Search

The paper provides evidence that large-scale land acquisitions in Sub-Saharan Africa raise the likelihood of experiencing outbursts of organized violence. This evidence is achieved through a spatially disaggregated approach, to account for local characteristics, and a quasi-experimental research design, implemented to overcome limitations due to missing geo-referenced information about land deals. Domestic acquisitions are particularly significant in explaining organized violence outbreak, suggesting that the national concentration of power among economic elites hinder social stability. Further, the institutional framework, which forms the background for LSLAs, is a prominent determinant of organized violence occurrence. In particular, more egalitarian and inclusive societies are less prone to conflicts, even in the presence of LSLAs. When land deals are finalized to the cultivation of agricultural commodities for biofuels, the effect is less evident and violence partially depends on climate conditions. On the other hand, land deals still in implementation stage seem to narrow organized violence, possibly due to both local control of areas under investments and socio-economic effects of the deals. Results also show the existence of significant spatio-temporal dependence path, since events of organized violence tend to be recurrent and to persist in space, feeding ‘neighbouring’ effects of proximity and local patterns of violence concentration.

Although recent empirical literature acknowledges that organized violence tends to cluster geographically, the limited use of disaggregated data and of accurate spatial estimation techniques fail in explaining the spatial structure of conflict events. In this paper we analyse conflict incidence in West Africa through the provision of an illustrative case (the Mano River Region) by: (i) performing the analysis with the smallest possible sub-national disaggregated areas; (ii) taking into account the location of valuable resources (lootable diamonds and gold); and (iii) applying the most suitable spatial econometric specifications. Our results show the existence of relevant cross-border spillover effects of conflict events; and confirm that natural valuable resources are strong predictors of organized violence location. Moreover, we demonstrate that events concerning incompatibilities on government and/or territory are more strongly related to diamonds location, whereas events between nostate armed groups are indifferently connected to the location of both valuable resources.

This paper provides new evidence on the effect of an International Child Support (ICS) program, implemented in ten primary schools located in the outskirts of Goma (Congo, DR), on school performances. Using original micro data in a sample of 309 children (121 treated and 188 control), we explore whether the ICS program impacts on a broad set of alternative educational outcomes - namely, performance scores in 4 different subjects (plus total score), failure rates and school drop-out rates - through a Difference-in-Differences approach. The results show that sponsored children report lower drop-out rates and failure rates with respect to their control peers and, while lagging behind before the program started, in two school years they catch-up in all subjects. Results are robust to the implementation of Coarsened Exact Matching that exploits the structure of the data to produce unbiased estimates along with bounded ex-post balancing.

In the paper, we will firstly depict a few key elements of interaction between agriculture and climate change. Then we propose to look at climate change adaptation, in general and in LDCs agriculture, as a required paradigm of change in development strategies, which implies, from a methodological perspective, a change in the culture of decision making and governance. We then summarise the recent development of the international higher-level policy approach to climate change adaptation, in which LDCs agriculture has a central role, together with the ‘climate finance’ framework for adaptation. We conclude by suggesting a set of open issues to be addressed in the current debate on climate adaptation within the Post-2015 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

This contribution aims to introduce the multiple roles that land plays in society and, therefore, the reason why it is likely to be correlated to conflict events (1); to frame the analysis in a wider approach also including the external triggers which may interact in violent land conflict escalation (2) and, finally, discuss some empirical evidence about the impacts of land conflicts on development (3). It also gives information about land conflict resolution experiences.

Understanding how poverty, inequality and food security are interconnected is necessary for actually providing adequate access to “sufficient food, which is adequate both in quantity and quality which conforms with the beliefs, culture, traditions, dietary habits and preferences of individuals in accordance with national and international laws and obligations” – according to the definition given at the World Food Summit in 1996. Access to good quality, appropriate nutrition is a more comprehensive objective than providing a predefined level of calories intake, or even accessing specific sets of micronutrients. Human nutrition is a complex social activity, shaped by culture and tradition; as anthropologist have shown, traditional local food habits developed over the centuries in such a way to combine all necessary nutrients from local production; while the simple adoption of a new staple food coming from other regions of the world – irrespective of native traditional knowledge – may lead to severe forms of malnutrition (as it was the case for some northern Italy valleys, where corn was adopted as staple food and pellagra followed)

The validation of cloud top and ozone vertical column, measured by SCIAMACHY, were carried out respectively by lidars and in-situ and remote-sensing ozone instruments on-board the high altitude Geophysica aircraft. Cloud top and ozone measurements were conducted during the transfer flights of the Geophysica from Europe to Brazil and in the Tropics, from Araçatuba, from January to the end of February 2005. The Validation campaign, financed by ESA, was embedded within a scientific campaign in the frame of two EC projects: APE-INFRA and Troccinox. Validation of MIPAS-ENVISAT products were planned by means of the corresponding instrument MIPAS-STR which was also on-board the Geophysica, and by means of other in-situ instruments. Some results of MIPAS-STR are reported here; however, the MIPAS data from the ENVISAT are not available. In general the validations show some discrepancies between the data collected by the Geophysica and the instruments on board of ENVISAT, which cannot easily be explained by the displacement of the satellite and aircraft measurements.

The APE-THESEO campaign was held from 15 February to 15 March 1999 from the Seychelles in the western Indian Ocean. APE-THESEO stands for Airborne Platform for Earth observation — (contribution to) the Third European Stratospheric Experiment on Ozone. The campaign aimed to study processes controlling the low water content of the stratosphere, including the mechanisms of cloud formation in the tropical tropopause region, and transport processes, studied using measurements of long-lived trace gases and ozone. Two aircraft were used: the high-altitude research aircraft, M-55 Geophysica, which can fly up to 21 km, and the Falcon of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, a tropospheric aircraft. Seven flights were performed, including the first simultaneous in situ and remote sensing of sub-visible cirrus clouds, the first interception of sub-visible cirrus using in-flight guidance from a path-finding aircraft, and guided descent of a high-altitude research aircraft into the anvil cloud at the top of a tropical cyclone. In this paper we describe the payload used, the objectives for each flight, and the meteorological conditions encountered. First results show that a new type of cloud, which we have dubbed ultra-thin tropical tropopause cloud (UTTC), has been observed frequently, and observed to cover areas of 105 km2. The frequent coincidence of the tropopause and hygropause implies that the western Indian Ocean played an important role in the dehydration of the lower tropical stratosphere during the season of the mission. UTTCs, sub-visible cirrus, and visible cirrus, have all been implicated in the observed dehydration. Tracer measurements indicate little mixing of stratospheric air into the upper tropical troposphere.