时间:2019-01-11 作者:英语课 分类:VOA慢速英语2007年(十)月


英语课

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.


The fall meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary 1 Fund just took place in Washington. Earlier, the bank used its latest World Development Report to call for more investment in agriculture in developing countries.


 
World Bank Group Chief Economist 2 Francois Bourguignon and Kathy Sierra, vice 3 president of sustainable development, release the World Development Report
The World Bank says agriculture must be at the center of development issues if international goals are to be met. These goals are to cut extreme poverty and hunger in half by two thousand fifteen.


The report says agricultural and rural areas have suffered from underinvestment over the past twenty years. Seventy-five percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas. But the bank says only four percent of official development assistance goes to agriculture in developing countries.


Africa south of the Sahara depends on agriculture for economic growth. The World Bank says public spending there for farming is also just four percent of total government spending and taxes are high.


Recently the World Bank has faced criticism of its assistance to agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. That criticism comes in a new report from the bank's own Independent Evaluation 4 Group. 


In the nineteen eighties and nineties African governments faced severe financial problems. As a result, the bank urged them to reduce their support for agriculture.


The idea was that market forces would push agricultural growth. But the report says private business failed to replace government support for agriculture. The result? High fertilizer prices, reduced credit and lack of improved seeds.


The report compares agricultural performance between nineteen eighty-seven and two thousand one with levels in South Asia and Latin America. Cereal production in South Asia, for example, increased while poverty levels decreased. But cereal production and poverty levels in southern Africa were unchanged. Cereal production was only one-third the level of Latin America.


In many sub-Saharan nations, more than sixty percent of the people work in agriculture. Yet slow agricultural growth combined with fast population growth means that most countries are still trying to get enough food.


World Bank officials differed with some of the observations in the report. But they say the bank is already investing more in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. 


And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson.



adj.货币的,钱的;通货的;金融的;财政的
  • The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
  • Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。
n.经济学家,经济专家,节俭的人
  • He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
  • He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家,自以为什么都懂。
n.坏事;恶习;[pl.]台钳,老虎钳;adj.副的
  • He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
  • They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。
n.估价,评价;赋值
  • I attempted an honest evaluation of my own life.我试图如实地评价我自己的一生。
  • The new scheme is still under evaluation.新方案还在评估阶段。
标签: voa 慢速英语
学英语单词
abustles
afibrinogenaemic
albomycetin
arranged marriage
BFUP
cappa
chain home beamed
chalutzim
chronicle of school
citrus leaf-miner
cowboy economy
data longevity
decentralized stochastic control
Dewi, Saint
differencing
directional radio
dominant tone
drafts
Duncan I.
earthed concentric wiring system
eusintomycin
externally heating
faciobrachialis
fancy oneself as
fifty-somethings
fore pressure
gamma-aminobutyric acid
gateway-to-gateway protocol
gelatin tube
get stuck in the mire
hay-seed
hoerr
holthe
hyperergic
import cargoes
inadequate diet
indirect initiation
knock someone's eyes out
knowledge-oriented
Kuibyshev
laugh sth to scorn
Laves' phases
lecointre
left inverse element
Leg-Over
length of boss
Lermontov, MikhailYurievich
Linda Vista
Linneryd
liquid nitrogen freezing system
liquor tyrothricini
load-deflection relation
looked after
magnifiable
manstration
Mary Cassatt
medrysone
milltailings
mixed ores
monensin
negroponte
nongoal
Ossietzky
Panxworth
paramukta
Parkhurst
part-drawing
Periptychus
pestle mill
phenagle
pipeline inventories
point probe-dynamic characteristic method
police judge
potyvirus konjak mosaic virus
quarter-bell
quenching and high temperature tempering
ramus ilicus
real-time application
resection through cervical approach
right-to-left rule
rotto
safe in life and limb
sample frequency
scientise
see ... off
semiconductor particle detector
settlingss
Shubat Enlil
soapy water
soft HRM
sputum
supplementary appropriation
Telotremata
texting codes
the bitter truth
the dogs of war
trichosurus vulpeculas
tubb
unholding
view(in computer graphics)
walking orders
X-ray fluorescences