{"title":"Re-examining the participation and empowerment nexus: Applications to community-based tourism","authors":"Eylla Laire M. Gutierrez","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100518","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100518","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The centrality of community involvement in tourism activities has been widely recognized globally by practitioners and stakeholders alike. Within this recognition community-based tourism (CBT) initiatives have been widely accepted as a favorable form of tourism activity—especially when promoting pro-poor and sustainable strategies for marginalized communities. Arguably, the success of CBT initiatives is underpinned by the participation of communities in the planning, development, and managing processes that bring them about. Supporting these assumptions is the theoretical link between participation and empowerment, where community participation leads to the empowerment of community members. Over the years, however, existing studies have also provided ambivalent accounts suggesting the complexity of these relationships is not well understood. As several studies have pointed out, tourism participation does not invariably and naturally result in empowerment. In contributing to the existing discourse, this study explores the nexus between participation and empowerment by proposing a revised participation-empowerment model. The resulting model suggests that while communities require some level of empowerment to participate effectively in CBT, through continuous interaction they can increase their level of participation along with their level of empowerment.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47304071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Public transfers and crowding-in and -out of private transfers: Experimental evidence from Kenya","authors":"Silas Ongudi , Djiby Thiam , Natascha Wagner","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100524","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100524","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In rural areas of developing countries, private transfers are shared for altruistic reasons, to mitigate negative shocks (insurance motive) and in exchange for services. However, when public and private transfers provide similar benefits, an overlap exists, potentially crowding-out informal mechanisms. In this paper, we test whether an exogenous increase in household income, due to transfers by the Hunger Safety Net Program (HSNP) to pastoralist households in Northern Kenya, reinforces or dampens the redistributive dynamics associated with private transfers. We exploit the experimental implementation of HSNP to control for endogeneity with the randomly provided unconditional cash transfer. We show that an HSNP-induced rise in household income by 2,000 Kenyan Shillings is associated with a non-negligible decline in the total value of private transfers equivalent to 12% of the income increase. For transfers given, we show that the HSNP transfer leads to increased sharing equivalent to 11% of the income increase. Testing for non-linearities, we identify a significant reduction in the value of private transfers received at low levels of the income distribution. Concomitantly, we identify a positive relationship between income and transfers given that is most pronounced among poorer households. We further show that we possibly observe altruistic, insurance and exchange related sharing motives coexisting among Northern Kenyan pastoralists. The identified crowding-in and -out effects have implications for the design and efficacy of social programs beyond Kenya, demonstrating that traditional transfer dynamics are altered due to public programs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46527967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The politics of policy failure in Ghana: The case of oil palm","authors":"Kofi Takyi Asante","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100509","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100509","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The paper argues that political economy factors have hindered the development of the oil palm value chain in Ghana, which has consistently underperformed despite significant policy support and the sector's strategic importance to the national economy. These factors include political instability between the mid-1960s and early 1980s, as well as the emergence of a competitive clientelist political settlement since the country's return to constitutional rule. Drawing on key informant interviews and documentary sources, the paper demonstrates that policies over the past two decades have failed to address the peculiar nature of the value chain, which is bifurcated into a smallholder/artisanal sub-sector and an estate/industrial processing sub-sector. Since the 1990s, one aspect of policy failure in the sector has been the ‘paradox of good intentions’ that arises from the simultaneous pursuit of economic transformation and inclusive development in a political context described by some scholars as 'strong democracy, weak state'. The logic of electoral competition shortens politicians’ time horizons, predisposing them to prioritise highly visible distributive policies (like input subsidies) over structural reforms (like land tenure issues or solving market frictions). Consequently, despite almost two centuries of continuous policy support, the sector’s productivity remains at the same level it would have been if it had been left to operate without any state assistance.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49150107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"African women in science and development, bridging the gender gap","authors":"Luria Leslie Founou , Kaunda Yamba , Vinie Kouamou , Esther Eyram Asare Yeboah , Binta Saidy , Lalia A. Jawara , Haddy Bah , Bissoume Sambe Ba , Mabel Kamweli Aworh , Saffiatou Darboe","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100528","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100528","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Science and technology play a fundamental role in driving social progress and economic growth in today’s rapidly evolving world. Yet, despite considerable advancements, the gender gap in science remains a harsh reality, particularly for African women. This inequality directly impedes their invaluable perspectives and contributions to scientific advancements and innovations. Africa’s development requires significant investment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and leadership. This opinion piece delves into the gender disparity prevailing in STEM, emphasizes the challenges that African women experience, highlights the immense potential that African women possess, and finally advocates for immediate efforts to bridge this gap.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44485791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Roland Azibo Balgah , Emmanuel Olatunbosun Benjamin , Jude Ndzifon Kimengsi , Gertrud Buchenrieder
{"title":"COVID-19 impact on agriculture and food security in Africa. A systematic review and meta-analysis","authors":"Roland Azibo Balgah , Emmanuel Olatunbosun Benjamin , Jude Ndzifon Kimengsi , Gertrud Buchenrieder","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100523","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100523","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While agriculture is the life-wire for many African economies, the sector has been exposed to multiple shocks, leading to food insecurity concerns. COVID-19′s seemingly perennial nature suggests the need for African agrarian systems to explore pathways to achieve food security in the midst of pandemics. However, existing knowledge on the effects of COVID-19 agriculture and food security remains fragmented. This article reviews preliminary documented and projected effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on agriculture and food security in Africa, combining an inter-rater reliability (IRR) – based systematic review with <em>meta</em>-analysis on 74 rigorously selected published items, including 157 case studies. Our analysis hitches on the sustainable livelihoods framework and a novel systematic review and <em>meta</em>-analysis protocol (Tadesse, 2020). An IRR score of 0.93 suggests overwhelming convergence of contemporary COVID-19 scholarship on the negative economic effects of COVID-19 on agricultural supply and demand across Africa, which, in combination with other factors, culminates in increasing, multi-dimensional food insecurity, hitting hard on the poor and vulnerable. The <em>meta</em>-analysis suggests that agriculture is more exposed to COVID-19 effects than other (non-agricultural) sectors, with an overall pooled association effect size (RR) for the COVID-19 pandemic and farming occupation of 1.25 (95% CI, 0.72–0.96;<!--> <!-->P = 0.01), and significant heterogeneity between studies (Ι<sup>2</sup> = 100%,<!--> <!-->P < 0.00). Future reviews and meta analyses increasingly focusing on methodological details are recommended, to provide insights on COVID-19 effects on African agriculture and food security. Policy implications of prolonged COVID-19 effects on agriculture and food security in Africa are then contemplated.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45498053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"State ownership in liberal economic governance? De-risking private investment in the electricity sector in Mexico","authors":"Jose Maria Valenzuela","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100527","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100527","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Abandoning some neoliberal reform tools, but not the goals, liberal policymakers have devised forms of economic governance to support private investment through, paradoxically, the use of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The article builds on a pragmatist perspective of institutional evolution by describing the syncretism in Mexico's 2013 electricity reform as an exemplary case of structural reforms for de-risking investment through the strategic use of the national SOE. The case shows that the technical and legal segmentation of electricity supply can accommodate different risk distribution arrangements in which state ownership is useful to (1) rein-in the capacity of the dominant company to exercise market power, (2) shoulder the costs of maintaining a subsidised tariff structure for retail consumers, and (3) underwrite the expansion of infrastructure with an uncertain economic future. Structural reforms can use SOEs to relocate private risk in the state's ledger and making state de-risking the most important mechanisms to drive investment, and not market competition. The article argues for the need to develop a sector-specific understanding the role of SOEs within liberal economic programs, but also the need to develop a critical perspective, for instance, through Daniela Gabor's Wall Street Consensus concept, to focus on the historical distributional consequences of these arrangements which can result in the progressive private control over the electricity sector.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45707678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Daniel P. P. Braga , Benno Pokorny , Roberto Porro , Edson Vidal
{"title":"Good life in the Amazon? A critical reflection on the standard of living of cocoa and cattle-based smallholders in Pará, Brazil","authors":"Daniel P. P. Braga , Benno Pokorny , Roberto Porro , Edson Vidal","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100520","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100520","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The balance between environment and economic stability is key to sustainable rural development. This is particularly true in the agricultural frontier areas along the Transamazon Highway and Southern Pará in the Brazilian Amazon, where thousands of migrant families have settled in the forests over the past 50 years in search of a better life. To better understand the extent to which sustainable development is possible in such a context, this study examined the standard of living that smallholders who grow cocoa can achieve compared to those who raise cattle, and what this means for forest conservation. An analysis of 95 households revealed that both livelihood strategies may generate an acceptable standard of living despite significant logistical and environmental challenges. This was observed even more so for families who combined both production systems. The availability of technology and the size of landholdings had the greatest impact on the standard of living expressed in income and housing conditions. The majority of the analyzed households, especially those involved in cattle ranching, converted their forests for economic success. The pure cocoa farmers behaved differently, but also cleared large areas of forest and may continue to do so. The findings suggest that achieving sustainable local development in Amazonian agricultural frontiers requires large and well-coordinated investments by competent public and private actors not only in building and optimizing sustainable production systems such as cocoa agroforestry but also in significantly improving social rural infrastructure.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46310837","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impacts of hydro-meteorological phenomena and disaster policies on the Mexican agricultural sector","authors":"Jesús E. Robles-Chávez , Hector M. Nuñez","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100521","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100521","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>During the last decades disasters have severely stricken Mexico in terms of economic and human losses. This article aims to measure the impact of hydro-meteorological phenomena and the response policies on the agricultural sector in Mexico following a production function approach that uses panel data models and spatial analysis. As a salient feature, we use an unbalanced panel dataset for 107 crops across 2,430 municipalities from 2003 to 2018. As expected, we find that a disaster declaration is related to a decrease in agricultural productivity, but when a municipality is stricken by one or two disasters over the same period, productivity can be recovered and even increased within the following agricultural year. This result is explained by the policies implemented by the federal government. Likewise, institutional variables like risk atlases are proven to be effective for farmers to plan the cropping season. In addition, we also provide evidence that disaster declarations in neighboring municipalities also diminish local yields.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44115141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jean-Claude Bizimana , Melkamu B. Derseh , Aberra Adie , Gregory A. Kiker
{"title":"Simulated economic and nutritional impacts of irrigated fodder and crossbred cows on farm households in southern Ethiopia","authors":"Jean-Claude Bizimana , Melkamu B. Derseh , Aberra Adie , Gregory A. Kiker","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100517","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100517","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The livestock sector is one of the main pillars of Ethiopia’s economy. Despite its importance, several constraints related to livestock production such as low productivity, remain a major barrier to the development of the livestock sector in Ethiopia. Improving animal feed resources and breeds can have impacts on both household income and nutrition. Small scale irrigation (SSI) technologies are used to grow and improve yields of fodder with the purpose to feed animals, generate income and improve human nutrition through the consumption of animal products. A farm level economic and nutrition simulation model (FARMSIM) is used to evaluate the potential nutritional and economic impacts of the SSI technologies on households in southern Ethiopia, Lemo district. In the baseline scenario, fodder is grown on limited land with minimal input while in alternative scenarios, more land and input are allocated to fodder during the dry season due to irrigation. Results show that the annual average profit under alternative scenarios is almost twice that of the baseline. However, the distribution results highlight the risk associated with high production costs from SSI technologies investments. The nutrition results show that the quantities of products consumed by families in alternative scenarios meet the minimum daily requirements for calories, proteins, iron, and vitamin A but were insufficient for calcium and fat. A large deficit in vitamin A is observed under the baseline scenario, in addition to calcium and fat. However, forgoing some income to increase the quantity of animal products consumed at home led to nutrition improvement in Lemo district.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43782687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Case Report: Housing, land and property restitution after wars takes decades: Ukraine can change this","authors":"Yuliya Panfil , Jon Unruh , Michael Cholod","doi":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100519","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.wdp.2023.100519","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37831,"journal":{"name":"World Development Perspectives","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42273168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}