Tackling rural poverty, together

World Development Report 2008 “Agriculture for Development”

The Global Donor Platform was providing content and support for the 30th edition of the World Bank’s annual World Development Report (WDR), one of the development community’s most important vehicles for debate and dialogue.

The report itself was successfully launched on October 19, 2007. Download the full report here:
World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development

To learn more about this year's WDR, please refer to www.worldbank.org/wdr2008.

The Platform’s main tasks in supporting WDR 2008 were:

• Collecting best practices in the field of agriculture and rural development
  • Search the best practices... Now online
• Support the dissemination of WDR 2008
  • Dissemination and uptake
• Helping the WDR team hold regional consultations that can provide a basis for “well-founded policy conclusions”
  • Looking back at the consultations
• Opening a floor for information exchange between the WDR-Team and the Platform member organisations

Dissemination and uptake

On May 31, 2007, the 2008 WDR team, together with former editors of World Development Reports, members of the Bank’s Sustainable Development Network, its regional (Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia) and sectoral (ARD) departments, as well as representatives from other organisations (Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, IFPRI, USAID) held a brainstorming workshop on the dissemination and uptake of WDR 2008. The main outcomes of this workshop were:

• The participatory procedure of elaborating the report through numerous consultations should be continued in the dissemination and uptake of WDR 2008.
• For the process of operationalising WDR-messages, key operational implications, such as rural finance or incentive frameworks for R&D in Africa, evaluation of ongoing products (NAADS), policy discords (e.g. trade liberalisation), and knowledge gaps (e.g. on rural labour markets) need to be identified.
• One overall message and five strategic messages have already been derived from the WDR 2008. In addition, specific messages associated with each chapter and focus section, especially from chapters 4 onwards will be elaborated, formulating the key findings and including major gaps of knowledge. This collection of key messages will be assembled to smaller two-page briefs aimed at the different target audiences of the WDR 2008.
• The uptake of WDR messages will focus on specific countries with “windows of opportunities”, i.e. strategic stages of the budgeting and planning cycle, assistance strategy or PRSP formulation. These uptake workshops will be sequenced according to regions, starting with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by South Asian countries, and later on workshops in Latin-America and the Caribbean and East Asian countries.

Elements envisaged for disseminating and uptake of WDR 2008

• Launch of WDR 2008 on October 19th, accompanied by release events in several capitals in Europe, Asia, Africa and America,
• Dissemination and uptake workshops in developing countries with upcoming “windows of opportunities”,
• Dissemination workshops in other donor agencies to support their re-orientation on agriculture,
• Video conferences and discussions to bring together key stakeholders in agriculture-based, transforming and urbanising countries,
• A popular version of WDR 2008 for farmer organisations and policy briefs on key topics for decision-makers.

Platform support to the dissemination of WDR 2008

As announced during the Donor Consultation Workshop on WDR 2008, held on December 8, 2006 in Washington, the Platform supports the dissemination process of WDR 2008 through its established network of main donors in the field of agriculture and rural development. Areas where the Platform can add value to the dissemination strategy are:

• Streamlining the implementation of WDR key outcomes into our member organisations and to key ARD decision makers;
• Synchronising the Platform Policy Briefs with the WDR 2008 Policy Briefs to ensure broad buy-in and support of the messages;
• Activating and including non-traditional donors active in ARD (CSOs, foundations) in the outreach of WDR messages;
• Designating Platform Focal Points as “advocates” of WDR messages, supplied with “state of the art” knowledge on ARD to state the joint intention of investing more effectively in ARD.

Regional / global events with possible potential for WDR dissemination

Looking back at the consultations

The numerous consultations have provided valuable contributions to the discussion of the draft WDR 2008, and the editors have followed the lively discussions with great interest. Given the high quality and relevance of comments and the active engagement of participants from academia, government organisations, NGOs, and the private sector around the world, the consultations have undoubtedly strengthened the final published WDR. Here are a few visual impressions from some of the consultation events.

Poster for the India consultation in Delhi

Bank-wide review of the Yellow Cover draft

On the website of WDR 2008 all consultations are listed. Descriptions of all consultations and summaries of selected workshops/consultation events are available as well.

For detailed information and background documents on the e-consultation process, please refer to www.rimisp.cl/consultwdr2008.

Consultation with Civil Society Organisations

RIMISP e-consultation