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In the last decade, microinsurance witnessed an upward trend in India, accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting its necessity. Despite this, research indicates that microinsurance penetration remains limited, especially in Developing Countries like India. This study aims to evaluate the reach of micro-term insurance and the challenges faced by the underprivileged in accessing its benefits. Secondary data reveals that microinsurance failed to reach Poor People. However, Primary data underscores that the primary barriers are lack of awareness and the amount of premium. Moreover, we found that individuals outside the poverty demographic perceive microinsurance as advantageous for themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incidence of energy poverty in the Global South is identified by the lack of basic access to modern fuels and energy carriers. Impoverished people have traditional biomass and human power as their only sources of energy. This situation of deprivation of basic resources, in which (according to estimates of international agencies) almost one third of the world's population lives, masks other relevant characteristics of energy poverty. Current assessments of energy poverty in impoverished areas and the mitigation strategies being implemented are derived from the development agenda and, with variations in detail and scope, highlight electricity connections and access to clean cooking fuels as guarantors of progress. However, a comprehensive understanding of energy poverty requires focusing beyond basic access, building on the interactions between the supply of energy sources and carriers, the provision of energy services, and their impact on decent living conditions. To deal with the effects of these interactions on the energy poor, several studies have attempted in the last decade to construct an assessment framework centred on energy services. This work discusses the relevant dimensions in the framework (supply, services, and impact on wellbeing), reviews the multidisciplinary work available in each aspect, presents a range of proposed taxonomies, and discusses the different issues. A detailed framework is proposed for the integrated assessment of the supply of energy carriers and energy equipment, the provision of relevant energy services, and the improvements obtained in living conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only one in seven of the world's population have ever migrated, despite the enormous gains in income possible through international and internal movement. I examine the evidence for different explanations given in the economics literature for this lack of movement and their implications for policy. Incorrect information about the gains to migrating, liquidity constraints that prevent poor people paying the costs of moving, and high costs of movement arising from both physical transportation costs and policy barriers all inhibit movement and offer scope for policy efforts to inform, provide credit, and lower moving costs. However, the economics literature has paid less attention to the fears people have when faced with the uncertainty of moving to a new place, and to the reasons behind the tears they shed when moving. While these tears reveal the attachment people have to particular places, this attachment is not fixed, but itself changes with migration experiences. Psychological factors such as a bias toward the status quo and the inability to picture what one is giving up by not migrating can result in people not moving, even when they would benefit from movement and are not constrained by finances or policy barriers from doing so. This suggests new avenues for policy interventions that can help individuals better visualize the opportunity costs of not moving, alleviate their uncertainties, and help shift their default behavior from not migrating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the relationships between multidimensional and monetary poverty indices in international and national poverty profiles, and empirically explore the consequences of identifying poor people relying on a combination of both approaches. Taking first a cross-country perspective, focusing on 90 countries in the developing world, we corroborate that the incidence of poverty by money metrics and the global Multidimensional Poverty Index, a non-monetary measure of poverty, are correlated. Digging deeper, we use microdata from six countries—Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Uganda—to study the joint densities of monetary and multidimensional welfare and the poverty identification mismatches for a comprehensive array of poverty line pairs. Mismatches are important, particularly in the poorer countries. Although mismatches could be avoided by combining both approaches in a dual cutoff-based poverty measure, the choice of the monetary poverty line remains a considerable issue as it changes the nonmonetary composition of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eradication of poverty as proposed by the first Sustainable Development Goal is one of the main challenges faced by all countries, especially the underdeveloped and developing nations. In this paper, we develop an approach for integrating the input–output framework with a microsimulation model where consumption and income data are highly disaggregated and along with Miyazawa linkages. This allows us to identify how sectoral economic structure affects income distribution. This, in turn, provides information relevant to the inclusive growth policies that can create work opportunities for the low-income population and, thereby eliminating poverty. Results show how labor-intensive sectors might be important in ending poverty and in reducing inequality. They even show the set of activities that could best contribute to this goal via changes in the productive structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Informal settlement growth in various countries has led to distinctive actions that enhance low‐income populations' accessibility to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services. This trend indicates the need for comparative studies between countries and cities to understand the factors that lead to policy learning opportunities. We conducted an experimental comparison between Accra, Ghana, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, to understand, first, how policies on informal settlements have been formed, and secondly, what inquiries should be made to address housing informality in the global South. A comparison shows that these cities/countries have shared moments of neoliberalization and that their poor residents have experienced similar struggles regarding housing availability and the pursuit of extensive governmental interventions. Therefore, their experiences are worth examining. Our comparison indicates that first, Buenos Aires/Argentina has adopted more inclusive policies regarding informal dwellers than Accra/Ghana, and secondly, that diversifying housing solutions are an inevitable dynamic in cities/countries experiencing a surge in housing pressure across classes, races and geographies. In this article we articulate how the governments of these countries have dealt with these challenges and conceptualize the coproduction needs of housing informality in developing countries. We encourage policymakers facing informality in the South to respond to the questions we raise about facilitating policy learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of the United Nations 'Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)' initiative since 2015 has been "Eradicating extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030," if not wholly, then at least reduce it to an ambitious 3% of the world's population. These concerns have been a reality in Africa, home to 34 of the world's 48 poorest countries, and about two-thirds of the world's developing countries are in Africa. Furthermore, of the 32 countries in the world with the lowest levels of human development, 24 are in Africa. Even in other continents, where poverty levels have declined dramatically over the past four decades, Africa's population of poor people has increased. Therefore, if poverty is to be reduced to 3% globally, Africa would be at the forefront of this movement. This paper seeks to contribute to this ongoing discourse through the description of the nature of African poverty, the comparison of African perceptions of poverty in the past as they relate to the present, the consideration of factors militating against African growth, and the presentation of a Biblical framework for developing a new Africa. Through the historical-critical method, the paper revealed that African history demands that a new generation of African leaders detach themselves from the failed cultures and policies of the past and engage in the global struggle to eradicate poverty. Only when Africa becomes a model for prosperity and dignity can it be acknowledged that a new Africa has emerged to take her place at the forefront of global progress and development. Finally, the paper recommends that Africa accept, recognise and identify her challenges and seek solutions from within; leadership development has to be prioritised; trustworthy, visionary, and God-fearing leaders be given opportunities; the need for electoral processes to be open and accommodating for everyone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) has impacted the world immensely in terms of both global health and economy. It has exacerbated the gap between the economically advantaged and disadvantaged groups in terms of access to various resources and opportunities across the world. This situation has been described as 'collateral damage', which represents unexpected and unintended negative impacts that deprive the poor of certain opportunities and rights. Interestingly, the differences in capability to respond to the issues caused by COVID-19 are observed in developed and developing countries alike. This paper aims to discuss the potential risk factors that encourage students to drop out as collateral damage due to COVID-19, based on the literature on developing South East Asian countries. This commentary argues that collateral damage caused by COVID-19 has revealed a serious limitation in the nature of formal schooling in South East Asia. Although more socio-economically vulnerable groups can participate in formal schooling, there is still not a sufficiently communal climate in these schools that would prevent them from dropping out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large body of research shows that mobile money through its agent networks can potentially increase financial inclusion, especially in the unbanked rural regions of the developing world. This study intends to establish whether agent liquidity has a significant moderating effect in the relationship between mobile money services and financial inclusion of the unbanked poor population in rural sub-Saharan Africa. The data were collected from mobile money users through a cross-sectional approach using a semi-structured quantitative questionnaire and Analysis of Moment Structures was used to test for the moderating effect of agent liquidity between mobile money services and financial inclusion. The results revealed a significant moderating effect of agent liquidity in the relationship between mobile money services and financial inclusion of the unbanked poor population in rural sub-Saharan Africa with data collected from rural Uganda. Agent liquidity enhances access to and usage of mobile money services by 27 percentage points to spur financial inclusion among the unbanked rural poor population. Similarly, agent liquidity has a direct significant effect on access to and usage of mobile money services among the unbanked rural poor population. Overall, the results showed that agent liquidity plays a significant and positive moderating role between mobile money services and financial inclusion. The findings from this study can help mobile money providers to increase cash float amounts to boost agent liquidity to meet instant cash-in and cash-out demands of customers. Besides, regulations on mobile money agents should be loosen to allow more village "dukas" (small village shops) to offer mobile money financial services to crowd-in more unbanked rural poor population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 pandemic has undermined the functionality of formal and informal economies globally, with developing countries suffering the social, political and economic effects of the pandemic. Economic downturns in the global south, including Nigeria, have given rise to declining state control in the face of human insecurity. This study, hinging on the neoliberal political economy thesis, examines the economic crisis and declining state control the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown engendered in managing the security situation in Nigeria. The study, utilizing the dominant qualitative methods, comprising interviews, focus group discussions, and documented evidence, highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown disproportionately affected the people, mainly poor people, households and communities in different parts of the country. The failure of the government to engage in an effective social protection policy generated discontent and led to criminal activities undermining security in Nigeria. The study concludes that the insecurity and economic crisis the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown engendered have weakened the state's authority in Nigeria. The study suggests that engaging effective social protection policy presents an opportunity for mitigating security challenges to bring about socioeconomic stability in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ethnographic studies presented by Agbiboa are moving away from traditional visions about war and insurgency as well as corruption and illegality. However, in these studies, subjectivity is constituted, not only through, the mechanisms and strategies that lead to corruption, nor does subjectivity emerge as the result of transport technologies implementation. Mobility and corruption in reference to the transportation system in Lagos are the focus of analysis that allow Agbiboa to consider these complex phenomena. [Extracted from the article]

People's committees were the most common, present in 76% of the shack settlements Ngwane visited, compared to only 45% with ward committees and 17% with ANC committees ([7]). With a view from South Africa's informal settlements, Trevor Ngwane's I Amakomiti: Grassroots Democracy in South African Shack Settlements i provides a welcome intervention into ongoing debates about the state of and possibilities for working-class struggle. All members of area committees are ANC members, and the ANC has assumed "near total hegemony ... over local politics" ([7]: pp. 82-83). Indeed, Ngwane suggests that shack dwellers may help to restore some of the democratic practice that South African unions, once a bastion of radical resistance and shop-floor democracy, appear to have lost in the post-apartheid period. [Extracted from the article]

Over the past decades, biomedical researchers have made great progress in finding the treatment for many diseases which have been considered in the past as incurable. The struggle for longevity and positive health has been addressed by medical science. People who can afford it are assured by the promise of genetic engineering. But while there has been considerable development in the treatment of diseases, the number of mortalities in poor countries remains high, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia. Around 8 million people die each year worldwide due to poverty-related health issues. Despite the advancement in the treatment of diseases, poor people in most of the developing countries worldwide are dying each year. This article will argue that human poverty and the existence of infectious diseases are inseparable social phenomena that affect the fate of the poor in developing countries. Following Amartya Sen, this article will argue that access to advanced health care services should be affordable to all, and should form part of individual freedoms that the national policies of a country must secure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pandemic has exposed the costs of job and income losses. Emergency cash transfers can mitigate the worst immediate effects on people who lack access to safety nets. This research note provides estimates for a potential Temporary Basic Income (TBI) for poor and near-poor people across 132 developing countries, as well as the minimum cost of income support sufficient to mitigate the pandemic-induced poverty increase. The total monthly cost of the TBI ranges 0.27–0.63% of developing countries' combined GDP, depending on the choice: (i) top-ups on each country's average incomes up to a vulnerability threshold; (ii) transfers based on each country's median standard of living; or (iii) uniform transfers. This note argues that some form of TBI is within reach and can inform a larger conversation about how to build comprehensive social protection systems that make the poor and near-poor more resilient to economic downturns in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Live-work housing is a dwelling type that accommodates living and livelihood activities. In the Global South, live-work housing plays a vital role in income generation and is central to poverty alleviation at the household level. They are particularly vital to women and older people by giving them a level of financial independence that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. Despite these and owing to limited understanding, live-work housing in the Global South remains unpopular with planning and regulatory authorities because it is perceived to be synonymous with informal settlements and poor living and working conditions. However, in order to make adequate housing provision for residents of informal settlements, it is important not to just devise a vision of the new space to be created but to first understand how low-income people use their existing spaces to sustain their living and livelihood. The most suitable tool to generate such a knowledge base is postoccupancy evaluation. This project developed and tested a live-work housing evaluation tool for low-income informal settlements in Bangkok, Thailand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the global south, regimes of labour and mobility control are reforming that attempt to manage the northern movement of people. By combining financing development projects with explicit forms of border enforcement (including border personnel training and new securitization technologies), western governments and southern elites attempt to encourage publics (invariably poorer people of colour) to stay in local regions, rather than seek better livelihoods elsewhere. By reference to the USAID funded Centros Quédate or Stay Here Centres in Guatemala, this paper explores the merging of development and migration governance regimes through the concept of "frontiering through development." The paper argues that initiatives such as these fail to consider the root causes of colonialism and imperialism that have long led people to migrate in the first place. Moreover, migration is cast as something problematic under discourses of populist economic nationalist sentiment, rather than beneficial to migrants, country-of-origin and destination regions. However, rather than passive recipients of patronising development, I show how participants rework the Quédate programme to fit their own onward goals. Paternalist development paradigms should take into account how crucial and embedded mobile livelihoods are in present-day realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional markets in Latin American metropolises may mitigate the risks of urbanization-commercialization in historical sites and mediate rural-city and ancestral-contemporary interactions. Considering that the Xochimilco Market (Mexico City) generates centripetal-centrifugal forces which activate the local economy (formal and informal), the goal of the article is to analyze the indissolubility of its neighboring internal and external trade spaces (producer zones, informal trade, chinampas), creating a territory of supply, labor, and subsistence of the impoverished population. A mixed methodological design is adopted, with participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and qualitative spatial analysis. The decolonial concept of " territorialheritage" and the theory of "circuits of urban economy" applied to the Global South helps verify the socio-spatial experiences and permanence that, from the market, subjects and families have maintained, in a scenario of selective modernization of metropolitan territories and growth of informality onto the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems have witnessed significant growth worldwide, particularly in rapidly urbanizing cities in the developing world, often implemented through public-private partnerships to foster economic growth. However, the success of such ambitions relies on ensuring equitable transit access for all residents, including those living with poverty or other social disadvantages. The purpose of this study is to explore transit access, coverage, and equity of the BRT system in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania using infrastructure-based measures of proximity to transit stations and stops. In particular, the equitable distribution of transit access patterns is explored in relation to neighborhood socio-economic strata in the catchment areas within a 30-min walking distance. The study's findings reveal notable disparities in the level of access among various socio-economic strata, with the least deprived population benefiting the most from the Dar-es-Salaam BRT system. As more BRT phases are implemented, there is a continuous increase in the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) within the areas not covered by the BRT system. This suggests that access improvements predominantly favor the wealthier population rather than effectively addressing the needs of the impoverished population. To enhance access and achieve more equitable outcomes, it is crucial to implement targeted strategies and measures. These may include improved integration of the BRT with a feeder system, continuous improvement of Non-Motorized Transport (NMT) facilities, and the promotion of equitable transit-oriented development along the BRT corridor. These initiatives play a vital role in ensuring that vulnerable populations, especially the poor, have access to and can benefit from the BRT services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scalp electrical burns unsuitable for primary closure after debridement have traditionally been treated by modalities that cause significant morbidity and are aesthetically inferior to tension-free primary wound closure. Due to advances in research on the biomechanical properties of skin, various devices for skin stretching and safe wound closure have been reported in the literature that are expensive and inaccessible to poor people in the developing countries. We present our experience using cable ties as an effective, easy to use, readily available, and inexpensive top closure system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The base of the world income pyramid, typically known as the Base of the pyramid (BOP), represents low-income people living in developing countries. Co-design with BOP people is crucial for sustained adoption and use of products and services. Based on interviews with practising designers, we identify barriers and enablers that the designers encounter in undertaking various tasks in the process of co-designing with these marginalised people. The findings suggest that a broad range of factors, related to the BOP context, co-design processes and methods, organisational issues, and aspects of collaboration, support or hinder activities in the co-design process. Consideration of these factors, as perceived by the designers, can lead to more impactful co-design with BOP people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by the work of Alistair Anderson on entrepreneurship as embedded in institutional contexts, this paper explores the experiences of 30 women micropreneurs in rural South-East Nigeria. These women are amongst the poorest people in the world and live in an environment marginalized from formal institutions, where informal ones are prioritized, and where culture and tradition reflect patriarchal limitations on their activities and experiences. We find that while microfinance is often cited as one of the key mitigators of institutional voids and an important support for entrepreneuring in deprived contexts, in fact there are critical barriers to uptake and socio-cultural conditions are found to limit the extent to which women trust and engage with microfinance. To that end, new methodologies that might mitigate perceived risks, including deepening poverty, are called for. Implications for those who would support enterprise in poverty circumstances in developing nations include that to be effective they must engage with the socio-cultural institutions and lived realities amongst the people they seek to serve. Alongside this, further application and development of the approaches to studying entrepreneurship in marginalized environments that Alistair was such as central contributor to are advocated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the U.S. embassies, especially in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), include development specialists from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) with focus on high-impact development assistance is needed by the poorest countries. It mentions that the U.S. seizes the opportunity to demonstrate to the world that it wants the development assistance process to work and is serious about reducing the high level of poverty in LDCs.

Medical tourists from neighboring states and countries, most notably Myanmar, have flocked to India in recent years. India's top medical professionals and institutions are vying for out-ofcountry patients as part of the Indian government's Act East Policy. International medical tourism is not a new concept, but its recent meteoric rise in popularity certainly is. People from poorer countries used to have to travel to more developed countries in order to get advanced medical treatment. Healthcare consumers in the developed world are increasingly traveling to poor countries for treatment because they perceive medical care to be of greater quality and lower cost there. India's expanding status as a top destination for medical tourists is having a positive impact on the country's economy, society, and culture. New employment, increased tourism revenue, and enhanced local quality of life brought about by better infrastructure and education all fall under this category. Current medical facilities in India are cutting edge, and their staffs of physicians and nurses are among the best in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem definition: Inspired by India's challenges in importing pulses, we study the negotiation of government-to-government food importing contracts, with a focus on ad hoc and forward negotiations with multiple suppliers (henceforth referred to as multiple-sourcing negotiations). Academic/practical relevance: We are the first to comprehensively study ad hoc and forward multiple-sourcing negotiations for food importing. Such problems are widespread, especially in developing nations, and thus the research can be relevant to the wellbeing of large underprivileged populations. Methodology: We develop an analytical negotiation model in the Nash bargaining framework and adopt the Nash-in-Nash framework to analyze multiple-sourcing negotiations. Results: We find that while forward negotiations are not necessarily better than ad hoc negotiations for the buyer, it would be true with sufficiently many suppliers. When facing a supplier pool, we show that it may be optimal to mix forward and ad hoc suppliers. In general, fewer suppliers should be assigned as ad hoc as the pool size increases. We also find that adding a hybrid supplier (engaged in a forward negotiation with an ad hoc negotiation as the fallback option) may be better or worse than adding a forward supplier in the presence of other suppliers. Managerial implications: Our findings inform how a food importer should strategically utilize ad hoc and forward negotiations with its suppliers to improve the outcome. The work may help countries' food importing policymaking and strategies and may improve the wellbeing of large underprivileged populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: entrepreneurial education; attitude toward enterprise; developing countries; Rasch Measurement Theory EN entrepreneurial education attitude toward enterprise developing countries Rasch Measurement Theory 1 12 12 02/18/22 20220401 NES 220401 1 Introduction A positive relationship between economic growth and entrepreneurship has been widely established for the African context ([2]). [Extracted from the article]

In order to tell the story of why the 1970s and 1980s are pivotal moments in the history of development, Meyerowitz builds on essential works of earlier generations of historians of development. Women borrowed from one lender to simply pay off another and a massive literature would arise concluding that the financialization of poverty only made it more entrenched.[3] As Meyerowitz concludes, the boldest among the development reformers dreamed of structural changes to the global economy, but they ended up with microfinance. Joanne Meyerowitz begins her compelling account by asking how in the United States the lodestar of the development enterprise went from modernization, defined as the structural transformation of society, to preventing poverty. [Extracted from the article]

In the context of first/last mile, the bicycle-transit intermodality could lessen accessibility problems of stations and stops, reducing the need for feeder services. Although extensively addressed in developed countries, bicycle-transit is less studied in Global South metropolises, where distinct usage patterns are observed. Thus, this research aimed to model the choice behavior of the low-income population for bicycle-transit integration in Fortaleza - Brazil, a large Latin American city with a deployed bike-sharing system focused mainly on bike-bus integration. A Stated Preference (SP) survey was conducted addressing socioeconomic and trip characteristics, as well as policy variables such as bicycle parking and cycleways/lanes. SP data allowed the estimation of nested and mixed logit models representing choice behavior, and sample segmentation was used to identify heterogeneity among different groups of individuals. The results show that investing in bicycle infrastructure could stimulate bike-bus integration in Fortaleza; however, their relative importance depends on the analyzed individual strata. Findings also indicate the influence of public and road safety issues, as well as gender, income, and trip characteristics such as purpose and access distance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing and communicating flood risks necessitates a strong understanding of how people perceive risk. It has become critical to examine risk perception to implement effective disaster risk management (DRM) measures. Socioeconomic determinants have an impact on risk perception, which in turn affects future adaptive capacity and disaster preparedness. First and foremost, this research attempts to determine how Pakistani people in rural areas perceive flood risk, and second, to examine the factors that can influence rural residents' perceptions of flood risk. The data for this study were collected through face-to-face interviews with 600 respondents (household heads) from Charsadda and Nowshera districts that were severely affected by the 2010 flood. A flood risk perception index was developed (using a risk matrix) using relevant attributes on a Likert scale and classified into two categories: high and low perceived risk. Furthermore, a binary regression model was used to examine the influence of socioeconomic and institutional factors on rural households' risk perception. Flood risk was perceived by 67 percent of the total sampled participants in the study regions. The results of binary logistic regression demonstrate that flood risk perception is strongly linked to socioeconomic variables such as age, education, house ownership, family size, past flood experience, and distance from the nearest river source, as well as institutional factors such as access to credit and extreme weather forecast information. The findings of the current study additionally revealed that flood risk perception varied among household heads based on education (1–10 years perceived high flood risk (51.47%)), age (age greater than 40 years perceived high flood risk (52.83%)), and monthly income levels (lower monthly income group perceived high flood risk (73.02%)). The findings of this study shed light on rural households' perception of flood risk and the factors that shape such perceptions. These findings can assist provincial and local disaster management authorities in better understanding flood risk and adopting local actions that could be used to respond to flood and other climate-related disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The paper empirically investigates the impact of financial inclusion on food security. Subsequently, it examines the overall effect of various dimensions of financial inclusion on food security of developing countries using the panel data for the time period of 2004–2019. Design/methodology/approach: To overcome the problem of endogeneity, the study has used a fixed-effect model, two-stage least-square and system generalized method of moments estimation techniques. Secondary data was collected from various websites such as WDI, FAO, UNICEF and UNESCO. Findings: It was found in the study that there is a significant effect of financial inclusion on food security. The evidence shows that if there is more financial inclusion in the country, it will help poor people to cope with difficult situations they face and provide them food security. Financial development, per capita income, agriculture growth and education positively affect food security, while militarization and urbanization have a negative impact on food security. The crux of the analysis is that any country's financial sector is an integral part of any country that supports food security. Originality/value: The literature does not clearly show the impact of financial inclusion dimensions on developing countries' food security. Therefore, there is a need to use all the dimensions of financial inclusion to check the overall impact on food security. For this purpose, the financial inclusion index is developed. A new dimension of non-life insurance is introduced that has not been used previously by any researcher to check financial inclusion impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is widespread recognition that environmental disasters disproportionately affect the poor in developing countries, yet certain kinds of violence also strip white, middle-class communities in industrialized countries of vital resources to respond. Social vulnerability as a mutually constitutive relationship between distinct types of shocks and capacities to respond requires further research. I explore how the temporal dimension of shocks creates different types of structural risks, and articulate how these interact with the agency of affected communities. The first section deals with attributes of different environmental shocks, the second examines the agency of individuals and communities, the third analyzes the relationship between extractive industry violence and capacities for response. This generates a typology that enables us to chart the creation of vulnerable subjects. This framework also helps us develop insights into the underlying dimensions of social vulnerability and makes it possible to better classify cases of vulnerable populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2020, the President of South African announced that the nation would go into full lockdown in the wake of an increase in COVID-19 infections. Academics had, in some instances, only one day to prepare for "emergency remote teaching". Few academics had taught online before, as South Africa's internet connectivity is not guaranteed in underprivileged areas, where 80 per cent of the population reside. The online move thus necessitated an entirely novel pedagogy for most academics, with high potential for an escalation of work-related stress and related illness, outcomes we have related in the wider sphere of workplace readjustment during COVID-19, to a state of "pandemia". In this article, we report on an institutional case study where we surveyed n=136 academics from a university in the Western Cape, South Africa to learn more about impacts of COVID-19 on their work. The data analysis adopts Ryff's (1995) theory of wellbeing. Findings indicate that the enforced lockdown due to COVID-19 and the subsequent move to online teaching has had a negative impact on academics' sense of well-being. However, the emergence of positive, caring relationships between colleagues is reported as a significant outcome of the COVID-19 enforced move to online teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few decades, across the Global South, there has been a rapid expansion of extensive social welfare programs targeting low-income people. This rise of social protection in Latin American countries and across Southern Africa has been praised as being "the really big development story of the last twenty years" (J. Ferguson) and as a "development revolution from the Global South" (Barrientos, Hanlon, and Hulme). Social policy became a "key domain of policy innovation" in the Global South. The new thinking was deeply rooted in a conviction that it is better to give money to poor people directly so that they can find the most effective ways to escape from poverty themselves, rather than build government (or philanthropic) for such purposes. Millions of poor citizens, previously ignored by the state, have become direct beneficiaries of cash transfer programs, that are non-contributory and paid directly from state treasury, being nominally conditional on an income test. The new modalities of distribution in the Global South were associated with both new kids of political claim-making and new possibilities for political mobilization. One of the novelties of new social assistance programs can be seen in abandoning one of the main conceptions of traditional welfare states: traditional social payments are conceived as instrument for dealing with (short) interruptions adult heads of households cannot earn wages to support their families. The new cash transfer programs start from a different understanding of what constitutes a 'normal' situation in the Global South, the fact of mass, structural unemployment, supposing that social support is needed only for "dependent" categories. In Southern Africa, South Africa has led the way with an extensive national system of social payments, anchored by old age pensions, childcare grants, and disability payments. Other countries from the region followed suit. It is by now well documented that cash transfer programs worked and have a "positive development impact". Considering the impact of cash transfer programs on individuals and households, the evidence suggests that those benefits are often go beyond a program's core objectives. Unfortunately, despite the unambiguous successes of the cash transfer programmes as well as the broad acceptance they enjoy across nearly the whole range of society, they are still nonetheless restricted by a conservative understanding of "deserving" and "non-deserving poor", and therefore they do not offer any benefits to working age, able-bodied men. The main goal of the article is to understand and explore the political as well as social significance of these new developments in Southern Africa, especially regarding the potential introduction of a universal basic income grant, but also in providing an input into ongoing discussions on the reforms of development aid provided in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using recent data, this study compares observed rates of decline in multidimensional poverty headcount with the rates required to reduce the headcount by one-half as envisaged in SDG Target 1.2. It is found that in a majority of countries, that contain an overwhelming proportion of multidimensionally poor people, observed rates of headcount reduction are not enough to lower multidimensional poverty headcount by one-half during the SDG period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vitamin A deficiency remains a common public health problem among the rice-dependent poor people in the developing countries of Asia. Conventional milled rice does not contain provitamin A (β-carotene) in is edible part (endosperm) and is also deficient in essential minerals, such as iron and zinc. Transgenic Golden Rice event GR2E, which produces β-carotene in its endosperm, was used as a parent to introgress the transgene locus conferring β-carotene biosynthesis into a widely grown rice variety, BRRI dhan29, which covers around 26.1% of the irrigated rice area (4.901 Mha) of Bangladesh in the dry season. The current study reports the introgression process and field performance of GR2E BRRI dhan29 Golden Rice. The background recovery of GR2E BRRI dhan29 lines at BC5F2 generation was more than 98% with a 6K SNP-chip set. The transgenic GR2E BRRI dhan29 yielded 6.2 t/ha to 7.7 t/ha with an average of 7.0 ± 0.38 t/ha, while the non-transgenic BRRI dhan29 yielded 7.0 t/ha under confined field conditions in Bangladesh. Moreover, no significant difference between GR2-E BRRI dhan29 Golden Rice and non-transgenic BRRI dhan29 in any measured trait was observed in the multi-location trials conducted at five locations across the country. Furthermore, the appearance of cooked and uncooked rice was similar to that of BRRI dhan29 except for the yellow color indicating the presence of carotenoids. Total carotenoid content in the selected introgression lines ranged from 8.5 to 12.5 μg/g with an average of 10.6 ± 1.16 μg/g. This amount is sufficient to deliver approximately 66 and 80% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A for children and women, respectively, assuming complete substitution of white rice in the diet with Golden Rice. However, the lead selected line(s) need further evaluation at open field conditions before deciding for commercial cultivation. A large-scale feeding trial among the malnourished community with this newly developed GR2-E BRRI dhan29 Golden Rice is also required to validate its efficacy in alleviating vitamin A deficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proxy Means Testing (PMT) is a popular method to target the poor in developing countries. PMT usually relies on survey-based consumption data and assumes random measurement errors – an assumption that has been challenged by recent literature. Using a survey experiment conducted in Tanzania, this paper brings causal evidence on the impact of non-random errors on PMT performances. Results show that non-random errors bias the coefficients from PMT models, resulting in a 5 to 27 per cent reduction in PMT predictive performances. Moreover, non-random errors induce a 10 to 34 per cent increase in the incidence of targeting errors when poverty is defined in absolute terms. More reassuringly, impacts on the ranking of households are smaller and essentially non-significant. Taken together, these results indicate that PMT performances are quite vulnerable to non-random errors when the objective is to target absolutely poor households, but remain largely unaffected when the objective is to target a fixed share of the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in market-based solutions to reduce poverty has grown substantially in the last decade. However, missing from the core of the management conversation has been an adequate understanding of the poor as producers. Drawing on an in-depth study of market-based poverty alleviation initiatives for smallholder farmers by a nongovernmental organization in a least developed economy, this article explains how a non-state organization can reduce poverty for poor producers and improve overall market functioning. It suggests that meaningful improvements in income can be explained by the enhancement of market practices that redistribute social control toward poor producers and reduce the constraining effects of market and governance failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence is being reconfigured as a set of technologies that can address poverty with precision. The impacts of AI will both exacerbate and ameliorate the conditions of uneven development. Recent debates focus on the disruptive effects of AI, particularly to replication of development trajectories that have had success in reducing poverty. In this paper we further these debates by analysing the backroads of AI. The backroads serve as a metaphor for understanding the ways AI will travel from the sites of incubation to the frontlines of uneven development. We explore dialogues between AI and development in two arenas: the World Bank's Development Impact Evaluation initiative (DIME) and the Government of India's national AI strategy, #AIforAll. We argue that both these arenas serve as hubs from which AI will travel out along the backroads to remote, poor, and fragmented polities. While the World Bank utilises AI as technology to empower experts and mobilise a techno‐political authority, what we refer to as precision AI, India seeks to function as a second‐tier AI hub, making AI cheaper and more accessible domestically and for other developing countries, what we refer to as populist AI. We conclude by discussing the interrelations of precision and populist AI along the backroads, and the potential of backroads research for mapping AI, uneven geographies of development and technology and the impacts of AI's disruptions at different scales. Artificial intelligence is being reconfigured as a set of technologies that can address poverty with precision. We further these debates by analysing the backroads of AI in two arenas: the World Bank's Development Impact Evaluation initiative (DIME) and the Government of India's national AI strategy #AIforAll. While the World Bank utilises AI as technology to empower experts and mobilise a techno‐political authority, what we refer to as precision AI, India seeks to function as a second‐tier AI hub, making AI cheaper and more accessible domestically and for other developing countries, what we refer to as populist AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sixteen years ago, Prahalad and Hart (Strategy + Business 26:2–14, 2002) introduced the possibility of both profitably serving the poor and alleviating poverty. This first iteration of the Bottom/Base of the Pyramid approach (known as BoP 1.0) focused on selling to the poor. In 2008, after ethical criticisms leveled at it, the field moved to BoP 2.0, instead emphasizing business co-venturing. Since 2015, we have witnessed some calls for a new iteration (BoP 3.0), with the focus broadening to a more sustainable development approach to poverty alleviation. In this paper, we seek to answer the question: How has the BoP approach evolved over the past 16 years, and has it delivered on its early promise? We conducted a systematic review of 276 papers published in journals in this period, utilizing a rigorous correspondence analysis method to map key trends, and then further examined the 22 empirical studies conducted on the BoP approach. Our results suggest that the field has evolved, passing through a number of trends and coming full circle—with our analysis pointing to more recent BoP literature emphasizing similar themes to those espoused in the initial BoP iteration (i.e., treating the BoP as consumers), rather than reflecting the principles espoused in either BoP 2.0 or BoP 3.0. Our analysis also points to a lack of clear evidence that the BoP concept has delivered on its promise either to businesses (that they can serve BoP markets profitably) or to BoP participants (that involvement by multinational corporations will help alleviate poverty). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research tried to analyze the ability of microfinance institutions to become effective alternatives to traditional banks in order to improve financial inclusion of low-income populations in Burundi. After analyzing data with logistic regressions (logit), we found that microfinance institutions contribute (i) to address barriers to financial inclusion, (ii) to foster the accessibility to formal financial services for men/women, married individuals, low-income people, educated individuals, and (iii) to facilitate the use of formal financial services by low-income populations living in Burundi semi-urban areas. However, microfinance should not be seen as the ultimate solution to break-up the poverty cycle for low-income populations in developing countries like Burundi, but rather as a driving for the socio-economic development of low-income individuals so that they can gradually increase their participation in the community development activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of shadow economy on income inequality by using a panel data set of 19 Asian countries in the period 1990–2015. In contrast to previous studies, the results from estimations of fixed effect, random effect, and SGMM surprisingly show that the shadow economy reduces income inequality in the research region. Specifically, the shadow economy significantly increases the income share held by lowest quintile and decreases the income share held by highest quintile. The result can be explained by combining the three schools of thought on informal economy including Dualism, Legalism, and Volutarism. The finding contributes to the idea that the shadow economy is not always bad, especially to the poor, out of its negative effects. Therefore, policies to deal with the shadow economy should take the poor into close consideration with other simultaneous solutions for poverty eradication and income inequality reduction in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the impact of multilateral trade liberalization on poverty in developing countries from a macroeconomic perspective. The empirical analysis suggests that multilateral trade liberalization is conducive to poverty reduction in developing countries. This outcome therefore suggests that greater multilateral cooperation on trade matters among countries, in particular the Members of the World Trade Organization, would allow further trade liberalization at the multilateral level to the benefit of poor people in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local is our future BR: Local is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness, by Helena Norberg-Hodge (2019). As cultures and languages are lost, the most impoverished people are driven farther from food security and self-sufficiency. The sad truth is that the pace of life accelerated for people in Ladakh and most others in the developing world as globalization brought an end to self-sufficiency, to a stable and resilient culture, and to food sovereignty. [Extracted from the article]

Highlights • Cash transfers increase farm production by 33.5 percent. • None of these impacts are channelled through transfer-induced changes in farm labour. • In fact, cash transfers have no significant impact on family labour supply or on demand for hired labour. • This implies that the productive impacts of cash transfers flow through other channels, different from the labour one. Abstract This paper has the double aim to study whether unconditional cash transfers have an impact on farm production and to look into the causal mechanisms through which government transfers produce productive impacts. We use mediation analysis to identify the total effect of transfers on farm production and to isolate the influence of the labour channel from other transmission channels. In particular, we analyze whether changes in farm production are caused by transfer-induced changes in the use of farm labour – either by reallocating family labour between off- and on-farm work or by changes in the demand for hired labour – or if other transmission channels are at work. We find that cash transfers have a sizable impact on farm production but they do not lead to increased use of family or hired labour on the farm, which implies that the productive impacts of cash transfers flow through other channels, different from the labour one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]