World Bank Technical Paper 251. Presents new strategies for protecting forests in Sub-Saharan Africa and underlines the importance of the region's natural resources to its economic development. Forest resources in Sub-Saharan Africa are disa

The dry forests and woodlands of Sub-Saharan Africa are major ecosystems, with a broad range of strong economic and cultural incentives for keeping them intact. However, few people are aware of their importance, compared to tropical rainforests, despite them being home to more than half of the continent's population. This unique book brings together scientific knowledge on this topic from East, West, and Southern Africa and describes the relationships between forests, woodlands, people and their livelihoods. Dry forest is defined as vegetation dominated by woody plants, primarily trees, the canopy of which covers more than 10 per cent of the ground surface, occurring in climates with a dry season of three months or more. This broad definition - wider than those used by many authors - incorporates vegetation types commonly termed woodland, shrubland, thicket, savanna, wooded grassland, as well as dry forest in its strict sense. The book provides a comparative analysis of management experiences from the different geographic regions, emphasizing the need to balance the utilization of dry forests and woodland products between current and future human needs. Further, the book explores the techniques and strategies that can be deployed to improve the management of African dry forests and woodlands for the benefit of all, but more importantly, the communities that live off these vegetation formations. Thus, the book lays a foundation for improving the management of dry forests and woodlands for the wide range of products and services they provide.

For 25 years, population growth has outpaced increases in agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa. The lack of food and the degradation of agricultural land have forced policymakers to reassess agricultural strategies for the region. This paper provides such a reassessment by identifying policies and investments that have worked and those that have not. The author sets out the common elements required for agricultural and rural development throughout the region. The strategy presented in this paper comprises elements from several development sectors, including transport, water supply, education, finance, and the environment. The author makes five broad recommendations to promote Region: adoption of policies to promote private sector farming and agricultural marketing, processing, and credit development and distribution of new technologies inclusion of farmers in decisions affecting their livelihood development of infrastructure and social programs in support of agriculture improved management of natural resources Projections of the likely effects of the proposed policies and investments are included. Tables throughout the text present statistics on agricultural growth rates, commodity prices, and deforestation in the region. An annex contains more general tables, with information on population growth and fertility rates, land use, agricultural exports, and droughts. The strategies suggested in this paper will be of interest to policymakers, academics, and to development practitioners involved in African agriculture.

World Bank Discussion Paper No. 251. This study investigates the conflicting viewpoints of small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and banks: the SMEs contend that the supply of bank financing is largely unavailable to them, while banks maintain

World Bank Technical Paper No. 303.Reviews the design of 26 projects in Sub-Saharan Africa that were prepared by African governments and the World Bank for Bank funding. The report concludes that school-level factors need more attention in program design.

The world's financial markets are rapidly integrating into a single global marketplace, and developing countries are being drawn into this process starting from different points and moving at various speeds. Those with adequate institutions and sound policies in place may proceed smoothly along the road toward financial integration and gain the many benefits that integration can bring. Most of the developing economies lack many of the necesssary prerequisites for such a move; a few are so unprepared that integration may do them more harm than good. Developing countries may have little choice about whether to follow this path'advances in communications and new developments in finance have made the course inevitable'but they may still choose the ways in which they proceed, choosing the policies that benefit the economy and averting potential shocks. This World Bank report looks at the important challenges both sets of countries face in a new age of global capital. The book presents new and compelling evidence that, while low interest rates in industrial countries provided an initial impetus to the surge in private capital flows during 1989-93, these flows have entered a new phase, driven by increased financial integration . The report analyzes the causes and effects of integration, with a particular emphasis on how developing countries in the nascent stages of integration can learn from the experiences of the more rapidly integrating developing countries.

Annotation World Bank Technical Paper No. 299.Describes the best possible forest technologies required for successful participatory farming, including choice of species farmers need for various end uses, good nursery practices, and postplanting tree management. The paper also describes various patterns of intercropping trees on farms and lists the species and families of trees commonly grown in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.