Download or read book Evaluating food policy options in Bangladesh Analysis of costs benefits and tradeoffs between targeted distribution versus public agricultural and infrastructure investments written by Dorosh, Paul A. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-09-01 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bangladesh has successfully improved national food security over the last two decades, primarily by increasing rice production and consumption. However, the country’s food system remains vulnerable to periodic floods and droughts that seriously affect agricultural production and prices. While food imports can cushion the effects of these short-term climate shocks, there is always uncertainty about whether shortages in global commodity markets will coincide with domestic production shortfalls, leading to particularly adverse outcomes, especially for poor farmers and net consumers. This is one of the reasons why Bangladesh’s government has maintained a long-standing public grain procurement and storage system, as well as a large social protection program that distributes subsidized rice and wheat to poor households. These programs, together with investments in farm productivity, have enhanced the resilience of Bangladesh’s food system to climate and world market shocks. Heightened climate variability in recent years has also led the government to increase stocks and make substantial new investments to expand public grain storage capacity.
Download or read book Public food transfers during a pandemic Insights from Bangladesh written by Chowdhury, Shyamal and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-02-20 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public food transfer program provide a lifeline for the poor in both high- and low-income countries, and many countries stepped these up in response to COVID-19. But little is known about how effective these programs have been in reaching the poor during the crisis. This brief reviews the findings of an evaluation of Bangladesh’s Food Friendly Program, pointing to the difficulties encountered during the pandemic and lessons to help these program perform better in future crises.
Download or read book Securing food for all in Bangladesh written by Ahmed, Akhter, ed. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2021-11-05 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Securing Food for All in Bangladesh presents an array of research that collectively address four broad issues: (1) agricultural technology adoption; (2) input use and agricultural productivity; (3) food security and output market; and (4) poverty, food security, and women’s empowerment. The fifteen chapters of the book address diverse aspects within these four themes. Access to sufficient food by all people at all times to meet their dietary needs is a matter of critical importance. Despite declining arable agricultural land, Bangladesh has made commendable progress in boosting domestic food production. The growth in overall food production has been keeping ahead of population growth, resulting in higher per capita availability of food over time. In the early 1970s, Bangladesh was a food-deficit country with a population of about 75 million. Today, the population is 165 million, and the country is now self-sufficient in rice production, which has tripled over the past three decades. Along with enhanced food production, increased income has improved people’s access to food. Furthermore, nutritional outcomes have improved significantly. Nevertheless, the challenges to food and nutrition security remain formidable. Future agricultural growth and food and nutrition security are threatened by population growth, worsening soil fertility, diminishing access to land and other scarce natural resources, increasing vulnerability of crop varieties to pests and diseases, and persistent poverty leading to poor access to food. In addition, the impacts of climate change—an increase in the incidence of natural disasters, sea intrusion, and salinity—will exacerbate food and nutrition insecurity in the coming decades if corrective measures are not taken. Aligned with this context, the authors of the book explore policy options and strategies for developing agriculture and improving food security in Bangladesh. Securing Food for All in Bangladesh, with its breadth and scope, will be an invaluable resource for policymakers, researchers, and students dedicated to improving people’s livelihoods in Bangladesh.
Download or read book Poverty and Hunger written by World Bank and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food security means access by all people at all times to enough food for an active and healthy life. Available data suggest that more than 700 million people in the developing world lack the food necessary for such a life. No problem of underdevelopment may be more serious or have such important implications for the long-term growth of low-income countries. This report outlines the nature and extent of food security problems in developing countries, explores the policy options available to these countries in addressing these problems, and indicates what international institutions such as the World Bank can and should do to help countries solve their food security problems. It suggests ways to achieve the desired goal in cost-effective ways. It also identifies policies that waste economic resources and fail to reach the target groups. (BZ)
Download or read book Seasonal Hunger and Public Policies written by Shahidur R. Khandker and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-06-26 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agricultural development through crop diversification, irrigation, high yielding crop varieties, and public investments in infrastructure has improved food security and its seasonal dimension worldwide in recent years. Consequently, the severity of seasonal hunger caused by agricultural crop cycles has lessened substantially. Yet in agricultural pockets scattered throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, seasonal hunger persists, especially among the rural poor, owing primarily to idiosyncratic shocks caused by agricultural seasonality. More than four-fifths of the world's poor live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for livelihoods. Because of seasonal income shocks, the poor who are generally poor are likely to be even poorer during a particular agricultural season, while those who are not poor year-round may also be so during that season. Also, seasonal hunger may lead to endemic poverty if its adverse effects on income and consumption are irreversible. Policies aimed at reducing overall poverty often disregard its seasonal dimension, because standard poverty statistics do not consider seasonal hunger in the official data collection and analysis, there is no direct way to determine how many of the “bottom billion,” as economist Paul Collier refers to the world's poorest people, suffer from seasonal hunger. Even worse, regions prone to severe seasonal hunger are unlikely to attract the public investments required to raise the local economy's resilience through income diversification and thus break the seasonal-poverty cycle. The book provides an exhaustive inquiry of Bangladesh's seasonal hunger with special reference to the North West region. The seasonality of poverty and food deprivation is a common feature of rural livelihood but it is more marked in the north-west region of Bangladesh. The book also presents an evaluation of several policy interventions launched recently in mitigating seasonality, which provide a test case of what works and what does not in combating seasonal hunger. The major findings of the book are the following: (a) Policies to improve food security should explicitly take into account the seasonal dimension of food deprivation. (b) Gains from initiatives to combat seasonal hunger should be monitored and consolidated to ensure sustainable impacts. (c) Policies should also focus on areas that, owing to environmental degradation and climate change, are increasingly vulnerable to seasonal hunger and food insecurity in general.
Download or read book Out of the shadow of famine written by Ahmed, Raisuddin and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2000-04-21 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes how Bangladesh transformed its food markets and food policies to free the country from the constant threat of famine. Since 1990, the Bangladeshi government has dismantled its food rationing system, privatized grain distribution, eased restrictions on international trade, and reduced its own presence in grain markets. The foundation for these developments was laid in the preceding decades. Improvements in agricultural science in the 1970s roughly doubled farm yields, while in the 1980s liberalization of irrigation restrictions, the lifting of import barriers to irrigation technology, and the privatization of fertilizer distribution rapidly increased rice cultivation. These increases in production, coupled with improvements in infrastructure and a more slowly growing and increasingly urban population, have substantially changed the structure of food grain markets, leading to increased marketing volumes, lower prices, and significantly larger private grain stocks. The book sets the Bangladeshi case in the larger context of the South Asian subcontinent and other developing countries in Asia. The authors examine the shifting structure of supply and demand in the grain markets, the history of government intervention in those markets, and the more recent changes that altered the arguments for such intervention and led to policy changes. The case of Bangladesh also has more general relevance as a study of the outcomes of a market-oriented reform program.
Download or read book The contribution of IFPRI research and the impact of the Food for Education Program in Bangladesh on schooling outcomes and earnings written by Ryan, James G. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2004-11-17 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper evaluates the influence and impact that IFPRI research and related activities had on the initiation, evolution, and impact of the food for education (FFE) program in Bangladesh. It reviews the outputs from the IFPRI program and summarizes the perceptions of various stakeholders about the value and influence of these on the FFE program. A novel experimental evaluation methodology is used on household sample survey data to analyze the effects of FFE on schooling outcomes. Earnings functions are then estimated using national household income and expenditure survey data to assess the effect of schooling on earnings. Combining the two, the effects of the increased participation and duration of schooling (due to the FFE program) on lifetime earnings of children are derived. Using these incremental earnings figures, the internal rates of return for both national and private investments in the FFE program are estimated. From these, a conservative assessment of the economic value of IFPRI's contribution to the generation of the national benefits is made... We conclude that a very conservative assessment of the economic value of IFPRI's contribution to the generation of the national benefits estimated above is that the FFE program began one year earlier than it might have without the IFPRI input. Based upon the total cost of the IFPRI-FFE research program of US$151,000, the internal rate of return on this research investment ranges from 64-96 percent. of all the other benefits are added to this, clearly the IFPRI contribution has been an outstanding economic investment. These benefits might have been even greater had IFPRI had an explicit communications strategy with more timely and available publications, along with appropriate advocacy based upon a more thorough knowledge of the dynamic political economy of government decision making in Bangladesh." -- from Authors' Abstract
Download or read book The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions. The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.
Download or read book Agricultural Input Subsidies written by Ephraim Chirwa and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-09-26 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes forward our understanding of agricultural input subsidies in low income countries.
Download or read book Targeting of Transfers in Developing Countries written by David Coady and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a database of more than one hundred anti-poverty interventions in 47 countries, 'Targeting of Transfers in Developing Countries' provides a general review of experiences with methods used to target interventions in transition and developing countries. Written for policymakers and program managers in developing countries, in donor agencies, and in NGOs who have responsibility for designing interventions that reach the poor, it conveys what targeting options are available, what results can be expected as well as information that will assist in choosing among them and in their implementation. Key messages are: - While targeting 'works' - the median program transfers 25 percent more to the poor than would a universal allocation - targeting performance around the world is highly variable. - Means testing, geographic targeting, and self-selection based on a work requirement are the most robustly progressive methods. Proxy means testing, community-based selection of individuals and demographic targeting to children show good results on average, but with considerable variation. - Demographic targeting to the elderly, community bidding, and self-selection based on consumption show limited potential for good targeting. - There is no single preferred method for all types of programs or all country contexts. Successful targeting depends critically on how a method is implemented. The CD-ROM includes the database of interventions, an annotated bibliography (PDF) and Spanish and Russian translations of the book (PDFs).
Download or read book Safety Net Programs and Poverty Reduction written by K. Subbarao and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1997 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The need for social safety nets has become a key component of poverty reduction strategies. Over the past three decades several developing countries have launched a variety of programs, including cash transfers, subsidies in-kind, public works, and income-generation programs. However, there is little guidance on appropriate program design, and few studies have synthesized the lessons from widely differing country experiences. This report fills that gap. It reviews the conceptual issues in the choice of programs, synthesizes cross-country experience, and analyzes how country- and region-specific constraints can explain why different approaches are successful in different countries.
Download or read book Lifelines written by Stephane Hallegatte and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Infrastructure—electricity, telecommunications, roads, water, and sanitation—are central to people’s lives. Without it, they cannot make a living, stay healthy, and maintain a good quality of life. Access to basic infrastructure is also a key driver of economic development. This report lays out a framework for understanding infrastructure resilience - the ability of infrastructure systems to function and meet users’ needs during and after a natural hazard. It focuses on four infrastructure systems that are essential to economic activity and people’s well-being: power systems, including the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity; water and sanitation—especially water utilities; transport systems—multiple modes such as road, rail, waterway, and airports, and multiple scales, including urban transit and rural access; and telecommunications, including telephone and Internet connections.
Download or read book Mitigation of Food Wastage written by and published by Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Food Waste Footprint"--Page preceding title page.
Download or read book Guidelines for the Economic Analysis of Projects written by Asian Development Bank and published by Asian Development Bank. This book was released on 2017-03-01 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Project economic analysis is a tool used by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to ensure that ADB operations comply with its Charter. The guidelines in this publication are a revised version of the 1997 edition. The revision responds to the changing development context and ADB operational priorities, and aims to address the recommendations of the ADB Quality-at-Entry Assessments for more methodological work on project economic analysis. The revised guidelines provide general principles for the conduct of project economic analysis, and should be read together with handbooks, technical reports, and other reference materials published by ADB dealing with sector-specific project economic analysis in detail.
Download or read book Inclusive Green Growth written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2012-05-23 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This report was written by a team led by Marianne Fay [... et al.]."
Download or read book Shock Waves written by Stephane Hallegatte and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-11-23 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.
Download or read book The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2018-09-14 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New evidence this year corroborates the rise in world hunger observed in this report last year, sending a warning that more action is needed if we aspire to end world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. Updated estimates show the number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to prevailing levels from almost a decade ago. Although progress continues to be made in reducing child stunting, over 22 percent of children under five years of age are still affected. Other forms of malnutrition are also growing: adult obesity continues to increase in countries irrespective of their income levels, and many countries are coping with multiple forms of malnutrition at the same time – overweight and obesity, as well as anaemia in women, and child stunting and wasting.
