Evidence-Based Research

If you learned that a $1 investment in your child’s nutritional intake during infancy would ultimately net an $18 return, would you make the investment? Yes, if you had the means, it’s likely you would. It’s a win-win: healthier child, healthier bank account.

This post is the first in a series of expert opinion pieces on the conclusion of the Bali package.
By David Laborde and Luca Salvatici

By Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla, visiting Senior Research Fellow at IFPRI and member of the group on agricultural issues of the E-15 Initiative launched by ICTSD

Today kicks off the Ninth WTO Ministerial Conference, taking place in Bali from December 3-6. As a sideline event, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) will host the Bali Trade & Development Symposium . The event will provide an opportunity for a wide range of stakeholders, from policymakers to businesses to NGOs, to discuss key challenges facing the global trade system and the sustainable development agenda.

Input subsidy programs—a mainstay of 1960s and 1970s international donor agendas—have regained favor in Africa south of the Sahara in recent years. Although 10 African countries spent more than $1 billion on these programs in 2011 alone, little information exists on the impacts the programs are having on households and communities.