Those who study global poverty and ways to reduce it face a perennial set of questions: Do advances in knowledge, research, and technology make a real difference in the lives of poor people? What effect does research have on the poor? Who benefits? The contributors to Agricultural Research, Livelihoods, and Poverty shed light on these questions through a collection of case studies that explore the types of impact that agricultural research has had on livelihoods and poverty in low-income countries.

Aquatic agricultural systems (AAS) are food production systems in which the productivity of freshwater or coastal ecosystems contributes significantly to total household nutrition, food security, and income in developing countries. The Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) engages in research in development to address this challenge. The goal of the CGIAR research program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (referred to in this paper as “the AAS program”) is to harness the development potential of aquatic agricultural systems to improve the livelihood security and well-being of an estimated 10 million by 2016 poor people who are dependent on these systems This working paper draws lessons from the target countries through a review of productivity interventions such as modifying habitats, harnessing underutilized productive resources, improving the integration of production commodities, supporting community-based natural resource management, and genetically improving strains. In total, this paper reviewed 20 productivity interventions.

Assessing impacts of public investments has long captured the interest and attention of the development community. This paper presents the evolution of different methods and approaches used for ex ante appraisal, monitoring, project evaluation, and impact assessment over the last five decades. Among these tools, impact assessment (IA) conducted retrospectively comes closest to providing the proof of development effectiveness. It is defined as the systematic analysis of the significant or lasting changes in people's lives brought about by a given action or series of actions in relation to a counterfactual. There are three basic types of retrospective IAs: macro-level IAs that focus on the contribution of developmental efforts to an impact goal aggregated at a sector or a system level; micro-level impact evaluations (IEs) concerned with estimating the average effect of an intervention on outcomes at the beneficiary level; and micro-level ex post impact analysis concerned with total effects of a development effort after the outputs are scaled-up. Ex post IAs have evolved and expanded over the decades in both breadth and depth of analysis in response to evolving development themes and methodological advancements. The increased emphasis on learning from evaluations has also seen responses from both quantitative and qualitative camps of the evaluation community. The paper argues that generation of robust knowledge that feeds into making developmental policies and investment decisions requires a hierarchical and cumulative approach to "improving the proof" through rigorous and a variety of impact assessment methods applied incrementally at the project, program and system level. Subjecting as many development interventions as resources allow to rigorous impact assessment based on a common framework can help build a critical body of evidence on impacts of development interventions, which can then be subjected to meta-analyses to help assimilate results across different studies and build a knowledge base on what works and what does not.

This study uses country-level panel data on 57 countries in Africa and Asia from 1981 to 2014 to assess the relationships between IFPRI’s in-country presence (as measured by staff present) and various policy and outcome indicators in those countries. An econometric model with country fixed-effects, year fixed-effects, and country-specific time trends is used, controlling for several factors deemed to affect the different policy and outcome indicators such as the country’s research capacity, production environment and resources, political economy and institutions, and complementary investments.

This important new collection of contributions brings together current thinking on poverty reduction and rural livelihoods in developing countries. As well as leading economists in the field such as Frank Ellis and Chris Barrett, there are a number of contributors from developing countries themselves. The book examines both macroeconomic and microeconomic phenomena and contains wide range of case studies. Skilfully exposing the gap that exists between the rhetoric of poverty reduction strategies in capital cities and the practice of public sector delivery in rural areas, this key text will be essential reading for advanced students and researchers in the fields of rural development, rural livelihoods, poverty reduction strategies and Sub-Saharan Africa development as well as advisors and practitioners in international organizations.

Advances in agriculture offer many countries the best and only chance of reducing poverty. Yet economic growth and population increases are driving higher demand for food and rising real prices. What solutions have successfully promoted agriculture? This volume examines national and international food agriculture policies and how they enhance agricultural productivity growth. It provides unique historical reviews on policies and their effects, and it clearly articulates both positive and negative lessons for promoting agriculture lead growth. With chapters written by international authorities, this book recognizes that agriculture is not just about providing food for today, but about growing it in an environmentally sustainable way that can help people work their ways out of poverty.Chapters cover international macro-economic policies and trade, farm structure in developing countries, regional experiences in agriculture, and regional studies on agricultural productivity policies.

Surinder Kumar Goyal, b. 1933, Indian industrial economist; papers presented at the National Conference on Industrial Development and Economic Policy Issues, held at New Delhi during 27-28 June 2008.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) produced a 2011 report on women in agriculture with a clear and urgent message: agriculture underperforms because half of all farmers—women—lack equal access to the resources and opportunities they need to be more productive. This book builds on the report’s conclusions by providing, for a non-specialist audience, a compendium of what we know now about gender gaps in agriculture.