Download or read book Agricultural Policies for Poverty Reduction written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2012-03-02 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume sets out a strategy for raising rural incomes which emphasises the creation of diversified rural economies with opportunities within and outside agriculture.
Download or read book World Development Report 2008 written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007-10-15 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. 'World Development Report 2008' seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture? Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa? How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction? How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas? How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained? This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has been publishing the 'World Development Report'.
Download or read book Rural Finance for Growth and Poverty Alleviation written by Saeed Ahmad Qureshi and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1996 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To promote agricultural -- and hence economic -- growth, Pakistan must make more credit available to agricultural smallholders, the rural nonfarm sector, and women. Subsidizing interest rates is not the way to help marginal borrowers. Instead, they can be helped through fixed-cost subsidies and self-selected targeting. Pakistan's rural sector accounts for more than 70 percent of employment, and roughly two-thirds of rural employment is in agriculture. Less than a third of rural households get loans, only 10 percent of which are from institutional sources. Pakistan's credit institutions are not helping the country accelerate agricultural growth and reduce poverty. To improve performance in the rural economy and efficiency in financial institutions, rural credit markets must be liberalized. The government needs to initiate the following reforms: * Produce and price controls must be replaced by prudent regulation and supervision, combined with policies to stabilize the economy. * Commercial banks must operate in a competitive environment. They must be allowed to set interest rates for rural lending that cover their transaction costs. * Credit must be made available to support productivity growth for agricultural smallholders and small producers of the rural nonfarm sector, where Pakistan's growth potential lies. * Credit must be made available to women and to the rural poor for consumption-smoothing and for sustainable income-generating activities. Policy should be directed at developing a market-based financial system for rural finance, but because of market failures to support disadvantaged groups, a special-priority program may be needed to get credit to women, smallholders (with 10 acres or less), and the rural nonfarm sector (small-scale nonfarm activities such as livestock, fishery, forestry, and rangelands, and industrial microenterprises). Subsidizing interest rates is not the way to help marginal borrowers. Instead, they can be helped through fixed-cost subsidies and self-selected targeting. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) should be encouraged to help, keeping in mind such NGO success stories as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and Badan Kredit Kecaratan (BKK) in Indonesia. Commercial banks should be encouraged to lend on other bases than the mortgage and passbook system. They could experiment with wholesaling credit through input suppliers, marketing agents, and NGOs. They should consider lending for such downstream agricultural activities as agroprocessing. The biggest challenge facing rural finance is the restructuring of cooperatives. The next important step for the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan would be a portfolio audit -- the results of which will determine next steps, such as major restructuring of its portfolio and changing its ownership. To improve rural financing, the system of property rights, title, and default enforcement must also be strengthened, among other reforms. This paper -- a product of the Agricultural and Natural Resources Division, South Asia, Country Department I -- is part of a larger effort in the region to analyze major issues of agricultural growth and rural development in Pakistan and working with the government in developing a strategy to address those issues.
Download or read book Financial Development and Poverty Reduction written by Sylviane Guillaumont Jeanneney and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2008-03 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This article investigates how financial development helps to reduce poverty directly through the McKinnon conduit effect and indirectly through economic growth. The results obtained with data for a sample of developing countries from 1966 through 2000 suggest that the poor benefit from the ability of the banking system to facilitate transactions and provide savings opportunities but to some extent fail to reap the benefit from greater availability of credit. Moreover, financial development is accompanied by financial instability, which is detrimental to the poor. Nevertheless, the benefits of financial development for the poor outweigh the cost.
Download or read book The Composition of Growth Matters for Poverty Alleviation written by Norman Loayza and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2006 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper contributes to explain the cross-country heterogeneity of the poverty response to changes in economic growth. It does so by focusing on the structure of output growth. The paper presents a two-sector theoretical model that clarifies the mechanism through which the sectoral composition of growth and associated labor intensity can affect workers' wages and, thus, poverty alleviation. Then in presents cross-country empirical evidence that analyzes first, the differential poverty-reducing impact of sectoral growth at various levels of disaggregation, and the role of unskilled labor intensity in such differential impact. The paper finds evidence that not only the size of economic growth but also its composition matters for poverty alleviation, with the largest contributuons from labor-intensive sectors (such as agriculture, construction, and manufacturing). The results are robust to the influence of outliers, alternative explanations, and various poverty measures.
Download or read book Financial Inclusion for Poverty Alleviation written by Essam Yassin Mohammed and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-12 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than one billion people still live below the poverty line – most of them in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Financial inclusion is a major issue, as more than three-quarters of the numbers of poor and disadvantaged women and men do not have access to financial products and services, such as bank accounts, affordable and suitable loans, and insurance. The key objective of this book is to provide practical case studies of financial inclusion, rather than focus on academic debates such as the ideological basis of promoting microfinance. Using the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals as an overall framing of the issues, it shows how poor and disadvantaged women and men can be bankable if the right facilitation for maximizing opportunities and addressing constraints are in place. Case studies confirm that achieving inclusive and sustainable access to financial products and services goes beyond simply enabling poor and disadvantaged women and men to have access to credit, or the ability to open a bank account. Examples from Africa, Asia and Latin America demonstrate encouraging progress in making microcredit accessible to millions of poor people. The foremost challenge, however, has been to ensure that they have access to, and usage intensity of, suitable and affordable financial products and services that meet the needs of their livelihoods as well as risks and mitigation strategies. This requires understanding that poor and disadvantaged women and men do not exist in isolation from complex and interdependent functions in the financial system, which includes a number of actors, diversified services, constraints (not just symptoms) and capacities and incentives. Overall, the book provides a rich source of examples of how building inclusive financial systems can empower the world's poor – by increasing income and employment opportunities, securing livelihoods and reducing poverty.
Download or read book Accelerating Poverty Reduction in Africa written by Kathleen Beegle and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-10-09 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sub-Saharan Africa's turnaround over the past couple of decades has been dramatic. After many years in decline, the continent's economy picked up in the mid-1990s. Along with this macroeconomic growth, people became healthier, many more youngsters attended schools, and the rate of extreme poverty declined from 54 percent in 1990 to 41 percent in 2015. Political and social freedoms expanded, and gender equality advanced. Conflict in the region also subsided, although it still claims thousands of civilian lives in some countries and still drives pressing numbers of displaced persons. Despite Africa’s widespread economic and social welfare accomplishments, the region’s challenges remain daunting: Economic growth has slowed in recent years. Poverty rates in many countries are the highest in the world. And notably, the number of poor in Africa is rising because of population growth. From a global perspective, the biggest concentration of poverty has shifted from South Asia to Africa. Accelerating Poverty Reduction in Africa explores critical policy entry points to address the demographic, societal, and political drivers of poverty; improve income-earning opportunities both on and off the farm; and better mobilize resources for the poor. It looks beyond macroeconomic stability and growth—critical yet insufficient components of these objectives—to ask what more could be done and where policy makers should focus their attention to speed up poverty reduction. The pro-poor policy agenda advanced in this volume requires not only economic growth where the poor work and live, but also mitigation of the many risks to which African households are exposed. As such, this report takes a "jobs" lens to its task. It focuses squarely on the productivity and livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable—that is, what it will take to increase their earnings. Finally, it presents a road map for financing the poverty and development agenda.
Download or read book Grameen Bank written by Shahidur R. Khandker and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World Bank Technical Paper No. 295. The progress made by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in privatizing state-owned enterprises has created millions of new shareholders. But for the citizenry to buy and sell shares, these countries must develop stock markets and related institutions such as brokerages, clearing and settling organizations, and regulatory agencies. This paper examines the role of capital markets in the new market economies of Central and Eastern Europe and to what extent governments in the region should encourage the development of such markets. The authors address questions of whether the capital markets will serve merely as a forum for trading stocks or become a source of new equity capital to help restructure the enterprises of the region and whether governments should take a hands-off approach by letting the necessary institutions develop as they are needed or should actively create stock exchanges and establish the overall legal and regulatory framework.
Download or read book Rural Poverty in Developing Countries written by Mr.Mahmood Hasan Khan and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2001-03-14 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reviews causes of poverty in rural areas and presents a policy framework for reducing rural poverty, including through land reform, public works programs, access to credit, physical and social infrastructure, subsidies, and transfer of technology. Identifies key elements for drafting a policy to reduce rural poverty.
Download or read book Finance Against Poverty Volume 1 written by Hulme David and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-08-12 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In two volumes these books review and expand the theory that poverty in the world's poorest regions could be alleviated by providing small loans to micro-entrepreneurs. Volume 1 provides detailed analysis of this theory and offers policy recommendations for practitioners in this field. Volume 2 presents empirical evidence drawn from comparative experiences in seven developing countries. The work assesses the success of this policy and provides some startling conclusions. This is essential reading for all those interested in development, poverty-reduction, social welfare and finance.
Download or read book Farming Systems and Poverty written by John A. Dixon and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2001 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.
Download or read book Agricultural Development and Economic Transformation written by John W. Mellor and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the role of agriculture in the economic transformation of developing low- and middle-income countries and explores means for accelerating agricultural growth and poverty reduction. In this volume, Mellor measures by household class the employment impact of alternative agricultural growth rates and land tenure systems, and impact on cereal consumption and food security. The book provides detailed analysis of each element of agricultural modernization, emphasizing the central role of government in accelerated growth in private sector dominated agriculture. The book differs from the bulk of current conventional wisdom in its placement of the non-poor small commercial farmer at the center of growth, and explains how growth translates into poverty reduction. This new book is a follow up to Mellor’s classic, prize-winning text, The Economics of Agricultural Development. Listed as a Best Books of 2017: Economics by Financial Times.
Download or read book Promotion of Rural Employment for Poverty Reduction written by and published by International Labour Organization. This book was released on 2008 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report adopts a decent work perspective to approach the challenge of promoting employment and reducing poverty in rural areas by examining issues of employment, social protection, rights and social dialogue in rural areas in an integrated way.
Download or read book Rural Poverty in Developing Countries written by Mr. Mahmood Hasan Khan and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2000-04-01 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In most developing countries, poverty is more widespread and severe in rural than in urban areas. The author reviews some important aspects of rural poverty and draws key implications for public policy. He presents a policy framework for reducing poverty, taking into account the functional differences and overlap between the rural poor. Several policy options are delineated and explained, including stable management of the macroeconomic environment, transfer of assets, investment in and access to the physical and social infrastructure, access to credit and jobs, and provision of safety nets. Finally, some guideposts are identified for assessing strategies to reduce rural poverty.
Download or read book Microfinance and Poverty Reduction written by Susan Johnson and published by Oxfam. This book was released on 1997 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book emphasizes the importance of studying the local context, and then considering the macroeconomic factors which may be operating upon the economy of a particular country. Five extended case studies, in the Gambia, Ecuador, Mexico, Pakistan, and the UK are examined with reference to further aspects of sustainability and impact assessment.
Download or read book Growth Inequality and Poverty in Rural China written by Shenggen Fan and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growth, inequality, and poverty; Public capital e investment; Concptual framework and model; Data, estimation, and results.
Download or read book Fighting Poverty with Microcredit written by Shahidur R. Khandker and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1998 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With increasing assistance from the World Bank and other donors, microfinance is emerging as an instrument for reducing poverty and improving the poor's access to financial services in low-income countries. Providing the poor with access to financial services is one of many ways to help increase their incomes and productivity. In many countries, however, traditional financial institutions have failed to provide this service. Microcredit and cooperative programs fill this gap. They provide credit through social mechanisms such as group-based lending to reach the poor and other clients, including women, who lack access to formal financial institutions. Their purpose is to help the poor become self-employed and thus escape poverty. This book examines the experiences of the Grameen Bank, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, and the Bangladesh Rural Development Board's Rural Development Project-12 in order to quantify the potential and limitations of microcredit programs as an instrument for reducing poverty and delivering financial services to the poor. A copublication of the World Bank and Oxford University Press.
