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Rice is the world’s most heavily consumed staple crop. Its production requires enormous volumes of water and emits large quantities of atmospheric methane, a greenhouse gas some many times more powerful than carbon dioxide - particularly during a medium term period of about seven years. In a global context of growing population, increasingly scarce water resources, and climate change, more productive, sustainable, and efficient rice production warrants clear priority. The incidence of droughts associated with climate change is projected to increase in rain fed rice-growing areas, and may very well extend further into water-scarce irrigated areas. A variety of climate-smart practices and technologies are available which can move rice production towards a triple win scenario which entails increased productivity, enhanced resilience, and improved greenhouse gas mitigation. This review of World Bank projects focus on the application of sustainable principles in rice production in 172 Bank projects that were approved between 1984 and 2011. These had a total lending volume of 10.9 billion dollars. Their development outcomes are gauged based on the projects’ implementation completion reports, which also document lessons learned and results in greater detail.

Agriculture is among the most risk-prone sectors in the economies of Central Asia. Production shocks from weather, pests and diseases and adverse movements in agricultural product and input prices not only impact farmers and agri-business firms, but can also strain government finances. Some of these risks are small and localized and can be managed by producers. Others are the result of more severe, exogenous shocks outside agriculture that require a broader response. Failure to respond adequately to these more severe risks leads to a perpetual cycle of ‘shock-recovery-shock’ which reinforces poverty traps and compromises long-term growth. A broad-based program to improve livestock productivity is recommended to strengthen the resilience of livestock production systems and rangeland use in Kazakhstan. Proposed interventions include measures to: (i) reverse degradation of water, soil and vegetation cover; (ii) safeguard the long-term viability of rangeland ecosystems, while ensuring sustainable access to grazing land; and (iii) strengthen livestock services (veterinary, animal health, feed and fodder supply, destocking, water and grazing access, and weather and market information). These measures will enable farmers to manage their resources better, to respond to climate and market signals and to protect their resource base in times of drought. The recommendations developed under these three solution areas continue the underlying emphasis on mitigation as the foundation for risk management. They also highlight the mutually reinforcing benefits of measures to improve crop and livestock productivity for both risk management and sector growth.

This Botswana Agriculture Public Expenditure Review (AgPER) is one of a series of similar studies undertaken in over a dozen countries in sub-Saharan Africa under the framework of a program coordinated by CAADP, supported by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation and the CAADP Multi-Donor Trust Fund, and implemented by the World Bank. The AgPER presents data about actual expenditure for the period 2000 to 2013, with an outlook on the following two years. It presents public expenditure on agriculture structured by various dimensions and classifiers such as institutional, recurrent versus investment and capital, by sub-function and subsector and by spending unit. It analyzes expenditure levels, patterns and trends and compares expenditure patterns with policy objectives and strategies. Finally, it draws conclusions and recommendations in areas where future decisions could benefit from a clear view of an analysis of past spending or where it is deemed useful to support imminent policy formulation and decisions with a clearer understanding of the financial implications.

A new generation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is finding a small foothold among poor, small-scale farmers in developing countries. Even so, many barriers still prevent poor rural people from accessing, using, and benefiting from new ICT tools and platforms, and those barriers are arguably higher for rural women. The relationship between gender and agriculture has been studied intensively over the years, and many agricultural interventions now include gender as a crosscutting issue or mainstream gender throughout their operations. Studies of the relationship between gender and the use of ICTs in agriculture have started to appear only quite recently, however. The Africa Region of the World Bank views ICTs as potentially transformative technology for rural development and seeks to incorporate the use of ICTs throughout its portfolio of projects. The present study was designed to examine the feasibility of integrating ICTs into two large investment programs: the Irrigation Development and Support Project (IDSP) in Zambia and the Kenya Agricultural Productivity and Agribusiness Project (KAPAP). The specifi c goal was to examine how ICT-based interventions might be designed to strengthen women s participation in commodity value chains under the two projects.

This report focuses on areas with highest potential efficiency gains to increase the value for money from investments in core public goods and services such as extension, irrigation and rural roads. This is a first attempt to carry out such an analysis in Cambodia, and even in the Greater Mekong sub-region. Based on extensive data gathering and surveys, this chapter analyzes the efficiency and effectiveness of agricultural sector expenditures in Cambodia and assesses various options for increasing the impact of government expenditures on agricultural growth. Other challenges include an excessive focus on rehabilitating primary irrigation infrastructure and a neglect of secondary and tertiary systems, a lack of maintenance of irrigation and rural roads, and the slow pace of developing or adopting new technologies to reduce future maintenance costs. There is also a need to better prioritize agricultural and related infrastructure expenditures, both by type and by geographic location, to maximize their impact on growth. The rest of the report is organized as follows. Chapter two presents recent developments in the agriculture sector of Cambodia. Chapter three gives an overview of sectoral expenditure trends over the last decade. The budget process and its relationship to sectoral development strategies is discussed in chapter three. Chapter four discusses the novel contribution of the AgPER in analyzing the efficiency and effectiveness of government spending using benefit-cost analysis to examine select public investments. Chapter five discusses how likely climate change trends may affect future agriculture expenditures and suggests some priority areas for public spending. The conclusion section summarizes the major findings and policy recommendations of the report.

The rural sector, defined here as the economic sector that falls under the scope of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water (MAH), the Ministry of Animal Resources (MRA), and the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development (MEDD), is one of the pillars of the Burkina Faso economy. Although its contribution to GDP has decreased in recent times from 35 percent in 1999 to 30 percent in 2011 due to the development of the other sectors of the economy, agricultural activity still employs approximately 86 percent of Burkina Faso s labor force and is the main source of income for poorer populations. Consequently, the rural sector is among the primary beneficiaries of public expenditures by the Burkina Faso government and constitutes one of the pillars of the Strategy for Accelerated Growth and Sustainable Development (SCADD) adopted in 2010. The goals of this agriculture public expenditure review in Burkina Faso are as follows: draw lessons from the past in terms of budget execution in the agricultural sector in order to promote the design and implementation of public expenditure programs that are more efficient and more equitable and have a greater impact; initiate the implementation of the databases and methodology required to conduct similar reviews regularly and thus contribute to the institutionalization of the process; and contribute to establishing the conditions for increased support for the sector while encouraging the harmonization and alignment of support with respect for national strategies.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has been one of the most successful research-for-development organizations over the past 40 years. The $11 billion invested by CGIAR donor members in research conducted by the international Centers under its umbrella has yielded many multiples of that sum in economic benefits to developing and emerging countries. Annual economic benefits of research on rice in Asia alone are equivalent to the total investment made by CGIAR donors over 4 decades, leaving aside benefits in other continents and from other research conducted by CGIAR institutions. The CGIAR‘s success is due in part to the way it was organized. The Group itself was an informal forum for dialogue among donor members about research priorities, investment options, and the continuing relevance and effectiveness of the institutions supported. The international centers constituted the core of the CGIAR. Each was (and still is) an autonomous international organization governed by an international board. The Group and the Centers were originally advised by the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of distinguished scientists from developing and developed countries, each appointed as an individual. The Group’s activities were facilitated by its Secretariat based at the World Bank in Washington, DC, and TAC’s activities by another secretariat based at the food and agriculture organization in Rome.

The objective of this report is to assess the usefulness of providing guidance for scaling up good practices in core ARD business lines, and to test the prospects for doing so. The output of the document is a guide for a systematic discussion on scaling up of Competitive Grant Schemes (CGSs) for agricultural research and extension at key decision points during the life of an ARD project. This report addresses the other end of the state-of-practice spectrum - good practices and beyond. The preparation of this report entailed five main activities: An overview of scaling up concepts and approaches; the selection of a particular sub-area within one of ARD s core business lines - scaling up CGS for agricultural research and extension; application of the IFAD/Brookings framing questions to five World Bank projects that were identified as addressing that business line - using information provided by the project's task team leaders (TTLs) or other member of the project team; the development of sub-area specific guidance for a systematic discussion on scaling up based on the findings from a series of five case studies; and validation of the scaling up guidance for CGSs for agricultural research and extension by World Bank practitioners and other internal consultations.