Dissatisfaction with traditional project approaches and a recognition of the limitations of the sector adjustment programs led to the development of new lending instruments to improve the impact of development assistance on the sector as a whole. Within the Africa region of the World Bank, the...

In recent years, the focus in many developing regions is increasingly moving away from communicable disease, where as Africa continues to face a high burden of communicable disease, malnutrition, and fertility. At the same time, the ways in which the World Bank operates are changing -...

Low-income, food-deficit countries have become especially concerned about the global and national food situation over the past three years. While the proximate cause of this heightened concern was the surge in food prices that began in 2006 and peaked in mid-2008, concerns remain for other...

Livelihoods, food security, and development processes in Sub-Saharan Africa are highly dependent on land management practices to generate natural ecosystem goods and services. Out of a total population of about 717 million people, almost 60 percent depend for their livelihood on agriculture,...

The changed role of rail in Africa over the last thirty years has seen it move from a situation where many of the systems were carrying a high share of their country's traffic to one in which their market share has declined, their assets have steadily deteriorated, their quality of service has...

This strategy for making development Climate-Resilient in Sub-Saharan Africa is the World Bank's operational response to climate variability and change on the continent. Grounded in a climate risk review of the Africa Region's sustainable development portfolio, it adds the climate change...

The report analyses the contribution to date of agricultural water management to poverty reduction and growth in the in sub-Saharan Africa region, the reasons for its slow expansion and apparently poor track record, as well as the ways in which increased investment in agricultural water...

Curriculum reforms first and foremost should focus on improving the current teaching and learning processes. As a systemic challenge, these changes need to include re-orientation from secondary education as pre-academic tertiary education to a wider range of options, including vocational...

About two years ago, an effort was launched to try and harmonize the World Bank's considerable experience with community participation in a number of African countries. This effort was initiated by a group of organizations including the Benin National Research Institute, the Benin National...

As a result of two years of constructive dialogue between the World Bank (WB), government agencies and grassroots' associations involved in the advancement of women, a workshop for the Promotion of the societal status of women in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa was organized in March 1998 in...