This paper investigates the impacts of population growth, market access, agricultural credit and technical assistance programs, land policies, livelihood strategies and other factors on changes in land management, natural resource conditions and human welfare indicators since 1991 in the northern Ethiopian highlands, based on a survey of 198 villages. We find that population growth has contributed significantly to land degradation, poverty and food insecurity in this region. In contrast, better market access and some credit and technical assistance programs were associated with improvement (or less decline) in land quality, wealth and food security; suggesting the possibility of "winwin -win" development outcomes with appropriate interventions. Land redistribution was associated with adoption of inorganic fertilizer, but also with declining use of fallow and declining soil fertility. We find also that different land management practices are adopted where different livelihood strategies are pursued, suggesting the importance of considering livelihood strategies in technical assistance programs. Development strategies should be tailored to the different comparative advantages of different locations; no "one-size-fits-all" strategy will work everywhere. KEYWORDS: Land degradation, sustainable agriculture, population pressure, Ethiopian highlands ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for this research. STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE ETHIOPIAN HIGHLANDS Land degradation is a severe problem in the Ethiopian highlands. Soil erosion has been estimated to average 42 tons per hectare per year on cultivated land in th...

This paper draws on the experience of the 1970-95 period to (1) elucidate some of the main causes of child malnutrition in developing countries; (2) undertake projections of how many children are likely to be malnourished in the year 2020 given current trends; and (3) identify priority actions for reducing malnutrition the most quickly in the coming decades. The analysis is based on country fixed-effects multivariate regression using data from 63 countries. The paper finds four "underlying" determinants to be key factors: health environments, women's education, women's relative status, and per capita food availability. Two "basic" determinants are also found to be important: per capita national incomes and democracy. Due to data scarcities, the role of poverty could not be assessed. Improvements in women's education was found to have contributed the most to past reductions in child malnutrition. For Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia---the regions with the highest child malnutrition rat...

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Using data from the Tanzania Social Capital and Poverty Survey (SCPS), a large scale survey which asked individuals about the extent and characteristics of their associational activity and their trust in various institutions and individuals, we construct a measure of “social capital ” in rural Tanzania. By matching this measure of social capital with data on household incomes in the same villages both from the SCPS and an earlier household survey, the Human Resources Development Survey (HRDS) we show that “social capital ” is indeed both capital, in that it raises incomes, and social, in that household outcomes depend on village not just household social capital. The magnitude of social capital’s effect on incomes is impressively large: a one standard deviation increase in village social capital increases household expenditures per person (a proxy for income) by at least 20 to 30 percent. This impact is as large as an equivalent increase in non-farming assets or tripling the level of education. The data from the two surveys also allow the identification of some of the proximate channels through which social capital affects incomes: better publicly provided services, greater use of modern agricultural inputs, more community activity, and greater use of credit in agriculture. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed and in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. 1

We would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance provided by Ludovico Carraro in analyzing the data sets from the country case studies reviewed in this paper, and in documenting the programs included in the appendix. We are grateful to Martin Ravallion for discussions on the relationship between money metric utility

World Development Report 2000/01. Much of the research

This paper proposes a new definition and conceptual framework for Social Protection grounded in Social Risk Management. The concept repositions the traditional areas of Social Protection (labor market intervention, social insurance and social safety nets) in a framework that includes three strategies to deal with risk (prevention, mitigation and coping), three levels of formality of risk management (informal, market-based, public) and many actors (individuals, households, communities, NGOs, governments at various levels and international organizations) against the background of asymmetric information and different types of risk. This expanded view of Social Protection emphasizes the double role of risk management instruments − protecting basic livelihood as well as promoting risk taking. It focuses specifically on the poor since they are the most vulnerable to risk and typically lack appropriate risk management instruments, which constrains them from engaging in riskier but also higher return activities and hence gradually moving out of chronic poverty.

Using panel data from villages in rural Ethiopia, the paper studies the determinants of consumption growth (1989-97), based on a microgrowth model, controlling for heterogeneity. Consumption grew substantially, but with diverse experiences across villages and individuals. A key focus is on whether shocks affect growth. Rainfall shocks have a substantial impact on consumption growth, and its impact presists for many years. There also appears to be a significant, persistent growth impact from the largescale famine in the 1980s, as well as substantial externalities from the presence of road infrastructure. The findings related to the persistent effects of rainfall shocks and the famine crisis imply that welfare losses due to the lack of insurance and protection measures are well beyond the welfare cost of short term consumption fluctuations. JEL Classification: I32, O12, Q12 Paper prepared for a conference at the International Monetary Fund, May 2002. I am grateful for useful comments from Jan Willem Gunning, Cathy Pattillo, Martin Ravallion and seminar participants at Oxford, WIDER/UNU and the World Bank. All errors are mine.

The findings, interpretations, and conclusion expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. The authors are deeply grateful for Lyn Squire’s advice and guidance on this paper. We also thank Noemi Giszpenc for excellent research assistance

We investigate whether differences in individuals’ experiences of macro-economic shocks affect longterm risk attitudes, as is often suggested for the generation that experienced the Great Depression. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances from 1964-2004, we find that birth-cohorts that have experienced high stock market returns throughout their life are more likely to be stock market participants, and, if they participate, invest a higher fraction of liquid wealth in stocks. They also report lower aversion to risk. These results are estimated controlling for age effects, year effects, and a broad set of household characteristics. Our estimates indicate that stock market returns early in life affect risktaking several decades later. However, more recent returns have a stronger effect, which fades away slowly as time progresses. Thus, the experience of risky asset payoffs over the course of an individuals’ life affects subsequent risk-taking. Our results explain, for example, the relatively low rates of stock market participation among young households in the early 1980s (following the disappointing stock market returns in the 1970s depression) and the relatively high participation rates of young investors in the late 1990s (following the boom years in the 1990s).