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World Bank Calls for Renewed Emphasis on Agriculture for Development
WASHINGTON, DC, October 19, 2007
– The latest World Development Report calls for greater investment in
agriculture in developing countries and warns that the sector must be placed at
the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and
hunger by 2015 are to be realized.
Titled ‘Agriculture for Development’, the report
says the agricultural and rural sectors have suffered from neglect and
underinvestment over the past 20 years. While 75 percent of the world’s poor
live in rural areas, a mere 4 percent of official development assistance goes to
agriculture in developing countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa, a region heavily
reliant on agriculture for overall growth, public spending for farming is also
only 4 percent of total government spending and the sector is still taxed at
relatively high levels.
World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development
Part I - What can agriculture do for development?
Part II - What are effective instruments for using agriculture for
development?
Part III - How can agriculture-for-development agendas best be
implemented?
