is currently unsuitable for improving stock measurement in microenterprises, except perhaps for a few products.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7064 OCT 01, 2014
de Mel, Suresh; Herath, Dammika; McKenzie, David; Pathak, Yuvraj
Although the importance of diet quality for improving child health is widely recognized, the roles of environmental factors and the absorption of nutrients for childrenapos;s physical growth and morbidity have not been adequately integrated into a policy framework.
... Voir la suite Moreover, nutrient intakes gradually affect child health, so it is helpful to use alternative tools to evaluate short-term interventions versus long-term food policies. This article emphasizes the role of diet quality reflected in the intake of nutrients such as protein, calcium, and iron for childrenapos;s physical growth. Vitamins A and C are important for reducing morbidity. Childrenapos;s growth and morbidity affect their cognitive development, which is critical for the future supply of skilled labor and economic growth. Evidence on these issues from countries such as Bangladesh, India, Kenya, the Philippines, and Tanzania is summarized. The supply of nutritious foods is appraised from the viewpoint of improving diet quality. Finally, the roles of educational campaigns and indirect taxes on unhealthy processed foods consumed by the affluent in developing countries are discussed.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7072 OCT 01, 2014
In 1959, shortly after the European Economic Community was founded under the 1957 Treaty of Rome, Turkey applied for Associate Membership in the then six-member common market.
... Voir la suite By 1963, a path for integrating the economies of Turkey and the eventual European Union had been mapped. As with many trade agreements, agriculture posed difficult political hurdles, which were never fully cleared, even as trade barriers to other sectors were eventually removed and a Customs Union formed. This essay traces the influences the Turkey-European Union economic institutions have had on agricultural policies and the agriculture sector. An applied general equilibrium framework is used to provide estimates of what including agriculture under the Customs Union would mean for the sector and the economy. The paper also discusses the implications of fully aligning Turkeyapos;s agricultural policies with the European Unionapos;s Common Agricultural Policy, as would be required under full membership.
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Document de travail de recherche sur les politiques WPS7059 OCT 01, 2014
Larson, Donald F.; Martin, Will; Sahin, Sebnem; Tsigas, Marino