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• The SZCH project in Bangladesh focused on boosting resilience to climate disasters through food security, income, education, and women's empowerment. • Rigorous analysis using PSM and DID showed significant gains in resilience for beneficiary households, including food security, income diversity, and lower disaster risk. • The project boosted absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities by enhancing assets, promoting livelihoods, and empowering women. • The active involvemen of the beneficiaries, especially women, was key in the project's success. It promoted ownership, sustainability and resilience. • The findings emphasize holistic, community-driven approaches to tackle vulnerabilities, promote gender equality, and aid climate risk adaptation. This study assesses the effects of a comprehensive rural development project on resilience to a climate shock, using the case Saemaul Zero Hunger Communities (SZHC) project implemented in central Bangladesh from 2014 to 2017. The project is suitable to such assessment since the target area was flood-prone and experienced major flooding during the project. Moreover, the project took holistic approaches that tackle multiple dimensions of vulnerability simultaneously, rather than addressing them in isolation. This study focuses on resilience capacities underpinning resilience and supposes that they are composed of absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacity. After identifying various indicators to measure each capacity, the study estimates their average treatment effects on the treated using the propensity score matching method. The results show that the SZHC project significantly helped the households' recovery from the flood in terms of food security and livelihood, and mostly enhanced the three resilience capacities: increased income and assets, reduced disruption in child education, diversified income sources, and strengthened social capital such as women's community participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The article highlights how supply chain actors are embedded in unique material and immaterial networks. • Stickiness is used as a novel analytical lens to understand how supply chain relations are developed, maintained, or shifted over time. • We analyze the different relations that exist among farmers, and between farmers and traders in Brazil's soy sector. • Cooperatives are supply chain mediators that decrease stickiness and counterbalance the power of commodity traders over farmers. • The article reveals the various arrangements that exist and can be promoted for more balanced relations between farmers and traders. Global agricultural trade is a key driver of socioenvironmental transformations in rural areas, including development dynamics. By creating revenue and wealth opportunities, it influences the economic and social relations in a landscape. However, not all landscapes shaped by a given agricultural sector are the same: one variable is how supply chain actors and their embedded networks (including commodity traders, farmers, and input suppliers) develop, maintain, or shift relationship patterns over time. To explore the connections between development and the nature of such trade relationships, particularly between farmers and commodity traders, we take soy as an emblematic example and compare four different municipalities in Brazil. The contrasting cases are Passo Fundo (RS), an old soy-growing area in Brazil's South, in a consolidated agricultural region with relatively persistent relationships between farmers and commodity traders; Sorriso (MT), in a more recently occupied agricultural region in the country's Center-West, with relatively low persistence of supply-chain relations; Balsas (MA), a place with persistent supply-chain relations in the so-called Matopiba agricultural expansion frontier; and Bom Jesus (PI), also a frontier municipality but having less persistent relations. We build on quantitative assessments of supply-chain stickiness in those four municipalities, which is understood as the persistence of those commercial relationships in contrast to volatility. Analyzing qualitative data collected through over 30 field interviews with local actors, we show how soy supply-chain relations significantly differ across places. We distinguish them particularly in terms of lock-in effects on farmers and level of trust. Crucially, our findings identify supplier cooperatives as key mediating institutions in the supply chain, counterbalancing the power of commodity traders over farmers. Such cooperatives are also associated with more equitable development outcomes. Yet, they require high levels of social trust and distribute wealth primarily within the sector, leaving other farmers excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the economic impacts of enhancing the access to drinking water facilities for rural households in China. Using representative survey data, our study finds that obtaining the access to drinking water facilities enhanced households' off-farm employment and increased their labor income. Through exploring varying impacts for households of different sizes, our analysis suggests that water collection may be an important mechanism inducing these benefits. Moreover, the program benefited lower income households more, enhanced off-farm employment locally but did not induce outward migration, and generated equitable benefits for men and women. These findings suggest that enhancing drinking water facilities may be a cost-efficient strategy for promoting inclusive development in addition to its health benefits. • We study the economic impacts of a large drinking water program on Chinese rural households. • Access to drinking water facilities led to strong increases in participation in off farm work and household income. • The main channel is that households saved time that they previously spent on water collection. • The economic effects of the program are pro-poor, pro-family, and pro-women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We test the causal effect of electricity on clean cooking fuel adoption and use. • The quality and reliability of electricity positively affected LPG adoption and use • The effects were significant for both poor and non-poor, and lower-caste households. • Pathways were income, technology adoption and information access. • Investment in reliable electricity is crucial for achieving clean energy target. We present the first evidence of the causal effect of the quality and reliability of residential electricity supply on clean cooking fuel adoption and use in rural areas of six energy poor Indian states using household-level panel data from 2015 and 2018. Quality and reliability of electricity are measured using the number of hours of electricity supply in a day, the number of days of low voltage and the number of complete power outage days experienced in a month. We used the village-level variation in the coverage of a nationwide government program, (i.e., the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY)), that aimed to improve the quality and reliability of rural residential electricity supply, as an instrument. Our results show a positive effect of an improvement in the quality and reliability of electricity on liquefied petroleum gas adoption and use; and disadoption of traditional cooking fuel. The effects were significant for both poor and non-poor, and lower-caste households' transition to clean cooking fuel. We find that the improvements in economic wellbeing, adoption of time-saving technologies, information access, and energy-efficient technology adoption played important mediating roles. These findings, for the first time, reveal the complementary role of electricity quality and reliability improvement with the adoption of clean energy sources, and thus supporting the achievement of important developmental outcomes. The findings thus underscore the need to invest in seamless and reliable electricity as a pathway to achieve the target of universal access to clean cooking fuels by 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We quantify provisioning services and household incomes in rural Zimbabwean. • Low woodland cover reduces availability of key provisioning services. • No relationship between provisioning service availability and environmental income. • Most resources can be derived from more disturbed woodlands or non-wooded land. • Promising new approach for exploring resource use in forest-agriculture mosaics. Forest and woodland resources can play a key role in rural livelihoods in the Global South, making it critical to understand what forest change could mean for rural wellbeing. Calculating environmental income has become a popular method of highlighting the importance of environmental resources in livelihoods, but few studies have quantified both provisioning ecosystem service availability and environmental income in the same landscape, or disaggregated environmental income by source land cover. This limits our ability to anticipate how forest change could impact rural livelihoods and could result in management interventions detrimental to vulnerable groups. The objective of this study was therefore to explore links between woodland cover, provisioning ecosystem service availability and household environmental income by applying a novel interdisciplinary approach in six villages on a gradient of woodland resource availability in Zimbabwe. We firstly use techniques from quantitative ethnobotany to score the species underpinning six locally important provisioning ecosystem services, and combine these scores with data from 80 tree survey plots to establish provisioning service availability. We then use income data from 91 households to explore relationships between provisioning service availability and household income portfolios. We find that villages with less woodland have lower availability of all studied ecosystem services and also a lower diversity of species underpinning service provision, but that there are no significant relationships between woodland resource availability and environmental income, livelihood diversity or intra-community income inequality in the case study area. We suggest that income portfolios are very resilient to woodland loss because households can still derive significant resources from woodlands which would be considered degraded in ecological terms and can draw upon kin networks which facilitate access to resources beyond village boundaries. The novel combination of approaches used in this study, particularly if applied at greater spatial and temporal scales, can provide valuable insight into the complexities of resource use in forest-agriculture mosaics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We develop the notion of the public domain to study how decentralization alters power relationships in local governance. • We synthesize two threads of scholarship that emphasize the institutional and social dimensions of democratic deepening. • We study how India's MGNREGA – the largest transfer of resources to local governments to date – is changing local governance. • We present detailed histories of political change in three local governments in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh. • The public domain shows how decentralization is altering citizenship through changing practices of local democracy. Over the past three decades, governments around the world have undertaken reforms for decentralization. These reforms are founded on the belief that more democratic participation in local governance will lead to better outcomes for rural development, public service delivery, and environmental governance. However, the effects of these efforts have been highly variable in practice. Extensive literature has studied the factors associated with different outcomes of policy interest, yet we continue to lack knowledge of how local democracy evolves through changing power relationships over time. In this article, we draw together two dominant threads of scholarship, which have emphasized the social and institutional dimensions of democratic deepening respectively, to develop an analysis of local political change through the conceptual lens of the public domain. We define the public domain as comprising three distinct yet interrelated elements: (a) the citizens that are constituted as a "public", (b) the collection of "public goods" that they are able to access, and (c) the means and channels by which they seek to influence decision-making. Through case studies of three local governments in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh, we show how the decentralized architecture of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)—the largest downward transfer of resources to local elected governments to date—has interacted with local histories of social and institutional change, leading to different trajectories of political transformation. While the devolution of resources under the MGNREGA has improved access to state resources and increased participation in development planning overall, the intensity, equity, and extent of influence varies according to the character of local political relationships. By offering a relational and processual understanding of how local governance evolves over time, the public domain lends new insight into the ways that decentralization is redefining citizenship through new articulations of the 'public' in local democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Artisanal mining is a key factor for local subsistence in Burkina Faso. • Adverse socio-ecological conditions exacerbate the problems of mining investments. • Local perceptions strongly underestimate long-term environmental costs. • Industrial gold mining fails to generate positive effects for local livelihoods. • Policy measures should build on the potentials of local extractive economies. Abstract While existing resource extraction debates have contributed to a better understanding of national economic and political dilemmas and institutional responses, there are flaws in understanding the specific relevance of the various types of mining schemes for rural households to deal with the various problems they are confronted with. Our paper examines the perceptions of gold mining effects on households in Northern Burkina Faso. The findings of our survey across six districts representing different mining schemes (industrial, artisanal, no mining) highlight the fact that artisanal gold mining can generate job opportunities and cash income for local households; whereas industrial gold mining widely fails to do so. However, the general economic and environmental settings exert a much stronger influence on the household state. Gold mining effects are perceived as being less advantageous in districts where people are suffering from a lack of education, a higher vulnerability to drought and poor market access. Our findings provide empirical support for those who back the enhanced formalization of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and policies that entail more rigorous state monitoring of mining concessions, especially in economic and environmentally disadvantaged contexts. Effectively addressing communal and pro-poor development requires greater attention to the political economy of ASM and corporate mining. It also calls for a greater inclusion of local mining stakeholders and a more effective alignment of international regulatory and advocacy efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract Highlights • Guyana's UN-approved FREL submission shows 'national REDD+' is competitive on a hectare basis, and does not incentivize land grabbing. • REDD+ costs surpass state yields of gold and logging at a US$5 carbon price, revealing severely lopsided private–public net revenue ratios. • Interventions have strong potential for state budget, REDD+, rural development, indigenous rights, and conservation, without job loss. • National society awareness of forest commodity finance and options can aid motivation for forest governance change in sovereign countries. Abstract Prominent recent evaluations of global research on REDD+ progress (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) conclude that 'progress has been slower than expected', 'deforestation and degradation are deeply-rooted in powerful business-as-usual interests' and that '[f]or the most part, new coalitions calling for change in forest governance have failed to overcome business-as-usual deforestation.' Others have earlier pointed out that REDD+ will incentivize land grabbing (potentially endangering customary use rights of forest-dependent citizens), and will remain financially uncompetitive against current commercial forest uses. Combining nationwide data over a decade from Guyana's United Nations-approved Forest Reference Emission Level (FREL) submission and national documents, we found that REDD+ implemented at national level would annually add almost a quarter to the country's budget, and should not incentivize land grabbing as it places little direct value on forest, but financial penalties (lost income) on forest damage. We show quantitatively that national REDD+ in Guyana is competitive on a hectare basis when viewed from the resource owner's perspective, even against high value commodities such as gold and timber (the country's main emission drivers), and at a preliminary US$5 carbon price. Hidden by the latter appears a very lopsided distribution of overall net revenue between the state and private sector commodity chains (∼1:99 and ∼1:1200). We show government or electorate pressure towards more equitable distribution, or 'cleaning profit chains', would both be justified and highly worthwhile, without job loss. Investing part of this homegrown finance in further securing lawful and rational management of exhaustible forest-based resources has several additional economic, social and environmental benefits, including for forest-dependent citizens. Society awareness of current revenue ratios, REDD+ income losses, and potential returns of interventions may add helpful (i.e. economic, domestic) motivation for forest governance change in sovereign countries. Weak law enforcement, prevailing across the tropics, enhances lopsided sharing, and linked political leverage could undermine plans that would interfere with private income streams, e.g. rural social development, tenure, forest/biodiversity conservation. Interventions may therefore additionally enhance these sectors' performances. Assessing and cleaning private profit chains may more generally have potential for REDD+ and global climate change mitigation goals, along with its many associated social and environmental co-benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Expertise presents an encompassing frame to progress the democratisation of knowledge. • Neo-endogenous (networked) models of development build on expertise in place or vernacular expertise. • Vernacular expertise combines field/place generated and field/place focused knowledge. • Vernacular expertise is place-based and hybrid, nourished by outside sources and agents. • Development approaches should identify ways to draw upon and strengthen the vernacular expertise of all development agents. Abstract Understandings of socially distributed expertise as being key to living, interpreting and intervening in the world, are increasingly used in development narratives, referring usually to knowledge sharing across multi-stakeholder partnerships. This movement towards the democratisation of expertise challenges the ideological claim of science to be the exclusive source of objective information, evidence and discovery on which informed decisions and technological developments should be based. But if we reject that claim, what are the implications for the way stakeholders learn, organise and transmit knowledge and skills, and resolve problems? And how do science and expertise come together in development narratives and practices? We address these questions through an examination of the changing relationship between scientific, professional and non-professional expertise in rural development. Firstly, we examine the evolution of models of rural development and knowledge generation over past decades and introduce the concept of vernacular expertise – the expertise that people have and develop that is place-based but crucially nourished by outside sources and agents and which underpins neo-endogenous development models. Secondly, by drawing empirically on qualitative research with rural advisory professionals who support farmer decision making we unpack the composition of vernacular expertise as a fusion of field/place generated and field/place focused knowledge, and consider how it may be better recognised and enhanced in development processes and policy agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We identify historical continuities in commercial agriculture in Mozambique. • We find that commercial farms seek prime lands, not marginal areas. • We find heterogeneous impacts associated with different commercial farming models. • More inclusive commercial approaches deliver greater benefits for smallholders. Abstract The impact of commercial farms on smallholders in developing countries remains highly controversial. This study draws on four periods of investments in commercial farming in Mozambique to frame an empirical analysis of their contemporary economic spillovers. We investigate the degree of selection of commercial farms into more favourable locations as well as the extent of heterogeneity in the effects of different commercial farming models on proximate smallholders. The analysis uses survey data covering all large commercial farms in Mozambique and which are linked to a nationally-representative survey of 6000 smallholders. Contrary to widespread assumptions that investors target only marginal farm land, we find that commercial farms are highly selective in their locations, preferring areas close to existing infrastructure and markets. Controlling for selection bias via reweighting and fixed effects, we find the presence of a commercial farm is associated with moderately higher incomes among neighbouring smallholders but a lower incidence of wage employment. Furthermore, these effects vary according to the type of commercial farming in place. More inclusive commercial models, such as those associated with outgrower schemes, appear to generate larger benefits. We conclude that broad generalizations about commercial farming investments must be replaced by more nuanced discussions of alternative investment models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Off-farm income has a positive and statistically strong association with food security. • Off-farm income is important for reducing gender and geography related food security gaps in most of the study areas. • Agricultural specialization is better that low-return off-farm employment for reducing food insecurity is some countries. • Gender-equitable welfare outcomes could be achieved through policies that promote female off-farm participation. Abstract How to eradicate hunger and achieve food security remains a key developmental issue, particular in countries south of the Sahara. Most of the empirical literature focuses on agriculture-based interventions although it is well known that rural households have a gamut of income generating activities that constitute their livelihood. This article uses panel data for six African countries to examine the association between off-farm income and household food security and tests key hypotheses that have not been previously explored. We hypothesize that the association between food security and off-farm income is neither gender-neutral nor the same for households living in low and high agroecological potential areas. Because a nontrivial number of households do not earn off-farm income, we also hypothesize that the food security effect of nonparticipation differs by gender and geography. The results show that although off-farm income has a strong statistically significant association with food security the correlation magnitudes are not as strong. However, off-farm income has a significantly stronger association with food security among female-headed and poor region households than it has among male-headed and rich region households in most countries. The gender-related result supports the notion that households tend to benefit more from women's greater control over resources than when such resources are controlled by men. We also show that nonparticipation in off-farm income is more costly, food security wise, for female-headed households and households who live in low agroecological potential regions than it is for male-headed households and those who live in high potential regions. The rural nonfarm sector in high agroecological potential areas tends to be associated with greater poverty reduction among female-headed households than among male-headed households. From a policy and development practice perspective, the results suggest that focusing rural development policies on factors that raise farm productivity alone (e.g., input subsidies) may not lead to gender-neutral welfare outcomes. This means that interventions such as rural nonfarm microcredit schemes that targets female-headed households or women in general could help achieve gender-equitable poverty reduction, as others have shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Rural charcoal producers were heterogeneous in production scales and demographic characteristics. • The size of the urban market affects both the type of rural producer and their scales of production. • Rural producers were highly dependent on charcoal income, contributing 38–95% of total gross household income. • Small-scale producers were proportionally the most dependent on charcoal income. • The existence of households 'trapped' in low production may be a consequence of larger urban markets. Abstract Sub-Saharan Africa's charcoal sector is rarely considered a mechanism for rural development or poverty alleviation; instead, current regulations often marginalise rural producers. The development of a sustainable sector, that does not further marginalise rural populations, is restricted by limited understanding of these stakeholders. We assess the heterogeneity of rural producers supplying two differentially sized urban charcoal markets in Mozambique. Drawing on data from 767 household surveys, our findings suggest that the size of the urban market affects the type of rural producer and their scales of production. Overall household income of producers supplying the larger urban market were proportionally more dependent on charcoal for income generation; small-scale producers in particular relied most on charcoal income, contributing >95% of household incomes. In contrast, producers supplying the smaller market had more diversified incomes, and were thus less dependent on charcoal income. Larger-scale producers were generally wealthier; their absolute incomes were higher and they were proportionally the least dependent on charcoal income. Further findings suggest that rural charcoal production was not necessarily the domain of the poorest of the poor and the existence of producers trapped in small-scale production may be a consequence of larger urban markets, rather than an intrinsic characteristic of the sector. Predicted growth of smaller urban areas and associated higher demand for charcoal will provide substantial opportunities for rural income generation, most likely leading to shifts in producers and production scales. Rather than transferring existing formal approaches, which marginalise rural stakeholders, small urban areas provide opportunities to develop equitable production systems, with potential to deliver sustainable energy and rural development. The heterogeneity of rural producers calls for better-targeted interventions that incorporate the importance of charcoal production for rural livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Temperature shocks slow the observed convergence process among households. • Labour productivity and crop yields are the main transmission channels. • Poverty reduction is crucial to reduce the impacts of climate change. Abstract Using the LSMS-ISA Tanzania National Panel Survey by the World Bank, we study the relationship between rural household consumption growth and temperature shocks over the period 2008–2013. Temperature shocks have a negative and significant impact on household growth if their initial consumption lies below a critical threshold. As such, temperature shocks slow income convergence among households, at least in the short run. Crop yields and total factor productivity in agriculture are the main transmission channels. Extrapolating from short-term elasticities to long-run phenomena, these findings support the Schelling Conjecture: economic development would help poor farming households to reduce the impacts of climate change. Hence, closing the yield gap, modernizing agriculture and favouring the structural transformation of the economy are all crucial issues for adaptation of farmers to the negative effects of global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The causal relationship between land tenure security and agricultural investment plays a crucial role in the process of rural development. Land property rights are key determinants for reducing poverty through agricultural productivity, natural resource management, and socio-economic inequalities. Growing competition for land access increases the sensitivity in land socio-economic stakes and related policies in developing countries. This paper analyzes the impacts of land rights on land-related investment in rural Burkina Faso. We use rural representative panel data and appropriate methods. The Two-Stage Conditional Maximum Likelihood approach is used for dealing with endogeneity, while the Generalized Structural Equation Model allows us to control for random effects. We show that stronger land rights increase land-attached investment, and land investment has positive and negative effect on stronger and weaker land rights, respectively, in rural Burkina Faso. Our study also finds that women and immigrants have less land rights than men and natives, respectively. Our contribution to related literature includes the use of rigorous process of hierarchy in land rights. The close link of the results with land right strength is of great interest for cautious practitioners in land tenure and investment. Moreover, our results imply that a gain of efficiency can be achieved from combining practices in land tenure and investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of fish farming over the past three decades has generated heated debate over the role of aquaculture in rural development and poverty reduction. Central to these debates is the question of whether and how aquaculture impacts local incomes and employment, yet little empirical evidence exists on the issue. To address this question, we propose a Local Economy-wide Impact Evaluation (LEWIE) model which nests fish farm models within a general-equilibrium model of their local economy. The model is calibrated using primary data collected from 1102 households in Myanmar’s main aquaculture zone, representative of 60% of the country’s aquaculture farms. Using this model, we examine the impact of aquaculture on the incomes and labor market outcomes of fish farming households, but also crop farms and non-farm households in the cluster. Simulating one-acre increases in pond/plot surface we find that: (1) aquaculture generates much higher incomes per-acre than agriculture; (2) aquaculture generates larger income spillovers than agriculture for non-farm households by way of retail and labor markets; (3) small commercial fish farms generate greater spillovers than large fish farms. These results bolster the notion that fish-farming, and in particular small-scale commercial aquaculture, may have a significant role to play in rural development and poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Value chain upgrading interventions have emerged in recent years as a dominant approach to rural development. In coffee value chains, upgrading opportunities are presented by the growth in consumption of specialty coffees, which are associated with direct engagement with producer communities by roasting firms, along with an apparent increased commitment to social responsibility. Known in the industry as “relationship coffee”, such interventions align with a value chain approach to development and are promoted as offering upgrading opportunities for otherwise marginalized rural communities. In this article, we critique the dominant development discourse of relationship coffee in Indonesia via three case studies of livelihoods and local agrarian dynamics across three coffee-growing communities on the islands of Sulawesi, Bali and Java. We find that the relationship coffee model does present opportunities for producer upgrading. However, these benefits have been subsequently captured by key individuals within the producer community who are able to accumulate wealth and consolidate their social position. As it is currently implemented in Indonesia, the relationship coffee model has reproduced local patterns of inequality rather than contributing to poverty alleviation efforts. These insights suggest the urgent need to develop a critical political economy of upgrading in the global value chain and rural development literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, interest has emerged in policy circles and among academics about the use of foreign aid to reduce international migration. Scholars have investigated this aid-migration nexus, but results have been mixed and questions remain. This paper contributes to the literature by comparing the effects of rural and urban development aid on international migration. Specifically, we hypothesize that while increases in rural development aid to developing countries reduce emigration from those countries, greater urban aid produces the opposite effect – higher rates of emigration. These hypotheses are informed by two theoretical mechanisms. The first mechanism focuses on the divergent preferences of rural and urban populations regarding emigration. Aid targeting these respective populations provides each with resources to follow through on their migratory ambitions, or lack thereof. The second mechanism focuses on contrasting impacts of rural and urban aid on agricultural sector development and the effects of this sort of development on emigration. We analyze cross-national time series data to test our hypotheses regarding rural and urban development aid, finding that countries that receive larger amounts of rural development aid have lower emigration rates. Then we turn to survey data from the Arab Barometer to assess whether the attitudes of survey respondents match our theorized mechanisms. Results from survey data suggest that investments in agricultural sector capacity building will lead to reductions in emigration from developing countries; however, these findings do not indicate that rural and urban populations differ in terms of their desire to emigrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When agricultural commodities are traded globally, consumer demand in one region influences the crops planted in another, often leading to widespread environmental and social transformation at the production sites. As a commodity crop that prospers in tropical environments, oil palm has become controversial for its role as a driver of deforestation and social conflict, especially in main producer countries in Southeast Asia. As suitable land for oil palm production in Southeast Asia is depleting, companies have begun to look to new production frontiers, such as Latin America. Colombia and Peru have the highest percentage growth in the sector in recent years, and the crop has become a dominant strategy for development in the Peruvian Amazon. Between 2000 and 2015, 40,000 hectares of old growth forest have been cleared for large oil palm plantations in Peru. Company-Community partnerships (CCPs) have been advanced as a potentially more socially and environmentally sustainable strategy, through their alleged capacity to provide greater productivity and more efficient land use on smallholder farms. This paper describes the social, political and deforestation impact of an oil palm CCP at the forest frontier in the Peruvian Amazon. An interdisciplinary and mixed methods research approach was employed, including long-term ethnographic work and visual measurement remote sensing of land use change on 2447 hectares of smallholder land in four villages/communities. The results show that the recent arrival of powerful private companies has caused a major socio-ecological shift on the ground, particularly through the CCP. On comparing participating farms to non-participating farms, we find significant deforestation 'spillage' out of the plantation into participating farms. A major underlying driver of the negative outcomes of the CCP is the neoliberal policy approach employed by the Peruvian government, which has outsourced basic rural public works to private companies. We conclude by discussing how a more socially and environmentally just oil palm production strategy in Peru and elsewhere might look. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on rural field research in three provinces of Northeast Thailand, the paper seeks to understand the ways in which life course, generational, era-defining and developmental change intersect, and why rural smallholders and smallholdings continue to persist notwithstanding deep structural change. We outline the creative ways that households and their members have sought to address the scissor effects of declining land holdings, rising needs, reduced relative returns to agriculture, and often precarious non-farm work. We posit, drawing on this work from Thailand, that while Asia’s ‘truncated agrarian transition’ goes some way to explaining the current empirical fact of persistent smallholders, we raise doubts whether the rural development agenda of modernisation, marketisation and rural exit will have the traction that governments and some scholars anticipate. A focus on production obscures how rural livelihoods also embody acts of consumption, care, reproduction and redistribution. Our study finds that the current experience of occupational multiplicity where households’ livelihoods comprise farm and non-farm, commoditised and quasi-subsistence, in situ and ex situ , production and care, and reproduction and redistribution will likely also persist, if non-farm occupations remains classically precarious and social safety nets thinly woven. The paper contributes to debates over agrarian and rural livelihood transitions in Asia, and sheds explanatory light on why the farm-size transition has not taken hold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a framework that goes beyond rural-urban dualism and highlights the role of small-town economy in understanding structural change in a developing country. It provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the role of agricultural productivity in structural transformation in the labor market in small towns and the surrounding rural areas. The empirical work is based on a general equilibrium model that formalizes the demand and labor market linkages: the small-town draws labor away from the rural areas to produce goods and services whose demand may depend largely on rural income. The theory clarifies the role played by the income elasticity of demand and the elasticity of wage with respect to productivity increase in agriculture. For productivity growth to lead to a demand effect, the wage elasticity has to be lower than a threshold. When the demand for goods and services produced in small towns comes mainly from the adjacent rural areas, the demand effect can outweigh the negative wage effect and lead to higher employment in the town-goods sector. The empirical analysis finds a significant positive effect of higher rainfall on rice yield and wages. Using rainfall shocks as a source of exogenous variation, we provide instrumental variables estimates of the effects of agricultural productivity on agricultural wages. The increase in wages is larger in the rural sample compared with the small town economy sample, but structural change in employment is more pronounced in the small town economy. In the rural sample, the positive employment effect is observed only in small-scale manufacturing and services. In contrast, a positive productivity shock in small towns sample has large and positive effect on employment in large scale manufacturing and services (construction, transport, education, and health). Agricultural productivity growth induces structural transformation within the services sector in small towns, with employment in skilled services growing at a faster pace than that in low skilled services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like the rest of Latin America, Mexico is a highly-urbanized country. Yet rural populations, geographies and economic activities continue to play a significant role in national development, while there are persistent and large rural-urban inequalities in well-being and opportunities. Promoting rural-urban linkages has been proposed as a strategy to reduce spatial inequalities, but there is much academic and policy debate about whether urban development has positive (spread) or negative (backwash) effects on rural development. This could translate into synergistic or predatory urban-rural linkages. This study examines how proximity to cities, and population and per capita income in cities, affect population growth and welfare in rural places in Mexico. Using data for 2000 and 2010, our findings include: (a) 75% of rural people live within 90 min of an urban area, and 60% within 60 min; (b) proximity to a city increases rural population growth and welfare; (c) adverse (backwash) effects on rural areas due to increases in urban per capita income are very small and of no economic significance; (d) cities with populations in the 350,000–500,000 range appear to have more positive effects on rural areas than smaller or larger cities; (e) rural localities interact with multiple urban places simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary The success of conservation interventions often depends on the multifaceted and sometimes competing interests and motivations that lead local people to sustainably manage natural resources in the first place. Yet despite an extensive literature exploring the effects of conservation on human livelihoods, there is a lack of robust evidence about which type of conservation intervention works, for whom, and how. This is partly because the social impacts of conservation interventions often affect multiple aspects of human well-being, with changes taking place over long periods during which unintended feedbacks can occur. This paper assesses the medium-term impacts of Protected Areas (PAs) and of three Payment for Environmental Services (PES) projects on three socio-economic indicators across 16 villages in Northern Cambodia. We present a multi-period evaluation including three panel surveys over six years from villages inside and outside PAs to clarify the mechanisms through which social effects of conservation take place and how this translates into the development pathways adopted by households. While livelihood improvements were recorded across all villages, we found that PAs slightly reduce households’ socio-economic status, though does not impede their development. PAs also protect traditional livelihoods. Participants in one of the three PES projects recorded higher economic status and agricultural productivity than non-participants, suggesting that there can be important social co-benefits to conservation interventions when programs are well-designed to respond to local contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This article asks what led to the successful implementation of the National Rural Employment guarantee program (NREGA) in Andhra Pradesh. In particular, the article ethnographically examines the implementation of the program in two different village panchayats (Dalit and Tribal) in Andhra, with a focus on underprivileged communities and it finds dramatic differences in the outcomes of the program. Both outcomes can be considered successful for the workers of the NREGA, although perhaps in ways that could not have been anticipated by the planners of the program. Theoretically, the analysis is situated between two strands—pessimistic critiques of the high-modernist state and more optimistic visions of state-society synergy. The pessimistic analysis underestimates the possibility a community will take advantage of the opportunities that a high-modernist state can provide. On the other hand, the overly optimistic account of the state-society literature assumes what I am calling “joint intentionality” between state and community is necessary for success, and empirically rules out successes that do not have such joint intentionality. The article shows that high-modernist state actions can create a structural context that opens up avenues for local successes, while local factors—namely the caste, class and livelihood strategy of villagers—determine the distinct avenues through which success is achieved. Top-down centralized implementation characterized by a high-modernist state does not rule out the realization of local goals. State and society can interact to produce positive outcomes even if these outcomes are not jointly intended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary While worldwide progress in poverty reduction has been impressive, Sub-Saharan Africa is lagging behind with slow growth and a high-poverty headcount ratio. There are fierce debates on how Sub-Saharan Africa can foster pro-poor growth and the role of agriculture and small- versus large-scale farming in poverty reduction. We contribute to this debate with micro-economic empirical evidence from the Senegal River Delta, an area that recently experienced rapid rural development. We use household survey data from two panel rounds in 2006 and 2013 and a cluster analysis to investigate livelihood, income, and poverty dynamics in the region. We find that with 4.3% annual growth in average household income, 29.5 percentage points’ poverty reduction, and 4.2 percentage points’ inequality reduction over the period 2006–13, development in the Senegal River Delta region has been remarkably pro-poor. Income growth and poverty reduction have been most impressive among households moving into wage employment on large-scale horticultural export farms and in an emerging service sector. Income growth in small-scale agriculture and non-farm businesses has been more modest but has affected the largest number of households. Transformation in both farm and non-farm sectors has driven rural development in the Senegal River Delta region, and investments in both large- and small-scale agriculture have contributed importantly to household income growth and poverty reduction. Our findings imply that (foreign) investments in large-scale commercial and export-oriented farming can trigger pro-poor growth—directly through employment effects and indirectly through investment and consumption linkages with the small-scale farm and non-farm sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary China has seen persistent regional inequality in agricultural productivity since it dismantled its rural collectives in the early 1980s. This paper evaluates the effects of collective legacies on the agricultural performance after decollectivization. We construct a Collective Legacy Index (CLI) based on the achievements in the areas of rural infrastructure, education, and health under collectives. Using a district-level panel dataset, we find that the CLI has long-term positive effects on agricultural development after decollectivization. That is, districts that already performed well under socialism could still succeed under a different institution because they had superior infrastructure and human capital. At the same time, districts with less successful experience under socialism are less likely to catch up even after dismantling the collective institutions. The results with an instrumental variable (the pace of decollectivization) further reinforce this conclusion. We therefore argue that different collective legacies contribute to the uneven development in rural China. To tackle its problems of regional inequality, China needs to appreciate the role of its collective legacies in development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary The paper presents findings from the first-ever systematic review of the causal impact of development aid on violence in countries affected by civil war. The review identifies 19 studies: Fourteen within-country studies from Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Philippines, and India, and five cross-national studies. These studies investigate the impact of six aid types: Community-driven development, conditional cash transfers, public employment scheme, humanitarian aid, infrastructure, and aid provided by military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. The evidence for a violence-dampening effect of aid in conflict zones is not strong. Aid in conflict zones is more likely to exacerbate violence than to dampen violence. A violence-dampening effect of aid appears to be conditional on a relatively secure environment for aid projects to be implemented. A violence-increasing effect occurs when aid is misappropriated by violent actors, or when violent actors sabotage aid projects in order to disrupt the cooperation between the local population and the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Heralded by both food sovereignty activists and mainstream development practitioners, village seed banks are a rural development phenomenon rapidly gaining attention for their potential to support resilient agricultural systems. This paper presents a case study for examining the power of prevailing narratives of decentralized development to shape and ultimately constrain the operations of village seed banks in Telangana, India. This case demonstrates how visions of tradition, community, and self-reliance can serve to discount the materiality of seeds, the social complexity of village institutions, and even the voices of farmers. The goal of this research is not to criticize village seed banks, as they hold great potential, nor to vilify the narratives in question, but rather to encourage critical reflection on how the assumptions embedded in these narratives shape mechanisms for agricultural development. I argue for a shift away from framing tradition, community, and self-reliance as development solutions and propose an interrogative approach that turns these narratives into questions for engaging more effectively with rural livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary We demonstrate that it is theoretically ambiguous whether growth of cities matters more to the rural poor than growth of towns. We then test empirically whether the economic growth of India’s secondary towns mattered more to recent rural poverty reduction than did growth of the big cities. Satellite observations of night lights are used to measure urban growth on both extensive and intensive margins in the context of a spatial Durbin fixed-effects model of poverty measures for rural India, calibrated to a panel of 59 regions observed four times over 1993–2012. Lit area expansion had more effect on rural poverty measures than did intensive margin growth in terms of the brightness of light from urban areas. For India’s current stage of development, growth of secondary towns may do more to reduce rural poverty than does big city growth although our theoretical model suggests that cities may eventually take over from towns as the drivers of rural poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper re-examines the sources of inequality in Vietnam, a transitional economy with large reductions in poverty from recent and dramatic economic growth, but vastly unequal gains across ethnic groups. Using a decomposition approach to disentangle factor endowments and returns by ethnic group, we draw four key conclusions. First, removing language barriers would significantly reduce inequality among ethnic groups, narrowing the ethnic gap, and especially so through enhancing the gains earned by minorities from education. Second, variations in returns to education exist in favor of the majority in mixed communes, suggesting that either the special needs of minority children have not been adequately addressed in the classroom, or unequal treatment in favor of the majority exists in the labor market. Third, in contrast to recent literature, there is no difference in the benefits drawn from enhanced infrastructure at the commune level across ethnic groups. Finally, we find little evidence to support the established views that the ethnic gap is attributed largely to differences in the returns to endowments. Overall, our research highlights the importance of considering language barriers and the availability of infrastructure for ethnic inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In semi-arid areas, pastoralism is attributed to an insurance function for smallholder farmers relying otherwise on rain-fed agriculture. In southwestern Madagascar, zebu cattle are the most prominent herded animal, and the heads a household owns is a strong indicator of both prestige and social status. Given the extreme socio-cultural value of zebu cattle in Malagasy culture, however, many authors question the economic rationale of zebu accumulation. Consequently, improved zebu herding has been widely ignored as a suitable target for development interventions. Empirical micro-level data on the role of livestock herding in terms of household economics is missing, though. With this contribution, we close this knowledge gap by analyzing the economic importance of zebu herding against (i) the general role of livestock husbandry and (ii) non-cattle-related livelihood and coping strategies to safeguard smallholders against crop failures. We conducted a longitudinal household and recall survey ( n = 150 households, stratified random sampling, bi-weekly data acquisition) covering a year in which crop failure was widespread. Our study finds that households spent large shares of their total cash income on food purchases, whereas proceeds from the sale of livestock accounted for >56% of cash food expenditures. Remittances from out migrated household members were the 2nd most important income source. Similarly, the collection of wild foods and the reduction of food consumption were widespread coping strategies, as well as reliance on food aids from NGOs. The sale of zebu contributed a highly variable share to total income, depending on the livelihood strategy by households. However, while we can document an insurance function from zebu herding, small ruminants, i.e., goats and particularly sheep and chicken were more important for compensating food expenditures. Policy implications include a promotion of livestock diversification and poultry, systematic fodder forestation and improvements for the security of pastoralists in southern Madagascar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper investigates whether small-scale water supply systems implemented and operated by water user associations increase access to piped water supply in rural Brazil by more than systems by local governments. Starting from 15% to 16% in the year 2000, access rates in rural areas with water user associations increased to 33.4% in 2010. In areas with local government supply systems, access rates only increased to 24.9%. Based on data from Brazilian census and the national water and sanitation survey, the empirical analysis in this paper shows that the observed difference is effectively due to project-type choice. Additionally it points toward higher accountability as a potential reason for better results of community-based projects. In municipalities where social groups requested a new system before the local government started implementation and therefore public awareness for the project was higher, the increase in access rates is comparable to the increase in municipalities with water user association projects. The same is true if local media is present or political competition in local elections is higher. As the effect of project type on access rates might be confounded by simultaneous drivers of project-type choice and access rates, the quantitative analysis is based on a difference-in-difference estimator in combination with kernel matching to overcome the endogeneity of project type. The treatment effect revealed by this analysis is robust to various specification changes and the robustness checks show no structural differences between treatment and control groups that could bias the results. The calculation of matching weights for the kernel matching is informed by semi-structured interviews with academics and sector experts in Brazil explaining the determinants of project choice. The interviews highlight the political economy behind infrastructure expansion in rural Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Contracts between companies and local communities have been used in Indonesia for over 20 years to involve smallholder farmers in the emerging palm oil industry. Impacts of these contracts have not been analyzed systematically. Here, data from a village survey, spanning a time period from 1992 to 2012, are used to evaluate effects on rural economic development. Panel regression models with village fixed effects show that contracts have significantly contributed to wealth accumulation. Contracts signed before 1999 were more beneficial than contracts signed afterward, which is due to more public sector support and infrastructure investments during the earlier period. Contracts have contributed to decreasing inter-village inequality, not only because poorer villages were more likely to adopt a contract, but also because they benefited more from contract adoption than richer ones. The results suggest that well-designed contracts can be important for smallholder farmers to benefit from the oil palm boom. The village-level approach has clear advantages to evaluate direct and indirect economic effects, but it also has drawbacks in terms of analyzing environmental effects and issues of intra-village inequality. More research with various approaches is needed to better understand the multifaceted implications of oil palm contracts for sustainable rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Since the economic reforms in India in 1991, there has been a proliferation of studies examining trends of economic development and poverty across the country. To date, studies have used single-level analyses with aggregated data either at the state level or, less commonly, at the region and district levels. This is the first comprehensive and empirical quantification of the relative importance of multiple geographic levels in shaping poverty distribution in India. We used multilevel logistic models to partition variation in poverty by levels of states, regions, districts, villages, and households. We also mapped the residuals at the state, region and district levels to visualize the geography of poverty. We used data on 35 states, 88 regions, 623 districts, 25,390 villages and 202,250 households from the National Sample Survey in years 2009–10 and 2011–12. Our study found that geography of poverty in India cannot be fully explained by clustered distribution of poor households, and that there may be important contextual factors operating at the state and village levels. We found 13% of the variation in poverty to be attributable to states, 12% to villages, 4% to districts and 3% to regions, after accounting for important household characteristics. Similar variance partitioning was observed for rural and urban sample. The relative importance of one contextual level was highly sensitive to other levels simultaneously considered in the model. Findings from this study suggest that further explorations using multilevel modeling are warranted to identify specific contextual determinants of poverty at the state and village levels to reduce poverty and promote balanced regional development in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Analysis of effects of oil palm cultivation on smallholder farmers' living standards. • Panel data from Sumatra, Indonesia. • Oil palm improves nutrition, education, and general living conditions. • Positive implications for current and future welfare through human capital formation. • Negative environmental effects associated with deforestation need to be reduced. Oil palm cultivation is a controversial topic because of its manifold sustainability implications. Recent research in Southeast Asia suggests that oil palm cultivation is associated with income gains for many smallholder farmers, but whether these income gains also translate into longer-term improvements in household living standards remains unclear. Here, we use three rounds of panel data from smallholder farmers in Sumatra, Indonesia, to analyze effects of oil palm cultivation on various indicators of living standards. Results suggest that oil palm cultivation improves nutrition, dietary quality, and expenditures on education, all important indicators of human capital formation with expected positive long-term implications. Furthermore, we find positive associations between oil palm cultivation, household asset ownership, and electricity consumption, after controlling for possible confounding factors. We conclude that oil palm cultivation improves living standards and human capital formation in smallholder farm households in this setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Problematizes conventional arguments of state absence as a key problem for rural communities affected by illicit economies. • Traces how illicit and licit economies intertwine and contribute to state formation processes, including in historically marginalized areas. • Highlights the importance of ethnographic and mixed methods research for studying the illicit. • Proposes that broader transformations in policy, politics, and dominant economic narratives are required to enable rural development. Illicit economies have become a major driver of socio-environmental change in Latin America's rural spaces. The arrival of transnational drug trade networks in rural communities has significantly altered the economic, political, and social dynamics of entire regions. The drug trade has particularly affected the ancestral territories of Indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples, which coincide with significant areas of forests and high biodiversity, increasingly making trafficking an issue of racial and environmental justice as well. Furthermore, the decades-long drug wars, sponsored in large part by the United States Government, have fundamentally altered economic, social, environmental, and political conditions in areas of production and transshipment. The convergence of competing claims on rural spaces coupled with the violence provoked by the drug trade and state reactions to it enable and constrain possibilities for transformative action on the part of rural communities, and for development and governance projects. In this introduction to the Special Issue, we provide an overview of cross-cutting insights and key conceptual and methodological themes from the nine included papers. These findings challenge normative narratives of how illicit economies negatively affect political stability and economic development, problematizing especially the role of the state and market economies in this nexus. These papers also make clear the importance of mixed methods and ethnographic research that attends to questions of power to describe, explain, and transform illicit economies' roles in this dynamic region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with key elements for a better understanding of the management approaches of agroforestry systems in Niger. A contingent ranking was conducted to 399 Nigerien farmers in three agroecological zones based on their different socio-economic and environmental conditions. Results show that farmers are willing to improve their natural resources, taking actions to recover and conserve them. Significant differences are found with respect to not only the various agroecological zones where farmers live but also the socio-economic factors of the population. The Tamou municipality prefers to participate in an agri-environmental program based on the conservation of water thorough half-moons technique. Farmers' preferences in the Maradi region differ from those in the Tillabéri region; the former rely on managed natural regeneration while the latter on tree plantations. Adansonia digitata and Ziziphus mauritiana are the two-priority species to be regenerated by improved seeds. The farmers of Aguié, Madarounfa, and Simiri would be willing to participate in actions scheduled for 9, 6 and 5 months, respectively. Socio-economic factors such as the life strategy of each ethnic group, the role of men and women, the seasonal migration of young people, and the rights to the resources, influence both the period and duration of participation. The results of this study are valuable to design agroforestry policies that involve participation of small-scale farmers, relying on the dynamism of local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary The spread of mobile phones in developing countries is a technological success story. Mobile phones’ independence of landline telecommunication networks qualifies them for information exchange even in remote rural areas. Whereas technology spillovers via international trade and foreign direct investment have been widely explored by the literature, international migration and rural–urban migration have hardly been explored as vehicles for technology diffusion. Motivated by the current extent of national and international migration, this paper addresses this lacuna. It draws upon data from rural households in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and uses households’ mobile phone ownership as an indicator for rural technology diffusion. Migration is modeled via an endogenous treatment regression approach. In a number of robustness checks, the variables, the sample, and the estimation technique are varied. The results provide empirical evidence for rural technology diffusion. In the survey areas, poverty-driven rural–urban migration and related technology diffusion play a more important role than technology spillovers via international migration. The results show that total emigration as well as immigration can support technology diffusion, i.e., the dispersion of mobile phones, beyond monetary remittances. When controlling for education and household age (in a squared fashion) in the main regressions and in several robustness checks, emigration as well as immigration, however, exhibit a negative effect on households’ mobile phone ownership (“technology drain” or “technology impair” effect). For development policy, the results suggest investments in education and the creation of financial opportunities to support rural technology diffusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In the Philippines, green economy projects encourage the production of agro-industrial commodities ostensibly for climate change mitigation, environmental rehabilitation, and inclusive rural economic growth. This paper illustrates, however, how elite constructions of the uplands as being “idle” and “unproductive” precipitate low-carbon, agro-industrial crop production in the Philippine frontier. Based on field research from 2010 to 2012 (i.e., in-depth interviews with policy and market elites, participant observation, and archival document analysis), we argue that elites constructions of and discourses on the uplands as idle and unproductive have been carried over from the colonial period, albeit in more complex ways, to inform and legitimize agro-industrial policies and programs couched in the green economy vision of the country. Such discourses simplify green economy policies and undermine upland dwellers’ constructions of place. Our findings raise critical questions about the realization of the vision of the green economy in the Philippines and much of the Global South. Regardless of the inclusive growth discourse in the green economy program, elite constructions of the idle and unproductive uplands pose serious risks to upland environments and populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Global ecosystem services are clearly threatened by deforestation associated with human occupation and economic development of the Brazilian Amazon. However, the prognosis for the socioeconomic wellbeing of inhabitants remains unclear. In an empirical regularity that has been termed the boom–bust pattern or the resource curse, the exploitation of natural resources is associated with short-run gains in welfare that dissipate over time. This “coupling hypothesis” asserts that deforestation and development are correlated such that deforestation leads to only short-term advances in economic welfare that are not sustained once natural forests (along with their mature timber and soil inputs) are exhausted. In contrast, the “decoupling hypothesis” asserts that deforestation and development need not be correlated over time. In this context, growth that is initially based on deforestation may be sustained and translated into prolonged welfare gains, even once the forest is exhausted. Using census and deforestation data from 1991, 2000 and 2010 for municipalities (i.e., counties) in the Amazon region we confirm that this boom–bust pattern appears in cross-sectional data. However, using panel data we show that socioeconomic welfare has become decoupled from environmental factors and is converging to rising national averages. Our findings contradict the conventional wisdom that the exploitation of tropical forests is required to promote Amazonian development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Value chains are an increasingly popular approach to understanding complex policy challenges in agricultural development. However, value chain research and development has often been too narrowly focused on the structural elements of production, resulting in lack of adaptive capacity. Drawing on the concept of communities of practice, this paper seeks to operationalize an understanding of how the social relations that underpin smallholder-related value chains can be better supported to enhance resilience. Case studies from the Caribbean are then used to illustrate how a community of practice approach to value chain development might facilitate the formation of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary There is a renewed global interest in support of family farming becoming a more competitive sector, contributing to poverty alleviation, food security, and economic growth. This paper explores the development conditions faced by family farmers across Brazil. We not only reveal a potential for development, represented by the great number of family-based rural households, but also present several structural constraints faced by most family farmers, as well as great discrepancies among regions. We argue for encouraging the existing family farming potential by designing policies that consciously target specific regional challenges and avoid excluding segments not fitting into the modernization paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Framed by concepts of territorial project, social coalitions, and scalar relationships, we analyze rural territorial dynamics under conditions of rapid expansion in natural gas extraction. Analyzing recent economic, political, and territorial transformations of Bolivia’s gas-rich region, Tarija, we argue that pre-existing territorial projects of a diverse set of subnational and national actors have: (i) shaped the influence of the gas industry on local dynamics; (ii) changed the scale relationships between local communities, the state, and companies; and (iii) mediated the transformation of territories in ways determined by the nature and aspirations of these territorial projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary We explore the effects of the growing urbanization of rural areas in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico and investigate whether the presence of small- and medium-sized cities within rural–urban territories enhances economic growth and reduces poverty and income inequality compared to deep-rural and metropolitan territories. For Chile and Colombia, our results suggest that these urban centers can make a greater contribution to the rate of economic growth and poverty reduction in rural–urban territories compared to deep-rural ones, but in some cases with a rise in income inequality. The mechanisms through which urban centers affect the dynamics of territorial development are country-specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper analyzes the extent to which transformative territorial coalitions can deliberately change the exclusive structures that afflict rural territories in Latin America. A historical comparison of three rural territorial dynamics in Ecuador demonstrates that deliberate planning is not necessary to promote an inclusive and equitable economic dynamic if a long historical process has created favorable territorial social structures. When territories do not have such social structures, they are more likely to require a strong exogenous shock to create a new and inclusive economic organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary A growing number of extraterritorial private-sector actors, often in partnership with the state, are expanding the frontiers of extractive and primary export economies to new rural territories in Latin America. This paper analyzes the conditions that might drive meaningful efforts to address environmental problems in territories dominated by large, externally controlled natural resource-based activities. It studies three cases: salmon aquaculture in Chiloé (Chile), fruit growing in O’Higgins (Chile), and gas production in Tarija (Bolivia). We conclude that such efforts are unlikely to occur unless environmental problems directly threaten the short-term viability of the activities or social movements emerge to demand change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Natural resources constitute an important axis around which rural territorial dynamics revolve. Based on empirical registration of how applications for and denouncements of natural resource use are dealt with in two Nicaraguan rural territories, this paper examines the importance of inequality for the institutional practices through which district-level governance of natural resource use takes place. Notable differences are identified. The paper concludes that institutional practices which promote rule-based natural resource governance and gradually curb the veto possibilities of powerful actors are more likely to emerge in territories where political voice is not restricted to the economic elite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Linkage to dynamic markets is a key factor in understanding why different rural territories in Latin America perform differently. This paper combines two conceptual frameworks (from the new economic geography and economic sociology) for an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms that operate in this linkage and to identify key factors that allow for inclusive economic development. This analysis considers three rural territories that exemplify market linkages frequently observed in Latin America, where, although high transaction costs and limited access to financial capital prevail, other types of capital (social, cultural, and human capital) available to rural dwellers can be mobilized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This article is the introduction to a volume containing findings from a program conducted over five years in 11 Latin America countries, to answer three questions: (1) Are there rural territories that have experienced simultaneous economic growth, poverty reduction, and improved distribution of income?; (2) What factors determine these territorial dynamics?, and; (3) What can be done to stimulate and promote this kind of territorial dynamics? The article outlines the analytical and policy issues and the methodology, summarizes the remaining 10 papers in the collection, and presents a conceptual framework that itself is one of the results of the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review the trend and types of large-scale land transaction in Ethiopia since 1992 and assess the impacts of one such investment using four scenarios: (i) a baseline scenario; (ii) the forest loss resulting from the land transfer; (iii) the operation of the investment at full scale; and (iv) an alternative scenario of a smaller investment paired with a more inclusive rural development policy. Results showed that forest resources are important for the rural poor, but that losses can be offset by gains from employment generation and business opportunities. The alternative scenario indicated opportunities for better social and environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Sanctions are often considered an important component of successful resource management. To govern water usage, pastoral communities in Namibia have specific sanctions at their disposal and yet these are almost never applied. Interestingly, this does not lead to a breakdown in water supply. To understand collective action in small communities it is important to take into account that people share multiple resources. Combining ethnography and network analysis we reveal that people cannot separate the sharing of water from the sharing of ancestries, food, and work. This discourages the application of formal sanctions while opening other means of maintaining institutional regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]