Assessment and review of recent policy work on pro-poor agriculture development

The purpose of the assignment was to undertake a comparative assessment of recent policy work with emphasis on the World Development Report 2008, and, in the light of the assessment, identify issues and tropics which possibly were not taken into consideration sufficiently in Sida´s position paper Improved Income Among Rural Poor when it was originally written, but which ought to receive more attention in Sida´s strategic thinking on the subject today. The outcome of this exercise should be documented in a report to be presented and discussed at a seminar with the staff of Sida-NATUR.

The assignment consisted of three interrelated tasks:

• A critical assessment of WDR 2008 with emphasis on its strategic conclusions and recommendations.
• A comparison of the principal strategic conclusions and policy recommendations of WDR with those outlined in the OECD-report on Pro-Poor Agriculture identifying similarities but also possible important differences.
• A review of Sida-s position paper Improving Income Among Rural Poor with the aim of identifying issues or topics, which the current international discourse on agriculture and rural development judge as critical, but which were not taken into consideration or given sufficient emphasis, when the IIRD was written.