2020 Focus Brief

Economic and political inequalities among groups—for example, between Muslims and Hindus in India; between northern and southern Nigerians; or between ladinos and indigenous people in Bolivia, Guatemala, and Peru—are often significant and ...

2020 Focus 16 Brief 2 Higher temperatures, more variable precipitation, and changes in the frequency and severity of extreme climate events will have significant consequences for food production and food security. However, the frequency of ...

2020 Focus 16 Brief 1 If fundamental climate change mitigation and adaptation goals are to be met, international climate negotiations must include agriculture. Agriculture and climate change are linked in important ways, and this brief ...

Agriculture is the main source of livelihood of the majority of people affected by HIV and AIDS globally, and it is being progressively undermined by the disease. In Sub-Saharan Africa AIDS is affecting the rural landscape in ways that demand a ...

Agricultural production relies on environmental services to transform raw inputs into the nutritious and diverse food that humans rely on for survival. Although the practice of agriculture is essential for human health, careless and inappropriate ...

Agriculture produces food fundamental for human health. It therefore seems obvious that agriculture, food, and health are related! Agriculture affects whether people have enough food to eat, whether it is of sufficient nutritional value, and ...

Biodiversity provides essential components of healthy environments and sustainable livelihoods. One key component of biodiversity is agrobiodiversity-that is, the cultivated plants and animals that form the raw material of agriculture, the wild ...

The authors describe the case study as follows: “Kenyan horticultural exports have grown at over 6 percent per year for the past 30 years. Since 1974 the value of Kenya’s horticultural exports has increased fourfold in constant dollar ...

Growing concern over health risks associated with food products has prompted close examination of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards in industrialized countries. Standards are employed to protect human health from toxic additives, ...

This brief delineates two broad categories for bioenergy development - the exploitation of existing agricultural wastes and the establishment of energy plantations-and suggests high-priority steps for developing bioenergy in ways that benefit the ...

Given Europe’s high import demand for fuel and its commitments to reduce CO2 emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, political pressure to implement strategies for the use of renewable energy is ever increasing. Thus, Europe aspires to use ...

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of ethanol, a biofuel used mainly in automobiles as an additive or alternative to gasoline. In the mid-1970s the country undertook a major program to produce ethanol, and since then the industry has ...

The Guatemalan raspberry industry began exporting to the United States in the late 1980s, filling a market niche in the spring and fall when supplies were low. By 1996, Guatemalan raspberry exports were increasing rapidly, up 113 percent from the ...

Food safety and quality have become increasingly important in international fish trade. Stringent conditions imposed by major fish-importing nations in the developed world, which take in 80 percent of global fish exports, give food safety ...

Production and export of horticultural products are increasing rapidly in many developing countries. Rapid growth in horticultural production has been accompanied by heavy use of pesticides and by heightened concern over health effects associated ...

As developing countries open their economies further to trade, their food industries are striving to raise safety and quality standards in order to compete in new markets. Such is the case with the Colombian poultry industry. Critical questions ...

So far in this first decade of the 21st century, more than 1 billion people are subsisting on less than US$1 per day, and more than 800 million people are suffering from hunger. Many countries, most notably in Asia, have made spectacular success ...

Millions of the rural poor now participate in collaborative forest management schemes under a variety of tenurial and organizational arrangements.We examine those arrangements and ask whether local people have indeed gained more access to ...

Since crop and animal pests destroy farmers’ production, this brief looks at the ways pests can be controlled either by individual farmers, by public programmes, or by “neighbors working together”. This brief examines those ...

The provision of insurance for the poor, covering a variety of risks, could well be a key milestone in the fight against poverty. In richer economies, insurance achieved through broad public action and appropriately developed private mechanisms ...

Agricultural markets play a key role in the lives of poor people in developing countries. More than half the population in developing regions (58 percent) and more than three-quarters of the poor—defined as those living on less than US$1 per ...

The promise of bioenergy is that it may help cope with rising energy prices, address environmental concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, and offer new income and employment to farmers and rural areas. In principle, there is a high degree of ...

2020 Focus 16 Brief 4 Many opportunities exist for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through better management of trees and soils. There is potential for both direct mitigation through better management of carbon in agricultural ...

There is a seemingly widespread view that inequality should not be a concern in countries striving to fight absolute poverty. Although inequality may well behigh or rising in some developing countries, this increase is seen as the unavoidable ...

Bioenergy crop systems can-if properly designed-yield significant benefits, both environmental and social. The right choice of biomass crops and production methods can lead to favorable carbon and energy balances and a net reduction in greenhouse ...

In the last two decades of the 20th century, recurring fiscal and financial crises, unsatisfactory growth, and deep and persistent inequality endangered development prospects in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Since then, financial ...

Reaching the poorest and hungry groups of the population, including those who might be left out of the Millennium Development Goals, involves input from policymakers at the central and local levels of government. While there has been considerable ...

In the developing world the approval and cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops is largely limited to the commercial production of insect-resistant cotton in Argentina, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa…. Approvals of GM crops ...

While not trade measures per se, food safety regulations and standards can impede trade and significantly affect the ability of developing countries to access markets, particularly in industrialized countries. In part, this reflects the growing ...

Past successes in African agriculture can point the way to promising avenues for achieving similar success in the future. Drawing lessons from past success requires identifying a range of successful and less successful episodes and then studying ...

This brief presents an overview of global macroeconomic developments over time and some of their implications for poverty trends in developing countries. It concludes with comments on possible macroeconomic policies to create an environment for ...

Publicly funded, noncontributory transfer programs targeted to the poor and vulnerable have a long history. Free food distribution was a feature of Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs and of Rome during its Imperial age. England had a succession of ...

About 80 percent of the world population currently lives in countries that are either developed or developing. The other 20 percent lives in countries that are stagnant or falling behind. As a result, by the 2015 target date for the Millennium ...

Education and child health are important tools of poverty reduction and economic development. With the recent focus on universal primary education as a Millennium Development Goal, many developing countries have made dramatic improvements in ...

Why has eradicating hunger and poverty proved difficult despite its being a declared goal of the international development community for more than half a century? Why has the number of hungry people increased in recent years? Why is poverty ...

Governments are now shifting their role from direct management of irrigation systems to regulation of the water sector, provision of support services to water user associations, and capacity building among water user associations and irrigation ...

During the last decade, an increasing share of foreign aid has been provided to countries coming out of civil war or experiencing severe conflict. Most of these countries—like the Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, and ...

The linkages between livestock and health are significant, particularly for the poor, whether as livestock raisers or as consumers of meat and milk, or even as users of the environment. The processes of livestock production and consumption bring ...

“During the first half of the 20th century, African farmers transformed maize from a minor imported foodcrop into the continent’s principal staple food. In the second half of the century, newly independent governments launched support ...

A key consideration in planning action to assist poor and hungry households is simply to have a good understanding of where they live and the characteristics of those locations. For the past 10 years, poverty researchers at the World Bank, ...

2020 Focus 16 Brief 6 Livestock—poultry, small ruminants (such as goats and sheep), cattle, and pigs—provide many benefits for human well-being. Livestock production systems, especially in developing countries, are changing rapidly in ...

Mycotoxins are produced by fungi, commonly known as mold. These toxins can develop during production, harvesting, or storage of grains, nuts, and other crops. Mycotoxins are among the most potent mutagenic and carcinogenic substances known. They ...

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the agricultural sector is one of the most hazardous to health worldwide. Agricultural work possesses several characteristics that are risky for health: exposure to the weather, close ...

“In recent years bioenergy… has drawn attention as a sustainable energy source that may help cope with rising energy prices, address environmental concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, and offer new income and employment to farmers ...

“The trend is inescapable: more and more people in the developing world are living in the cities. By 2020, the number of people living in developing countries will grow from 4.9 billion to 6.8 billion. Ninety percent of this increase will ...

Food safety is receiving heightened attention worldwide as the important links between food and health are increasingly recognized. Improving food safety is an essential element of improving food security, which exists when populations have ...

This next regime of climate change rules must be targeted toward reducing GHGs as cheaply and quickly as possible. Developing countries and their farmers are key to meeting this objective. First, land-use changes and practices in developing ...

Describing and explaining are two very different engagements, and yet development experts routinely write as though to describe were to explain. If this were not the case, it would be hard to understand why they have found it necessary to ...

Governments, development agencies, and communities are attempting to improve urban livelihoods and reduce urban poverty and food and nutrition insecurity… Developing more effective urban programs requires considering some key ...

Rights over land and other natural resources play a fundamental role in human society. The distribution of wealth and poverty is a reflection of underlying property rights. But reforming property rights to give poor women and men greater access ...

In this brief, we explore the role that social institutions - specifically property rights and collective action - may play in the development of agroforestry…. In the future, property rights and collective action will play increasingly ...

According to the authors, “Cassava serves as a staple food for 200 million Africans, second only to maize in its calorie contribution. In response to a series of devastating attacks by cassava diseases and pests over the past several ...

2020 Focus 16 Brief 3 Rice is grown on more than 140 million hectares worldwide and is the most heavily consumed staple food on earth. Ninety percent of the world’s rice is produced and consumed in Asia, and 90 percent of rice land is—at ...

The global community has set itself the challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 as a way to combat world poverty and hunger. In 2007, the halfway point, it is clear that many countries will not be able to meet the ...

The author describes a successful case study as follows: “Dairy production in Kenya has grown at 2.8 percent per year over the past two decades, resulting in per capita production levels double those found anywhere else on the continent. ...

Social entrepreneurs can provide the new approaches needed to hasten the process of reducing poverty and hunger. By combining innovative ideas from individuals and investments from public, private, and civil society organizations, such ...

This brief describes two case studies as follows: “Sub-Saharan Africa, with the highest fertility rate in the world, faces increasing demographic pressure on its natural resource base…. Old strategies for coping with these new ...

Who are the landed poor?” That is the question asked at the beginning of this brief. The author describes the different “faces” of the landed poor and then take up the issue of strengthening the property rights of these ...

Farming is a threat to the natural environment in rich as well as poor countries, but the human stakes are now much higher in the developing world, where food needs are acute and growing rapidly. Roughly 700 million people in developing countries ...

Assessing the world’s progress against poverty calls for frequent and careful measurements, using household surveys and price data. Fortunately, the task of measuring poverty is becoming easier, and the results are probably getting more accurate ...

Where the poor form a majority or near-majority, why don’t they vote themselves to power in democracies? In Madagascar, Mozambique, Mali, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, and Bangladesh, where the poor constitute 71, 70, 64, 56, 53, 52, and 50 percent ...

2020 Focus 16 Brief 10 Even with abundant evidence of the urgent need for action on climate change mitigation, there are still those who consider mitigation strategies a burden. In the agricultural sector, climate change mitigation calls for ...

Growth that is shared—so-called inclusive growth—is now widely embraced as the central economic goal for developing countries. But definitions and empirical characterizations of inclusive growth vary widely. In this brief, inclusive growth is ...

2020 Focus 16 Brief 5 Of the five principal global carbon pools, the ocean pool is the largest at 38.4 trillion metric tons (mt) in the surface layer, followed by the fossil fuels (4.13 trillion mt), soils (2.5 trillion mt to a depth of one ...

2020 Focus 16 Brief 7 Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from soils are responsible for about 3 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which cause climate change, and contribute approximately one-third of non-CO2 agricultural GHG emissions. ...

By 2030, three-fifths of the world’s population will live in urban areas… And poverty in the poorest countries appears to have become more urbanized. An urban world with growing inequality bodes ill for the health of urban dwellers. ...

The arguments in favor of trade liberalization are well known: it promotes the efficient allocation of resources through comparative advantage, allows the dissemination of knowledge and technological progress, and encourages competition. Trade ...

Food safety is affected by the decisions of producers, processors, distributors, food service operators, and consumers, as well as by government regulations. In developed countries, the demand for higher levels of food safety has led to the ...

The authors describe property rights as “overlapping ‘bundles’ of rights”, which can be grouped as “use rights” and “control or decisionmaking rights”. The authors then explain the concept of legal ...

With half the world’s population living in cities and towns, many poor urban dwellers face problems gaining access to adequate supplies of nutritionally balanced food. For many urban populations, an important source of food is urban and ...

“As the urban population in all developing regions grows over the next 20 years, governments and families will face unique challenges in their efforts to ensure the well-being of millions of children. They will have to take into account ...