This paper examines the relationship between community participation and the efficacy of interventions designed to reduce poverty. We develop some simple analytics that are used to structure a review of the extant literature and motivate the analysis of the impact of participation on the...

This paper uses project and household data to examine the ability of 100 or so public works projects in Western Cape Province, South Africa, to target benefits—both direct and indirect—to those living below the poverty line. We find that public works projects generally outperform...

As the goals of international agricultural research move beyond increasing food production to the broader aims of reducing poverty, both agricultural research and studies of its impact become more complex. Yet examining the magnitude and mechanisms through which different types of agricultural...

"This paper reports findings of a CGIAR research project including seven case studies of different types of agricultural research: aggregate investments in agricultural research in China and India; rice, vegetable, and fishpond technologies in Bangladesh; soil fertility replenishment in Kenya;...

"This case study explores the relationships between agroforestry-based soil fertility replenishment (SFR) systems (improved fallows and biomass transfer) and poverty reduction in rural western Kenya. It further examines the role that different dissemination approaches play in conditioning which...

"This study documents how poor small-scale farmers in lowland tropical Mexico use improved maize germplasm and how this contributes to their well-being. It does this by assessing both the direct adoption of improved varieties and examining the process of their "creolization." By exposing...

Since the transition to democracy, South African public works programs are to involve community participation, and be targeted to the poor and women. This paper examines the targeting performance of seven programs in Western Cape Province, and analyzes the role of government, community-based...

"In Ethiopia, while superficial examination suggests strong disincentive effects of food aid on labor supply and agricultural activities, these largely vanish under more careful statistical analysis." from Text

"...There are sharply divergent views as to how much narrowly targeted interventions actually benefit the poor. These result from differing assessments of three issues: whether better targeting outcomes are likely to be achieved, whether such methods are cost-effective, and whether the living...

"The principal objective of food aid, besides responding to needs created by conflict, and other disasters, should be to provide an insurance function for those events for which existing insurance mechanisms function poorly" "From Text