e gratefully acknowledge the support of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which funded the research leading to this research monograph. The study was commissioned by the Near East and North Africa (NENA) Division of IFAD, under the direction of Mona Beshay. Management and technical guidance were provided by Mylène Kherallah, the project coordinator for IFAD.
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The monograph benefited from comments and suggestions by Mylène Kherallah and others in the NENA Division. The monograph draft was further improved in response to comments and suggestions from the participants in a World Bank workshop in October 2008. We also appreciate the detailed comments and suggestions made by three anonymous reviewers as part of the IFPRI peer-review process. We thank John Whitehead for coordinating the production of this monograph. Finally, we are grateful to Maximo Torero, director of IFPRI’s Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division, who provided the necessary impetus and resources to complete the revisions.