The outbreak and spread of Asian-lineage highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) from Asia to Europe and Africa in 2003-2007 challenged national disease surveillance and response programs particularly in those countries where infection occurred. Ethiopia has not had the disease, but it is considered as being vulnerable because it lies under the pathway of migratory birds and has an expansive border that makes it difficult to control cross-border trade in poultry and poultry products.

Cash transfer programs are rare in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper describes the evolution of a cash transfer program in major urban centers of Mozambique, from its inception in 1990 through two major reorganizations until October 1998. Appropriate design, strong multisectoral political support and adequate administrative capacity are critical factors determining the success of such programs.

Working paper

Human activities such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation have significantly increased the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) leading to global climate change. Global climate change and its associated weather extremes pose considerable challenges worldwide, and mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change is a high priority for the international community. To reduce global emissions and curb the threat of climate change, many countries are participating in carbon trading.

"Migration can serve as an outlet for employment, higher earnings, and reduced income risk for households in developing countries. We use the 2004–2005 Human Development Profile of India survey to examine correlations between the receipt of remittances from internal migrants and human capital investment in rural areas. We employ a propensity score–matching approach to account for the selectivity of households into receiving remittances. We interpret the results conservatively due to the cross-sectional nature of the data.

"Tomato, cabbage, and garden egg (African eggplant, or Solanum aethiopicum) are important crops for small-scale farmers and migrants in the rural and peri-urban areas of Ghana. Genetic modification has the potential to alleviate poverty through combating yield losses from pests and diseases in these crops, while reducing health risks from application of hazardous chemicals.

These theories of change were developed to help the HarvestPlus program deliver on its planned outcomes and impacts. HarvestPlus expects to contribute to the reduction in micronutrient deficiency among women and children in rural areas of developing countries through the breeding and dissemination of staple crop varieties with increased levels of key micronutrients.

This paper draws together findings from different elements of a research project examining critical components of pro-poor agricultural growth and of policies that can promote such growth in poor rural economies in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Agricultural growth, a critical driver in poverty reducing growth in many poor agrarian economies in the past, faces many difficulties in today's poor rural areas in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Some of these difficulties are endogenous to these areas while others result from broader processes of global change.

For thousands of years, the Yellow River Basin (YRB) has been the cultural and economic center of China. The nutrient-rich soils transported by the river from the Loess Plateau have supported an economy largely based on agriculture-and increasingly irrigated agriculture. Since the 1978 reforms, industries began to develop in the lower river reaches; since then, industries have gradually expanded westward toward relatively cheaper labor and more abundant raw materials.

In the absence of well-established factor markets, the roles of indigenous institutions and social networks as mobilizing factors for agricultural production can be substantial. We investigate the role of an indigenous social network in Ethiopia, the iddir, in facilitating factor market transactions among smallholder farmers. Using detailed longitudinal household survey data and employing a difference-in-differences approach, we find that iddir membership improves households’ access to factor markets.

This paper introduces a modeling method which simulates a village's response to population and market pressure. The method combines a linear programming model with a biophysical model of soil condition and plant growth. The linear programming model simulates farmers' plans aggregated at the village level, and the biophysical model predicts yields and land degradation for different land use and cropping patterns. The method has been calibrated for two villages located in a semi-arid and a sub-humid savanna region in Burkina Faso in West Africa.

"The present paper analyzes the role of discourse in conflicts concerning nature conservation in tropical countries. We focus on the contested question as to whether and to which extent local communities should be allowed to live and use resources inside protected areas.