Rural-urban migration is playing an
increasingly important role in shaping the economic and
demographic landscape of Chinese cities. Over the past two
decades, China has transformed itself from a relatively
immobile society to one in which more than 10 percent of the
population are migrants. China's mobility rate is still
low compared with that of advanced industrial economies, the
sheer size of the migrant flows and their dramatic economic

This Policy Memorandum provides policy
advice to the government of Liberia (GOL) in an effort to
mainstream gender issues in policies, programs, and projects
supporting agricultural production and value-chain
development. It is organized as follows. Section I reviews
women's roles in Liberian agriculture and agricultural
value chains, drawing on a variety of data sources,
including the 2007 Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire

This report shows that some investors
still perceive Aceh as a risky place to do business, despite
being relatively peaceful for almost four years. Security
incidents, relatively common in post-conflict environments,
deter businesses and individuals from investing in Aceh,
robbing the economy of necessary capital and innovation.
Other consequences of the conflict, including forms of
illegal taxation, also hurt investment. The Government of

This report summarizes the findings of
the study on Competitive Commercial Agriculture for Africa
(CCAA). The objective of the CCAA study was to explore the
feasibility of restoring international competitiveness and
growth in African agriculture through the identification of
products and production systems that can underpin rapid
development of a competitive commercial agriculture. The
CCAA study focused on the agricultural potential of

This Agriculture Public Expenditure
Review (AgPER) comprehensively reviews public expenditures
on agriculture in Uganda and analyzes their efficiency and
effectiveness. Its genesis lies in Agriculture Sector
Working Group (A-SWG) discussions, especially during the
budget process, which raised concerns about the seemingly
low budget allocations to the sector and the failure to
align limited resources with recognized priorities in the

The issue of regional differences in
development has moved to the center of the development
debate in Sri Lanka, partly after the release of regional
poverty data. For the past many years, there have been
significant and increasing differences between the Western
province and the rest of the country in terms of per capita
income levels, growth rates of per capita income, poverty
rates, and the structure of provincial economies. The

Ethiopia's rural non-farm sector is
significant and participation is increasing. The sector is
particularly important for women and poorer households.
Non-farm enterprises provide income-earning opportunities to
those lacking alternative options and supplementary income
for farming households. This report is organized into seven
chapters. The first chapter lays the analytical groundwork
for assessing the rural investment climate in Ethiopia and

Sudan is in the 10th year of its longest
and strongest growth episode since independence, benefiting
from the advent of oil in 1999. This report proposes a
growth strategy for Sudan that reduces its dependence on
oil, while building an economic foundation for a
diversified, inclusive and sustainable growth path.
Specifically, Sudan's near term strategy should focus
on: a) developing and maintaining the necessary enabling

While the economic returns to using
chemical fertilizer in Africa can be large, application
rates are low. This study explores whether this is due to
missing and imperfect markets. Results based on a panel
survey of Ethiopian farmers suggest that while fertilizer
markets are not altogether missing in rural Ethiopia, high
transport costs, unfavorable climate, price risk, and
illiteracy present formidable hurdles to farmer

The reality of climate change associated
with anthropogenic emissions is now widely acknowledged by
the scientific community. Its potential devastating future
harms are equally well perceived and as stated in the
Copenhagen Accord major nations agree on the need to jointly
and urgently combat climate change. The international
community is also quite aware that stabilizing atmospheric
concentrations of green-house gases (GHG) at supportable

This approach resulted in the
fragmentation of agricultural holdings, with families owning
noncontiguous plots. Land use was inefficient, owing in part
to the low rate of use of agricultural machinery. Making
land use and farming more efficient will require the
establishment of a functioning land market. Granting farmers
the right to sell, exchange, and lease their land will
enable them to use it as collateral and to consolidate

Agriculture is one of the major sources
of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting for
approximately 14 percent of total GHG emissions. However,
unlike other sectors such as transport or energy,
agriculture is potentially a significant carbon
'sink'. Moreover, because the majority of GHG
emissions from agriculture originate in developing
countries, early intervention could be highly
cost-effective. This note examines the potential role of