World Development Perspectives最新文献

Artisanal mining, known as “garimpo” in Brazil, is a legal activity predicted in the Brazilian mining code. However, society's concern over the sustainable development of the Amazon rainforest and media coverage of illegal gold extraction have had the effect of marginalizing and condemning the sector as a whole. Known in the international literature as small-scale and artisanal gold mining (ASGM), this sector involves millions of miners across the world and hundreds of thousands in Brazil, who make a living from it, feed their families, and foster local economies. However, ASGM miners use techniques and operating procedures that, if not controlled, mitigated and eventually replaced, could lead to significant social and environmental impacts. There are growing concerns over ASGM activities, and buyers, investors, and industrial sectors are willing to pay more for a product created in a responsible manner. However, questions remain as to how much the transition to a responsible operation would cost, and whether buyers would really be willing to pay for it. This research presents a proposal for the economic modeling of ASGM operations based on immersive work in three cooperatives of legal ASGM miners in Brazil. The proposed approach considers the SDGs (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) of the 2030 agenda, as applied to small-scale mining, and the corresponding actions that are needed, based on a detailed survey of the costs of the analyzed operations, with the aim of guiding small-scale mining activities towards greater responsibility and sustainability. In the proposed model, the average profit obtained from mining operations is guaranteed and the size of the bonus reverts to the responsible areas surveyed. A financial analysis based on our responsible model, which was developed for the cash flow for a hypothetical operation over 10 years, yields an IRR of 54 % and a payback of 2.54 years, thus demonstrating its economic viability.

Recently, there has been growing research interest in the influence of household air pollution on child health. Despite the increasing advocacy for households to switch from the use of polluting cooking fuels due to climate change and health-related concerns, the practice is still prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The intensity of household air pollution exposure and its influence on child stunting and wasting of children is an important, but understudied, cause for public health concern. Identifying the health effects of polluting fuels, for instance, could stimulate a speedy transition to clean energy. This study, therefore, examines the association between the intensity of household air pollution exposure and child stunting and wasting of children using data from the most recent demographic and health surveys (DHS) from 33 countries in SSA using linear probability modeling. Results show that high levels of intensity of air pollution within households are associated with increased stunting probability of 2.9% − 3.2%. The findings highlight a potential negligible cost measure households can adopt to limit the intensity of pollution they are exposed to and consequently, to reduce the faltering growth in children.

Infrastructure projects create socioeconomic disturbance and negatively affect the living standards of local people. To probe the socio-economic impacts of big infrastructures, this article considers the construction of the Diamer Bhasha Dam project in Pakistan. This study mainly relied on primary sources of data and used the logit regression model to quantify the probability of impacts of selected factors on the living standards of the affected population. We found several socioeconomic factors and financial aspect significantly impacting the living standard of locals. Main factors include less compensation payment, delay in payment, lack of business investment skills and employment opportunities, withholding information from the local population, and corruption. The results reveal that the odds of poor living standards of the affected people are much higher – 14.4 times due to delay in compensation payment and 10 times more due to less compensation. Lack of business investment skills and the negative impact of the project on employment opportunities lower the living standard of local people 10 times and 6 times respectively. Further, withholding information from locals declines the living standard of local people 3 times, and corruption in project activities negatively affects the living standard 1 time. The study also provides policy measures and recommendations for improved living standards.

Coffee provides a livelihood to millions of smallholder farmers, but comes with serious challenges as incomes are often meagre and the climate crisis threatens most coffeegrowing areas. Specialty coffee markets reward quality, which can increase farm-gate prices, and may enhance shaded and diversified coffee-farming systems. In origin countries such as Colombia and Bolivia, specialty coffee is typically exported, whereas lower-quality coffee is marketed for domestic consumption. Local demand for specialty coffee is growing, however, and coffee-cherry products are increasingly traded and consumed. This bears potential for retaining more value in origin countries and among farmers. However, how farming families can better profit from specialty coffee and its by-products, such as dried coffee cherries (also known as cascara or sultana), remains poorly understood. We applied a value-chain analysis combined with institutional analysis and the Participatory Market-Chain Approach (PMCA) to investigate the impact of specialty coffee and coffee-cherry products on farming families’ livelihoods in Colombia and Bolivia. We embedded the research in an institutional analysis and development framework to identify actors and value chains, costs and benefits for farmers, and livelihoods. Then, we adopted an action research approach to bring the different actors together and co-create value-chain improvements for green coffee, roasted coffee, and coffee cherries. Our approach included: (1) interviews, surveys, participant observation, and document analysis; and (2) events, videos, courses, competitions, and a recipe collection for coffee-cherries. We found that direct sale of green coffee to international customers, and sale of roasted coffee in local markets or in farmer-owned coffee shops were the most beneficial value-chain models for coffeegrowing families. The action research approach generated tangible results in terms of product development, value-chain organization, and educational organization. Government and private-sector support should consider the functioning of the entire sector and the social-ecological outcomes from production to consumption.

Contract farming has increased in importance in countries trying to improve the living standards of smallholder farmers, particularly those who base their livelihoods primarily on agricultural products. For this study, we looked into the assertion that dairy contract farming would boost farmers' incomes while lowering their vulnerability to food insecurity. We analyzed the data collected from 380 sample households using the structured questionnaire using PSM, SEM, and descriptive statistics. By food calorie intake consumption, 45.5% of the households were food insecure, with dairy contract participants and non-participants making up 31.21% and 68.79% of these households, respectively. The average level of resilience to food secured attained by study households is 54.5%, compared to 88.41% and 11.59 for participants and non-participants in the dairy contract. The results of the SEM for the disaggregated variables demonstrate that a household's capacity to manage food insecurity is significantly influenced by stability (educational level), asset ownership (total livestock), access to public services (access to microfinance institution services), social safety nets (access to assistance from relatives), and income & food access (total calories consumed and income access from farm activity). The results of the PSM showed that households' resilience to food insecurity was significantly increased through dairy contract farming by 18% (4967.49 Ethiopian Birr). Therefore, governments and other stakeholders should promote smallholder farmers' access to contract farming to boost household resilience to food insecurity.

Based on fieldwork conducted in Kerala, India, in this article, I focus on the micropolitics of water – both its infrastructure creation and management strategies. I argue that water becomes a means of social control through its role in reproducing existing social hierarchies. Focusing on Jalanidhi, a world-bank-led water management program and connecting this to the history of development in my fieldsite, I show that structural inequalities of caste and gender are inscribed on development and infrastructure geographies. The article highlights the limitations of both left-led and neoliberal ideas of development and necessarily trouble the dominant narrative about Kerala being an alternative to mainstream ideas of development.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 (no poverty), targets those individuals who are below the poverty line and those who are vulnerable to falling below the poverty line (VtP). Farmers are more VtP due to limited resilience capacity against the covariate and idiosyncratic shocks. However, literature on farmers’ VtP and their capabilities to mitigate the adverse effects of shocks is relatively scant. Thus, this study aims to examine if higher capabilities lead to less VtP. Using a survey dataset from 222 farm households in rural eastern India, this study first estimated VtP by employing the Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) approach. Secondly, it used a counting approach and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method to examine the relationship between the capabilities of households and their VtP. The FGLS results show that about 50% of households are VtP, which exceeds the actual poverty rate of about 36%. The counting approach results show that households with higher capabilities are less VtP. The PSM results indicate that a household’s VtP is reduced by 27–37% for those with higher capabilities. Thus, the policy targeting the household below poverty line and also VtP would significantly reduce poverty and contribute to achieving SDG1. This would involve identifying and targeting households most in need of assistance such as households with low income, lack of education, and limited access to resources. This study also suggests increasing the resilience capabilities of households by providing job skill training, diversifying income portfolios, insurance coverage, and social safety nets.

Despite considerable efforts made by development scholars and practitioners to address women’s subordinate status, gender inequality remains pervasive. Feminist scholars have advocated for a reframing of the notion of women’s empowerment that shifts away from a purely economistic approach to one that encompasses individual consciousness, resource access, and collective action components. Women’s self-help groups (SHGs) present an opportunity to address such goals. Yet, evidence of how SHGs can leverage their collective power to generate positive change and transform perceptions of women’s abilities remains scant. Using process tracing, we demonstrate how women’s collective decision making in the public sphere can lead to women’s empowerment by illustrating how a group of SHGs in West Bengal, India formed a group identity and leveraged its power to execute community-based initiatives. This involved: (1) the establishment of trust, unity, and solidarity among group members via effective leaders who emphasized the consistent participation of all members in group activities; (2) the development of the SHGs’ sense of self-sufficiency and their legitimacy as decision-making bodies within their community through a self-led project to establish a grain bank in their village; and (3) the exercise of that legitimacy and developing sense of authority via organization around a controversial goal—alcohol prohibition—that sought to change male behavior for women’s benefit. We conclude that public decision making by SHGs working collaboratively at scale can lead to enduring empowerment because it can put women in a position to challenge patriarchal norms.

How should we understand social progress, and how should it be measured? These questions have engaged social thinkers and scientists for many decades. In the context of the growing dominancy of national and international indices, the paper advances a strong dual-necessity principle in the conceptualization and measurement of social progress. At the heart of the strong dual-necessity principle is a profound yet neglected conviction that, from a political-normative point of view, the two components of the concept – subjective (representing people’s actual attitudes) and objective (representing external standards of development) – are necessary and only jointly sufficient. The paper defines the principle and initiates assessment and evaluation of it. The paper demonstrates ‘concept structuring’ and exhibits how the distinctive strong dual necessity structure may result in different rankings of countries’ social progress. Hence, it highlights the advantage of having this principle readily available and accessible for researchers, politicians, bureaucrats, and other interested agents and institutions.

Value chain research increasingly seeks to assess the inclusiveness of value chains to better understand how to promote equitable and pro-poor development. This trend is especially relevant for small-scale fisheries value chains, which provide livelihoods, food security, and a social safety net for rural poor in many countries. Despite recent efforts to assess value chain inclusiveness, substantial knowledge gaps persist in small-scale fisheries value chains with respect to distribution of and access to benefits within and across different value chain nodes, particularly in the midstream (e.g. traders and processors). This study addresses this important research gap by utilizing an access mapping approach concerned with the distribution of benefits along the value chain for usipa (Engraulicypris sardella) in Malawi. Using a mixed methods approach, this analysis utilizes quantitative survey data (n = 929) at various nodes of the usipa value chain (fishers, processors, wholesalers, retailers), as well as qualitative focus group data (n = 60) and key informant interviews (n = 6), all collected in 2019. In line with the Structure-Conduct-Performance Paradigm, this study identifies value chain actors’ roles (structure), analyzes processes (conduct), and assesses the distribution of and access to income and in-kind benefits for different actors both within and across value chain nodes (performance). We calculate net income (revenues – expenses) for individual actors in each node of the value chain and find that (a) access to and distribution of income benefits from usipa vary substantially at group and individual levels; and (b) actors’ net income from the usipa value chain is negatively affected by unequal power distribution, price volatility and trade institutions, inadequate market infrastructure, social relations, and gender dynamics. This study advances approaches to study value chain inclusiveness, emphasizing the need to attend to variation and drivers acting at multiple scales, ranging from whole value chain structure to individual traders.