Book chapter

People in developing countries—particularly the agricultural poor—face a host of risks to their lives and livelihoods, including those stemming from globalization, climate change, and weather shocks. These experiences highlight the importance of social protection, which can have a potentially significant impact on reducing poverty and vulnerability when implemented with the optimal design, targets, and resources.

In 1997, CARE-Bangladesh undertook a livelihood security assessment of urban slum households in the cities of Tongi, Khulna and Bogra. Based on the findings of that study and a review of secondary literature, the SHAHAR (Supporting Household Activities for Health, Assets and Revenue) project was conceptualized and designed.

This paper analyzes how women’s participation affects institutional outcomes related to the decentralized governance of community forests in Madhya Pradesh, India. The analysis is based on data from a representative sample of 641 cases of joint forest management, India’s flagship program to involve communities in forest governance. We focus on two outcomes relevant for local livelihoods: control of illicit grazing and control of illicit felling in the forest.

The devolution of natural resource management responsibility from the state to communities or local user groups has become a widespread trend that cuts across countries and resource sectors. Unlike claims to the contrary in policy narratives, devolution of control over resources from the state to local organizations does not necessarily lead to greater participation and empowerment of all stakeholders (Cleaver 1999).

Mexico’s Programa Nacional de Educación, Salud y Alimentación (PROGRESA) is a major government program aimed at developing the human capital of poor households. Targeting its benefits directly to the population in extreme poverty in rural areas, it seeks to alleviate current poverty through monetary and in-kind benefits, as well as to reduce future levels of poverty by encouraging investments in education, health, and nutrition.

This paper presents evidence on rural Ethiopian households’ time allocation to different activities, especially fuel collection work, and examines the effect of changes in the availability of firewood resources on households’ time allocation to fuel collection and on- and off-farm income generation.

"In 1993, India introduced quota-based political reservations for women in rural areas with the objective to promote gender equality in human development by making rural service provision and local governance inclusive and responsive to the needs of women. Recent evidence shows that reservation policies for women (1) stimulate the political participation of women in rural areas, (2) shift rural service provision to public goods that reflect gender preferences, and (3) improve the access to and the quality of public services.

Based on a survey of 60 villages in Western Ghana, where cocoa is the dominant crop, this study explores evolutionary changes in land tenure institutions on women's land rights and the efficiency of tree resource management....With increasing population pressure, customary land tenure institutions in Western Ghana have evolved toward individualized systems in order to provide appropriate incentives to invest in tree planting and management. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, individualization of land rights has strengthened women’s rights to land.

This paper examines the equity implications of the evolution of land rights from communal land tenure to individualization in customary land areas in Western Sumatra. This brief sets forth policy implications: Preference for sons in the inheritance of agroforestry area in the Low Region may be explained by the intensive use of male labor in rubber production; in contrast, both paddy cultivation and cinnamon cultivation in the Middle Region use both male and female family labor relatively equally.

This policy note summarizes the findings of two literature reviews on the gender-differentiated impacts of climate change and the scope for community-based adaptation. It also outlines the framework used to guide these analyses and the other papers summarized in this series.

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