"Strong upward trends and increased variability in global food prices over the past two years have led to concern that hunger and poverty will increase across the world. At the same time, rising food prices provide an incentive and opportunity for many developing countries to strengthen the...

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...

"1. The facts: Child malnutrition in India India is home to 40 percent of the world's malnourished children and 35 percent of the developing world's low-birth-weight infants; every year 2.5 million children die in India, accounting for one in five deaths in the world. More than half of these...

Globalization could and should benefit developing countries. But unlike a rising tide that lifts all boats, large and small, globalization is unequal. It has fallen far short of its much-ballyhooed potential to help the world's poorest people out of poverty. Instead, a combination of policies in...

"...Today, 1.1 billion people live on less than one US dollar per day (the internationally recognized poverty threshold)—430 million in South Asia, 325 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, 260 million in East Asia and the Pacific, and 55 million in Latin America. Too many children live lives...

"...Today, 1.1 billion people live on less than one US dollar per day (the internationally recognized poverty threshold)—430 million in South Asia, 325 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, 260 million in East Asia and the Pacific, and 55 million in Latin America. Too many children live lives...

"Reducing poverty and ending hunger seem to be becoming more difficult goals to achieve. Although the world is a lot richer today than it was a decade ago, the numbers of poor and hungry people are declining more slowly. Are new approaches needed to reduce poverty and hunger? The first...

"...Today, 1.1 billion people live on less than one US dollar per day (the internationally recognized poverty threshold)—430 million in South Asia, 325 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, 260 million in East Asia and the Pacific, and 55 million in Latin America. Too many children live lives...

"In the past several years the changing world energy situation has generated intensive discussion about biofuels, much of it promising a source of environment-friendly energy that would also be a boon to the world's farmers. At the same time skeptics argue that biofuel production will threaten...

"The world made significant progress on reducing poverty between 1981 and 2001 — the number of people in developing countries living on less than US$1 a day fell from 1.5 billion to 1.1 billion, or from 40 to 21 percent of the world's population. In fact, however, nearly all this progress...