Carbon finance projects are often
intended to be both a payment for an environmental service
(PES) and an instrument to facilitate sustainable
development in developing countries. To enhance livelihood
objectives, these projects should benefit rural land users,
provided they are willing and able to participate. This
holds particularly true for forest carbon initiatives.
However, high transaction costs and large uncertainties

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

This evaluation assesses the outcomes of
World Bank Group’s (WBG’s) development support to the West
Bank and Gaza for the period 2001-09. It covers the programs
of the World Bank - International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development (IBRD), International Development
Association (IDA), International Finance Corporation (IFC),
and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). The
main objectives of the WBG program were broad, reflecting

This report forms part of the technical
assistance provided by the World Bank under the Non-lending
Technical Assistance Program for the Caribbean
'market-based agriculture risk management in the
Caribbean.' The program is largely financed by the
European Union All Agriculture Commodities Program (AACP)
Initiative and contributions from the International Fund for
Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the World Bank. This

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

The primary aim of this evaluation is to
develop lessons from the Bank’s experience in the three
selected countries of Columbia, Tunisia, and Turkey
regarding assistance aimed at employment creation and
earnings growth. The evaluation focuses on employment
creation and earnings growth because these have a strong
bearing on the extent to which the central objective of
poverty reduction is achieved. The evaluation assesses the

Reducing poverty continues to be one of
the main priorities of the Government of Albania. Currently,
Albania has an ample platform to provide social protection
to its citizens through social insurance, social assistance
and employment programs. However, these programs are not
efficiently linked to each other, which can lead to unclear
and occasionally overlapping roles among the programs. Among
these social protection programs, Ndihma Ekonomike (NE) is

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

These organizations have joined together to recommend the principles presented below. The document concludes with anticipated next steps, which point toward a toolkit of best practices, guidelines, governance frameworks, and possibly codes of practice by the major sets of private actors.

Lao PDR has experienced high levels of
economic growth in recent years and the incidence of poverty
has fallen dramatically since the 1990s. Yet, this report
shows that Lao households continue to be highly vulnerable
to regular seasonal fluctuations, as well as agricultural
shocks and natural disasters. The report also highlights the
importance of health shocks, injury and death for household
welfare. Households adopt a variety of strategies to cope

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 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