Rapidly increasing mobile phone coverage, cheaper technology, and an open platform that allows for the development of applications that extend the use of mobile devices provide new ways to reach farmers in isolated places. We investigate the impact of an intervention that uses information and...

This brief is based on Information and Communication Technologies for Development and Poverty Reduction: The Potential of Telecommunications, ed. Maximo Torero and Joachim von Braun (Johns Hopkins University Press and IFPRI, 2006) "The variety of views about ICTs reveals that their role in...

The variety of views about ICTs reveals that their role in development is unclear, especially without convincing evidence of their impact-and little research has been conducted on the direct and indirect links between ICTs and poverty reduction. This book, addresses several pressing questions...

It is widely recognized that there is a continuum of physical growth and social-emotional and cognitive development across the life course, from the preconception health status of the mother through adulthood. This paper lays out a core economic model that illustrates the interrelationship of...

"This paper uses panel data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Malawi to examine the impacts of disasters on dynamic human capital production. Our empirical results show that accumulation of biological human capital prior to a disaster helps children maintain investments during the post-disaster...

"This paper uses household panel and village census data from Indonesia to examine the impact of spatial connectivity (road) development on household income growth and nonagricultural labor supply. The empirical results show that the impacts of improvements in local road quality (which...

The government of Uganda is currently decentralizing many of its services including those directly related to agriculture and the environment. Non-government organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) are being asked to take the lead in the provision of government services...

In this brief, the authors suggest five areas for action to put rural India on a higher growth trajectory that would cut hunger, malnutrition, and unemployment at a much faster pace than has been the case so far. The five areas for action are interlinked and would best work if pursued in...

"Among the capacity-strengthening challenges the region faces are inadequate in-country capacity, institutional weaknesses, lack of multidisciplinary approaches to problem solving, expatriates' limited incountry experience, poor governance, and failure to monitor the sustainability of...

"Food security in Africa has substantially worsened since 1970. Although the proportion of malnourished individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa has remained in the range of 33–35 percent since around 1970, the absolute number of malnourished people in Africa has increased substantially with...