Growing numbers of policies and programmes aim to integrate small-scale rural producers into agricultural value chains. But significant questions remain over how best to: recognise the possibly divergent visions, interests and constraints of various actors; address often substantial power imbalances; and ultimately promote agency among rural producers and their communities – that is, their ability to choose, act and influence realities around them.

This is the first issue of the Journal of Law and Rural Development, published by IFAD. IFAD’s mandate to address rural poverty and promote rural development is unique among international organizations. For many years IFAD limited its activities to financing projects and programmes implemented by its Member States, but over the last decade it has begun to transform itself into a knowledge centre and a key participant in the international policy dialogue around rural development issues. The launch of this journal is another step forward in this transformation.

In Sierra Leone, the well-being and livelihoods of many people, particularly the rural poor, are based on secure and equitable access to land, fisheries and forests. Increasing pressure on these resources in recent years has led to an escalation of conflict over access to natural resources.

Mainland Southeast Asia (MSA) has seen sweeping upland land use changes in the past decades, with transition from primarily subsistence shifting cultivation to annual commodity cropping. This transition holds implications for local upland communities and ecosystems. Due to its particular political regime, Myanmar is at the tail of this development.

How would environmentally sustainable development look if it was gender-sensitive? This report argues that much mainstream literature on environmentally sustainable development has ignored the gender dimensions. Where women have been the target of programmes, they have been seen as natural managers of environmental resources. A gender analysis is important because gender relations affect the ways in which poor men and women manage natural resources.

What is the condition of women in Peru? This gender profile by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) offers a statistical overview of the condition of urban and rural women with respect to unemployment, status in the workplace, life expectancy and working and living conditions. Poverty is an ongoing concern and half the population continues to subsist below the poverty line. Rural women suffer the most with lower rates of literacy and fewer employment opportunities than urban women and men in general.

This economic literacy pack, the third in this series, is a tool for educating local women's constituencies on trade rules and negotiations. It explores four main themes, firstly 'How the WTO Treats National Health Emergencies in the Rubric of Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)'. This section demonstrates how the agreement protects the patent interests of private pharmaceutical firms based in developed countries, while jeopardizing the public health of the poor in developing countries.

How can gender be mainstreamed into programmes concerned with the sustainable use and management of biodiversity? The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has produced guidelines on how to integrate gender analysis into biodiversity research. The central role played by women in the maintenance of rural lands, and changing gender roles and relations resulting from cost of living rises and increased migration, are highlighted.

This shadow report, produced by NEWA and EWLA, offers a critique of the Ethiopian government's CEDAW report by looking at three broad areas: economic and socio-cultural status of women, equality in marriage and family relations and violence against women. The report acknowledges the considerable efforts made by the Ethiopian government to address its CEDAW obligations, but cites weak enforcement, poor policy guidelines and a lack of institutional commitment as ongoing problems.

Does poverty in Egypt have a woman's face? Is female poverty linked to their conditions in the labour market or levels of education? Are women particularly at risk in poor households? This report addresses the gender dimensions of poverty using the recent Household Expenditure, Income and Consumption Survey of 1999/2000 for Egypt. Poverty measures of males and females were found to be significantly different, in both urban and rural areas, where higher levels are observed among females than males.

Citizenship is an abstract concept and therefore great care must be taken in explaining what it means in practice and what can effectively be done in the context of development interventions and policy. Development projects which enhance the ability of marginalised groups to access and influence decision-making bodies are implicitly if not explicitly working with concepts of citizenship. Citizenship is about concrete institutions, policy and structures and the ways in which people can shape them using ideas of rights and participation.

Why does viewing a household as a single unit have serious downfalls for gender analysis' The unitary view overlooks the crucial fact that gender relations between family members play a large role in intra-household decisions about decision-making, time allocation, and expenditure. A collective model on the other hand allows household analysis to consider gender relations, with attention to women's and men's respective access to, control over, or ownership of resources.