Book chapter

This report investigates the income and equity effects of macroeconomic policy reforms in Zimbabwe, emphasizing linkages between macroeconomic policies and agricultural performance and agriculture's influence on aggregate income and its distribution. Analyses focus on reform of the foreign trade regime, public expenditure, and tax policy, along with the potential benefits of combining these structural changes with various land reform scenarios.

Book chapter

The Green Revolution bypassed the state in its first wave in the 1960s and 1970s. Subsequently, during a short interval in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the agricultural growth rate reached almost 3 percent per year, one of the highest in the country, though over a smaller base. Even this modest growth was short-lived, and stagnation has set in again. This report explores why.

In rural areas of Bangladesh, poverty is pervasive and associated with high rates of malnutrition, especially among preschool children and women. Apart from low levels of energy intakes, it is increasingly recognized that rice-dominated diets such as those consumed by most poor in the countryside may not supply all micronutrients required for a healthy life and productive activities. Children and women are particularly vulnerable to these micronutrient deficiencies because they face relatively higher requirements for growth and reproduction.

Land degradation is a severe problem in the densely populated highlands of East Africa and elsewhere on the African continent. Soil erosion resulting from cultivation on steeply sloping terrain, mining of soil fertility due to continuous cultivation with limited application of inorganic or organic sources of soil nutrients, and deforestation and overgrazing of rangelands are among the key factors causing low agricultural productivity, widespread poverty, and food insecurity in the region.

This book includes a series of studies of income strategies, land use, and agricultural dynamics and their impacts on welfare and natural resources in the highlands of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. There are several reasons for focusing on the highlands. First, the complex problems of severe poverty, low productivity, and poor natural resource management seem to be the rule rather than the exception. This is critical because the highlands support the majority of rural populations in the region. Second, within the highlands are some of the most densely populated areas in all of Africa.

Approximately 70 percent of the population of Myanmar lives in rural areas and 60 percent of the workforce is involved in agriculture. It is estimated that agriculture contributes to 36 percent of the GDP and 20 percent of the foreign exchange earnings for Myanmar. While agriculture is important for growth in Myanmar, it is primarily rain-fed so agricultural growth is erratic. Due to small farm sizes, increasing food production is dependent on improved policies and technologies that can increase output per hectare.

This paper analyzes the vulnerability of South African farmers to climate change and variability by developing a vulnerability index and comparing vulnerability indicators across the nine provinces of the country. Nineteen environmental and socio-economic indicators are identified to reflect the three components of vulnerability: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The results of the study show that the region’s most vulnerable to climate change and variability also have a higher capacity to adapt to climate change.

With increasing urbanization, the percentage of women participating in the labor force and the percentage of households headed by single mothers have increased. Reliable and affordable child-care alternatives are thus becoming increasingly important in urban areas. The Hogares Comunitarios Program (HCP) was established in Guatemala City in 1991 as a direct response to the increasing need of poor urban dwellers for substitute childcare.

The year 2011 highlighted ongoing challenges to global food security, from food price volatility, extreme weather shocks, and famine to unrest and conflicts. On the policy front, major devel­opments at the global and national levels both offered grounds for encouragement and pointed to areas where further action is needed.