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This guide is designed for those involved in developing action plans to address the current issue of high food prices. It is divided into three parts. The first part provides background information on the context, purpose, audience and structure of the guide. The second part provides some essential remarks on processes that lead to decisions on actions to be taken as well as the analytical underpinning required to ensure that instruments used are well adapted to the specific conditions within the country. The third part looks at instruments that could be used to immediately address high food prices. They are classified by the domain of intervention (macro-economy, [...]

This volume provides a global review of experiences and learning on the broad subject of value chain finance for agriculture in developing countries. Value chains in agriculture comprise a set of actors who conduct a linked sequence of value-adding activities involved in bringing a product from its raw material stage to the final consumer. Value chain finance, as described in this volume, refers to the financial flows to those actors from both within the value chain and financial flows to those actors from the outside as a result of their being linked within a value chain.

This issue paper aims at introducing selected analytical approaches for quantitative analysis of the socio-economic impacts of policies. In the first part of the document, after considering a set of basic questions that a quantitative policy impact analysis has usually to address in order to be useful for informing decision-making processes; some definitions and insights on policy-relevant elements such as policy objectives, policy instruments and impact models are provided. The document then briefly describes the use of counterfactual analysis for socio-economic policy impact analysis. The second part of the work focuses on the review of selected quantitative analytical approaches frequently applied [...]

Agricultural Development Policy: Concepts and Experiences, prepared under the aegis of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), presents a fresh and comprehensive look at agricultural development policy. It provides a clear, systematic review of important classes of policy issues in developing countries and discusses the emerging international consensus on viable approaches to those issues. The text is unique in its coverage and depth, and it Cites policy experiences and applied studies in eighty countries. Develops the conceptual foundations for policies. Illustrates policies that have worked and those that have not, with explanations of why. Summarises hundreds [...]