This study assesses the future growth prospects of Rwanda. The report first focuses on broad economic growth using a rather aggregated 18-sector dynamic general equilibrium model to display the trade-off between rapid growth and structural change. The analysis shows that with the current investment pattern, rapid growth is possible but structural transformation is slow. With an overvalued exchange rate, growth in the tradable sector slows down and its share in the economy stays small. The importance of agriculture thus should be considered in the broad development strategy, for its role not only in poverty reduction but also in economic growth.

A strong and widely acknowledged record of economic success-including a three-and-a-half-fold increase in per capita income since 1994--places Rwanda among the world’s fastest--growing economies. Traumatic memories of the 1994 genocide are gradually fading, as associations begin to take a more positive form--of a nation on the rise, powered by human resilience, a sense of common purpose, and a purposeful government. Past successes and a sense of frailty have fueled aspirations for a secure, prosperous, and modern future. Sustaining high rates of economic growth is at the heart of these ambitions. Recent formulations of the nation’s Vision 2050 set a target of achieving upper-middle-income status by 2035 and high-income status by 2050. Future Drivers of Growth in Rwanda: Innovation, Integration, Agglomeration, and Competition, a joint undertaking by experts from Rwanda and the World Bank Group, evaluates the country’s possibilities and options in this endeavor. The report identifies four essential drivers of growth--innovation, integration, agglomeration, and competition--and reforms in six priority areas: human capital development, export dynamism and regional integration, well-managed urbanization, competitive domestic enterprises, agricultural modernization, and capable and accountable public institutions.

This paper explores some of the key factors behind Rwanda key successes, including unique institution-building that emphasized governance and ownership; aid-fueled and government-led strategic investment in people, infrastructure, and high-yield economic activity;re-establishment and expansion of a domestic tax base; policies to reduce aid dependency by attracting private investment and bolstering exports; and a purposeful strategy to harness the economic power of gender inclusion.

This book examines the role of agriculture in the economic transformation of developing low- and middle-income countries and explores means for accelerating agricultural growth and poverty reduction. In this volume, Mellor measures by household class the employment impact of alternative agricultural growth rates and land tenure systems, and impact on cereal consumption and food security. The book provides detailed analysis of each element of agricultural modernization, emphasizing the central role of government in accelerated growth in private sector dominated agriculture. The book differs from the bulk of current conventional wisdom in its placement of the non-poor small commercial farmer at the center of growth, and explains how growth translates into poverty reduction. This new book is a follow up to Mellor’s classic, prize-winning text, The Economics of Agricultural Development. Listed as a Best Books of 2017: Economics by Financial Times.

Despite the rise of targeted input subsidy programs in Africa over the last decade, several questions remain as to whether low and variable soil fertility, frequent drought, and high fertilizer prices render fertilizer unprofitable for large subpopulations of African farmers. To examine these questions, we use large-scale, panel experimental data from maize field trials throughout Malawi to estimate the expected physical returns to fertilizer use conditional on a range of agronomic factors and weather conditions. Using these estimated returns and historical price and weather data, we simulate the expected profitability of fertilizer application over space and time. We find that the fertilizer bundles distributed under Malawi’s subsidy program are almost always profitable in expectation, although our results may be reasonably interpreted as upper-bound estimates among more skilled farmers given that the experimental subjects were not randomly selected.

This paper investigates linkages between women’s empowerment in agriculture and the nutritional status of women and children using 2012 baseline data from the Feed the Future population-based survey in Ghana. The sample consists of 3,344 children and 3,640 women and is statistically representative of the northernmost regions of Ghana where the Feed the Future programs are operating.

This paper presents what is known about the role of agrarian reform and the subsequent counter reform in producing a successful dynamic evolution of Chilean agriculture.