Many African governments responded to the dramatic increases in international and domestic grain prices of 2008 and 2009 through a mixture of trade policy changes and input/output market subsidies. In the case of Mali, the Government put in place a rice promotion program at the beginning of the...

This paper assesses the role that cereal markets have played in stimulating farm-level productivity growth and marketing of staple foods, in responding to changing demand patterns, in satisfying minimum food security needs, and in contributing to poverty reduction in both urban areas (through...

Performance of the agricultural sector in developing countries is fundamental to ensuring robust and equitable economic growth and broad-based food security. Yet donor support to agricultural development in developing countries has declined continuously for 30 years. This same period saw...

Performance of the agricultural sector in developing countries is fundamental to ensuring robust and equitable economic growth and broad-based food security. Yet donor support to agricultural development in developing countries has declined continuously for 30 years. This same period saw...

Drawing from the experience in Ethiopia, this paper examines the role that public policy must play in building public/private partnerships to develop the extension programs, input markets, and credit services necessary to turn a pilot Sasakawa-Global 2000 program into economically sustainable...

In 2009, the World Bank published a comparative study of cotton sector reforms, based on detailed case studies carried out during 2007/08 in nine of Africa’s main cotton producing countries. The purpose of the study was to draw practical insights from the diversity of experiences in...

For several reasons, fertilizer subsidies are again popular policy tools. First, there is broad agreement that fertilizer is a critical yet still-underused input for improving productivity and food security in Africa. Second, politicians have felt greater urgency to increase domestic food...

This report evaluates the 2006/7 Malawi Government Agricultural Input Subsidy Programme (AISP). The main objective of the evaluation is to assess the impact and implementation of the AISP in order to provide lessons for future interventions in growth and social protection. The evaluation...