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It is argued that the civil war which erupted in Nepal in the mid 1990s had its seeds sown five decades ago when the country embarked on the economic development plan which placed a heavy emphasis on an urban-based import-substitution strategy. This strategy failed to benefit 86 per cent of the population who live in rural areas and rely on agriculture. This, together with poor governance, significantly increased unemployment, poverty and rural–urban inequality by the mid 1990s, leading to the eruption of civil war. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we address the often sterile and circular debates over relationships between poverty and deforestation. These debates revolve around questions of whether forest loss causes poverty or poverty contributes to forest encroachment, and questions of whether it is loss of access to forests or dependence on forest-based livelihoods that cause poverty. We suggest that a way beyond the impasse is to set such debates within the context of agrarian change. Livelihoods of those who live in or near forests depend considerably on a rapidly changing agriculture, yet agrarian contexts receive only background attention in popular, political and academic discourse over poverty and forests. Moreover, to the extent that agriculture is considered, little heed is paid to social, technical and economic change. We therefore address agriculture's changing relationships with the wider economy, otherwise referred to as the agrarian transition, and with the natural resource base on which it depends. The paper draws on the experience of Thailand to illustrate our key argument, and more specifically addresses the situation on the resource periphery through a look at the agriculture-forest interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 1960s, Harold Brookfield and Doreen Hart were ‘startled’ by the order of magnitude differences in incomes from village cash cropping in different parts of Papua New Guinea (PNG). This paper traces these differences, back into a pre-colonial past and forward to the present and concludes, as Brookfield did in the 1960s, that severe environmental constraints, rather than market forces, are the primary cause of the pattern of spatial inequalities observable in PNG. Brookfield noted the existence of an ‘acute dilemma’ in 1960s development funding: should funds be invested where the returns will be highest, or where the need is greatest. This dilemma is as acute today as it was then. However, in the meantime, people from poor places are moving to better-off places, seeking access to markets for their produce and health and education services for their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on fieldwork results, explores traditional management systems (TMS) in the arid zone fisheries of north-eastern Nigeria with particular reference to their impact on rural poverty. The first section provides a historical background by tracing the evolution of the TMS since the nineteenth century, with reference to government policy on fisheries management and poverty alleviation. The second gives an overview of TMS, including definitions, distribution, principal objectives, regulatory mechanisms and the impact of TMS on the performance of the fisheries and on the livelihoods of rural people. The third considers the perceptions and attitudes of the fishing communities with regards to the fisheries and TMS. The paper concludes, paradoxically, that while TMS provide a basis for the sustainable livelihoods of many fishing people, they also reflect and enforce the social positions of the rich and powerful members of society who oversee them, at the expense of the poor. In the future, poverty alleviation in fisheries will need to incorporate both sectoral and non-sectoral strategies– dealing with the existing‘paradox of TMS’ by encouraging appropriate institutional changes and community development, and recognizing the importance of employment creation in other sectors of the economy as a source of alternative income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses poverty and calorific undernourishment in the Indian state of Gujarat, where high and market-led industrial growth has resulted in rapid economic improvement. The study is carried out through a combination of secondary and survey-based data. We conclude that the neoliberal agenda of uncontrolled, outward-looking growth has not resulted in significant reduction of poverty or malnourishment in rural areas. Furthermore, while land ownership is officially used as a proxy for wealth distribution, class position appears a better predictor of poverty status in the rural areas than landownership per se. At the policy level, there is a need to revive the agrarian economy and create new non-agricultural assets, and the primary focus in the state must shift to the distribution of created assets rather than a single-minded focus on growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market failures affecting economic growth in poor rural areas are firmly on the agenda but for goods and services with private good characteristics are generally not conceptualized and understood in ways that help policy analysis and formulation to recognize and address these failures. We need greater recognition and understanding of the causes and nature of coordination failures that lead to these market failures. This paper examines core features of poor rural areas, the nature of coordination problems faced by different potential economic actors, the impacts of these problems on markets and economic development and ways that these have been addressed or ignored in different policies and policy approaches in Asia and Africa. We conclude by drawing out the implications for policies seeking to promote pro-poor economic growth in poor rural areas today. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economy of the Democratic Republic of Congo has gained momentum between 2003 and 2015, with a high annual growth rate of over 6%. However, poverty and employment outcomes were relatively poor, while inequality increased. This study uses a computable general equilibrium (CGE) microsimulation model to study the pro‐poor effect of alternative growth strategy that is likely to strengthen the competitiveness of agro‐food products from the Congo. We experimented with three different scenarios: labor productivity growth, marketing efficiency, and transportation efficiency. The simulations demonstrated that improving the productivity of workers in agro‐food industries has not only produced strong relative pro‐poor effects, but also has the potential to lead to income convergence between rich and poor households. The analysis also revealed the underestimated contribution of agro‐food marketing and transportation efficiency. The major finding is that marketing efficiency favors the middle class. Efficiency gains in the transportation of agro‐food products generate strong pro‐poor effects in absolute and relative terms and are likely to be particularly effective in leading to income convergence. This policy has the potential not only to increase income and employment, but also to provide positive price impacts for both producers and consumers and benefits to all households, particularly low‐income households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the dynamics of the income-distribution pattern in India during the post-1991 economic reforms. It considers district-level per-capita income data across agriculture, manufacturing, services, and various constituent sub-sectors, and finds evidence in favour of a uniform process of growth across sectors and regions, which has helped to reduce poverty. In particular, the article finds that growth in agricultural income and access to finance are important for this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on the recent literature on finance, growth and hunger, we have examined the experience of Asian countries over the period 1960-2010 by dynamic and static panel data models. We have found evidence favouring a positive role of finance-defined as private credit by banks-on growth of GDP and agricultural value added. Private credit as well as loans from the World Bank significantly reduces undernourishment, whereas remittances and loans from microfinance institutions appear to have a negative impact on poverty. Our empirical evidence shows that growth performance was significantly lower during the recent global financial crisis than non-crisis periods, although the severity is much smaller during the recent financial crisis than Asian financial crisis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite rapid economic growth and massive inflows of aid, rural poverty in Mozambique is worsening. Agricultural production and productivity have not increased in the last decade. Use of chemical fertilizers and other modern technology is at a low level and decreasing. The present development model emphasizes that the role of government and donors is to provide human capital and infrastructure, while the private sector is responsible for economic development and ending poverty. The most recent national surveys confirm what is being seen elsewhere in Africa - that this non-interventionist strategy does not raise agricultural productivity or reduce poverty. While 80 per cent of Mozambique's population is engaged in agriculture, this sector contributes only 20 per cent of GDP. This suggests that investments in agriculture are likely to generate pro-poor growth, both to rural and urban dwellers. This policy failure is increasingly recognized, but donors and government have invested too much political capital in the current policy to change easily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many questions have arisen about the relationship between international agricultural trade and poverty in developing countries. This article explores these questions by analyzing local agricultural tradability indices, whichmeasure the degree to which commodities produced in a particular region are traded internationally. Data are examined for Chile, a middle-income country with a history of international agricultural trade over the last decades. Empirical results indicate that a higher agricultural tradability index is associated with lower poverty rates across Chilean comunas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using district-level data for 1992, 1995, and 1999, the study estimated effects of different types of government expenditure on agricultural growth and rural poverty in Uganda. The results reveal that government spending on agricultural research and extension improved agricultural production substantially. This type of expenditure had the largest measured returns to growth in agricultural production. Agricultural research and extension spending also had the largest assessed impact on poverty reduction. Government spending on rural roads also had a substantial marginal impact on rural poverty reduction. The impact of low-grade roads such as feeder roads is larger than that of high-grade roads such as murram and tarmac roads. Education's effects rank after agricultural research and extension, and roads. Government spending in health did not show a large impact on growth in agricultural productivity or a reduction in rural poverty. Additional investments in the northern region (a poor region) contribute the most to reducing poverty. However, it is the western region (a relatively well-developed region) where most types of investment have highest returns in terms of increased agricultural productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common factor that explains why agriculture causes too much environmental degradation, grows too slowly, and has been ineffective in reducing rural poverty is the generalized tendency by governments to under invest in public goods despite the high rates of return to such investments. A large share of rural public expenditures is deviated to private goods (mostly subsidies to the wealthy), which generally have low or even negative rates of return. Behind such an obviously aberrant choice are political economy forces; a highly unequal political lobby market leads to government policies that are biased in favor of economic elites and detrimental for both the environment and rural development. Globalization may affect this important distortion on the allocation of government expenditures in various ways. One such way is by restricting the ability of governments to repress the political mobilization of the poor to counter the almost unchallenged power of the elites in the lobby market. This may contribute toward creating conditions that are more consistent with sustainable and socially equitable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]