Tackling rural poverty, together

Mark Cackler

Manager Agriculture and Rural Development Department, World Bank

Mark Cackler has been with the World Bank since 1981 and is currently the manager of the Bank's Agriculture and Rural Development Department. Among his many responsibilities he also represents the World Bank in the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development. Cackler originates from Moline, Illinois in the United States. He has lived in Germany, Finland, Thailand, Malaysia and India. He has degrees in economics from Oberlin College, Ohio (US) and the University of Jyväskylä (Finland), and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Mr. Cackler, agricultural and rural development has been neglected to a great extent in recent years. Why?

Agriculture has often been relatively neglected, by both rich and poor countries, since the 1980s for a variety of reasons. For example, low commodity prices for many years made the expected economic returns unattractive. Some leaders in poor countries thought agriculture was too “old fashioned” and that industry was the only way to develop their economies. Poor countries have sometimes had an anti-rural, anti-agriculture bias for political reasons because city people have disproportionate political power (the opposite is true in many rich countries, of course). Donors supported new priorities such as the environment or HIV/AIDS or girls education, which are vitally important. However, it resulted in “crowding out” investments in agriculture when overall donor budgets were stagnant or declining. And, it must be said, some donor-financed agriculture and rural development projects failed to achieve their expected success.

What is the World Bank doing to raise the awareness for the importance of agriculture as well as to increase agricultural investments?

Even before the recent increase in food prices the World Bank was putting agriculture back on the development agenda. After many years of decline, agriculture lending by the World Bank has been rising since 2004. The World Bank's annual flagship document is the World Development Report (WDR), and the World Development Report 2008 is on ‘Agriculture for Development’. We believe that the WDR 2008 has had a significant impact in increasing attention to the need for greater investments in agriculture throughout the world. We have also tried to work intensively with other donors and with developing countries to respond to the food crisis, including the creation of a US$1.2 billion facility ( the Global Food Crisis Response Program; GFRP) to finance short-term and medium-term measures. This also includes immediate safety nets to protect the most vulnerable today, and support for agriculture investments to produce more food and raise rural incomes in the future.

Where does aid effectiveness come in?

Agriculture was a major sector discussed at the Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. Accordingly, the World Bank’s Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP) also seeks to be very effective. It is based on a number of different dimensions, across time (including support for short-term and medium-term needs), across countries (with different vulnerabilities to both food and energy price shocks), across sectors (e.g., agriculture, health, social protection and energy), and across instruments (budget support to help mitigate short-term financial stresses, safety net programmes for the most vulnerable and investment lending to stimulate an agricultural supply response). The GFRP is also based on working across organisations with (a) governments and other stakeholders, including civil society organisations, in the affected countries, and (b) donor partners in a way that is consistent with the Paris Declaration principles of ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results and mutual accountability