Jordan is dominated by arid climate with limited arable land and water resources. This study focuses on crop production and water resources under trends of anticipated climate change and population growth to analyse how these affect water and food security in the country. It finds that recession of irrigated areas led to lesser food production and food security. Results indicate that climate change and population growth increase and intensify problems of water scarcity and food insecurity.

This paper explores key issues relating to the privatisation of livestock production in Botswana, with particular relevance to pastoral livelihoods.The paper reviews the history of land policy; summarises developments in recent years of rangeland policies; and analyses the economic, social and environmental impact of the process of privatising the commons in Botswana.Main conclusions include:the benefits of the privatisation of the commons have mainly been concentrated in the hands of a small number of wealthy cattle owners, an elite consisting largely of members or supporters of the ruling

This paper considers the evidence surrounding the popular view that common property management regimes (CPMRs) of forest management in Latin America must inevitably break down in the face of economic and demographic pressures. The evidence shows that there have been both positive and negative experiences, with a number of policy implications. The over-riding need is to correct for institutional and policy failures which have catalysed the erosion of CPMRs.

Under the socialist regime that prevailed until the start of the 1990s, Mongolia made great progress in improving human development indicators, and poverty was virtually unknown. Through innovative service delivery mechanisms to nomadic pastoralists, almost universal coverage of primary health care services was achieved and adult literacy reached 97%.Political and economic transition in the 1990s ushered in a rapid rise in asset and income inequality, and a third of the population have been defined as living below the poverty line since 1995.

This article explores the history of notions of land ownership among Mongolian pastoralists in a historical context.In the 1990s the Mongolian state implemented a series of reforms designed to create a competitive market economy based on private property. These included the wholesale privatisation of the pastoral economy and the dissolution of the collective and state farms. The Asian Development Bank and other international development agencies advocated new legislation to allow the private ownership of land.

This article discusses what is the best means of managing the commons. The article stresses that these are critical questions in the current wave of decentralisation and tenure reform taking place in many Sahelian states.

This paper analyses the effect of ethnic conflict on economic growth. It presents an econometric approach which develops a simple growth’s model with four ethnic variables and institutional regressors (a democratic and a rule of law index) along with two production factors (capital and labour).The report argues that these events shed light on how multi-ethnic societies are subject to “the tragedy of the commons” as each ethnic group seeks to benefit alone from common resources.

La Paz, Bolivia14 de noviembre de 2017
La Economía Social y Solidaria (ESS). Algunos cuestionamientos a sus marcos teóricos y a sus prácticas socioculturales en los últimos 10 años
 
 
Gilberto Vera Rojas
 
Resumen
Se analiza cuestionamientos teóricos y de las prácticas socioculturales de la economía social y solidaria, en los últimos 10 años, destacando sus principales características y arribando a algunos puntos relevantes que den luces para un mejor entendimiento y desafíos a asumir.
Palabras claves

Millions of people worldwide depend on natural resources such as land, fisheries and forests that are used collectively as commons. Commons are essential to culture, identity and well-being. As a source of food and income, they are an important safety-net, especially for the most marginalized and vulnerable people. The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security provide a historic opportunity to recognize and secure tenure rights to commons.

The Community Land Act of 2016 provides a legal basis for protection, recognition and registration of community lands andhas provisions for management and administration of the land by the communities themselves. However, implementation of the act has been slower than anticipated. This is despite the current  heightened investment interests in community lands for mega development projects.

Cambodia has become a principal target of transnational (and domestic) land grabs over the past decade, mostly in the form of economic land concessions (ELCs). The northeastern part of the country—where the majority of Cambodia’s indigenous people reside—is a particular hotspot. In this article, we discuss three policy mechanisms that the Cambodian government has employed to extend and legitimize land exclusions in the name of national economic development through the example of two indigenous villages in Srae Preah Commune, Mondulkiri Province.

Recent debates in social anthropology on land acquisitions highlight the need to go further back in history in order to analyse their impacts on local livelihoods. The debate over the commons in economic and ecological anthropology helps us understand some of today’s dynamics by looking at precolonial common property institutions and the way they were transformed by Western colonization to state property and then, later in the age of neoliberalism, to privatization and open access.