World Development Perspectives最新文献

Community-based adaptation to climate change seeks to build the adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable people in developing countries. Primarily implemented by non-governmental organisations, these initiatives are often operationalised by organising ‘poor women’ in order to empower them to address community risks associated with climate change. Yet, there is little known about how women experience these adaptation initiatives and whether such interventions empower them. Drawing on a qualitative case study, this article reports on the experiences of poor women in Bangladesh who participated in group-based adaptation interventions designed to enhance both individual and collective agency to respond to climate change. We found that women faced constraints from their own families and communities, which undermined their potential to be empowered and to exercise agency in both private and public spheres. Gender norms intersected with social class, age and marital status to impede women who remained bound by societal norms and undermined their adaptive capacity. We argue that the trend to feminise adaptation interventions is not a panacea for addressing societal barriers to climate adaptation; in fact, it can exacerbate local vulnerabilities. We suggest that future adaptation interventions must adopt cultural pathways aligned with societal norms to effectively build local capacities to address climate change.

This research article uses a multidisciplinary view to address the issue of public and common interest in contract farming schemes. Humanity is at a crucial point where food systems and institutions must offer a radical change to guarantee people's right to food. Contract farming today, influenced by the commodification of food, nature and the land, and neoliberal ideology, must be restructured into a more sustainable model. In a sustainable vision, redesigned contract farming can be a factor of change, particularly in the agricultural sector development, and therefore positively impact the general welfare of farmers. This article addresses the role of contract farming within the process of neoliberal globalisation and commodification of food, as well as ways to reformulate these contracting schemes based on the public and common interest. It reviews the use of this legal tool from its beginnings in the US South to the current ideological battles. This essay addresses the conceptual elements of contract farming, as can be seen in its definition, based on a comparison between English and Spanish literature. The research employs legal and social methods such as the legal-doctrinal, comparative legal, document analysis, historical and, in a certain way, some legal-empirical approaches. We show the importance of reconfiguring contract farming based on sustainable schemes under public and common interest principles. Thus, the results show an updated and multidisciplinary view of contract farming and some ways to reformulate it, considering the general guidelines of the common and public interests. This article, therefore, provides a comparative, historical and current analysis of the components underlying contract farming and how to move towards a more sustainable variant based on a more humanistic and balanced approach for farmers and agribusiness.

Agriculture is one of the most critical sectors of the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Therefore, the development of its innovativeness in the formation of public policy needs new methods of its formation is one of the most discussed issues among scientists and politicians. Thus, it is relevant to consider methods of management of innovation processes in agriculture as an integral part of the effectiveness of innovation in enterprises and the industry as a whole and to determine which of them can be used most effectively in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The primary method of the study was modelling, given the number of built and analysed models shown in the work; other methods worth mentioning are analysis, formalisation, forecasting, the historical method, and others. Thus, the research considered some basic models describing the management of innovation processes in agriculture. It was highlighted that they all have their strengths and weaknesses in one way or another. Nevertheless, there are universal principles for building models of innovation process management that should be followed. For example, the interaction between the subjects of the model should be effortless and transparent. At the same time, they should receive sufficient amounts of qualitative information from the external environment. Considering them, as well as addressing the general features of the development of the Republic of Kazakhstan and its agricultural sector, it is possible to achieve significant success in solving the described problems. The research also analyses some methods of building management models of innovation processes. The work brings new knowledge to the theory of management as well as provides an opportunity to find methods to improve the management of innovation processes in agriculture.

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.