Search results

Over the last few years, impacts of environmental variability on population migration have been an increasing concern over the world. Estimates have suggested that between 25 million and 1 billion people could be displaced by climate change over the next 40 years. Though it is very difficult to delineate the specific drivers behind human migration, an attempt has been made in this chapter to discuss various reported cases across the world and more specifically, India where environment has played a major role in population movement. The chapter begins by outlining important definitions of migration and environmentally induced migration. It focuses on how environmental change and environmental hazards, especially water scarcity, contribute to human migration by exploring the mechanisms through which vulnerability and migration are linked. The process of movement and migration is usually subject to a complex set of push and pull forces, where push forces relate to the source area while pull factors relate to the destination. Emphasizing water scarcity as one of the prime push factors behind migration, various instances of population movement have been discussed from various parts of India. Understanding the importance of migration in development of a sustainable society, the chapter identifies various gaps that need to be addressed, which, in turn, will help in incorporating environment-induced migration into the decision-making process.

Rural welfare is more than addressing problems of ‘poverty’. As we argue here, social policy initiatives are also conceived by governments as solutions to geographical problems about uneven regional development and population distribution. What these problems were, and how welfare provision could solve them, has varied from generation to generation and takes shape in place-specific ways. That welfare provision has operated as de facto geographical development and population policy is particularly the case in Australia, in its context of massive continental size and heterogeneous rural places. In Australia, the ‘rural’ means much more than just the ‘countryside’ surrounding or between networks of cities and towns (in the traditional European sense; see Gorman-Murray, Darian-Smith, & Gibson, 2008). ‘Rural Australia’ is inserted into national politics as a slippery geographical category, coming to encompass all of non-metropolitan Australia (each of Australia's states only having one major city), within which there is great diversity: broadacre farming regions involving the production of cash crops at scales of thousands of squared kilometres; regions producing rice and cotton with state-sponsored irrigation; coastal agricultural zones with smaller and usually older land holdings (often the places of traditional ‘family farming’ communities); single industry regions focused around minerals extraction or defence (many of Australia's major defence bases being located outside state capitals either in sparsely populated regions in Australia's north or in smaller ‘country towns’ in the south, where they dominate local demography); semi-arid rangelands regions dominated by enormous pastoral stations leased on Crown land (single examples of which rival the United Kingdom in size); and remote savannah and desert regions many thousands of kilometres from capital cities, supporting Aboriginal communities living on traditional country mixing subsistence hunting and gathering with government-supported employment and food programmes. In this context, rural welfare performs a social policy function, but also becomes a means for government to comprehend, problematise and manage geographical space.

This paper investigates the mediating role of access to finance and entrepreneurial education for small and marginal farmers (SMFs) in the Indian northern state of Punjab. Furthermore, it examines the inter-mediatory role of entrepreneurs and the access to finance in the promotion of innovation, development and consequently poverty alleviation.

To gain a deeper insight, we used a purposive sampling technique, involving in-depth, face-to-face interviews based on a semi-structured questionnaire amongst 185 farmers from the state of the Punjab in India. The combination of open ended and dichotomous questions amenable to the Likert scale, captured responses and the transcribed questionnaires were thematically analysed.

Using the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative responses, we explain the cause and consequences of the finance gap and the impact of poverty on household income and the debt levels of SMFs. The findings suggest that the expanding pool of SMFs is due to land ownership fragmentation that disenfranchises SMFs from accessing adequate finance thus limiting their ability to adapt to technological innovations, and therefore limiting their productivity and growth. This essentially limits their ability to transform their economic and social wellbeing. The findings from the data analysis suggest a lack of access to finance negatively impacts on SMFs' ability to use innovative practices, technologies and productivity. This adversely affects income level, access to education and social goods to propel them out of poverty. The findings advocate that government policy should focus on land reforms, which provide adequate access to finance to enable the adaption of technology and an access to markets to empower marginal farmers.

Land fragmentation resulting with population growth in emerging economies continuously expands SMFs. To improve efficiency, productivity and entrepreneurial traits amongst SMFs, it is a pre-requisite to have an agile economy. However, in emerging economies such as India, the responses of 185 farmers suggest, a bespoke policy to promote the interest of SMFs through enabling them access to finance, technologies, training and education, continues to prove elusive. This novel empirical research provides evidence that demands that policymakers, commercial institutions and donors need to respond to the needs of SMFs to ensure food security and an optimal utilisation of farmland. The limitation of this research is that the sample is from one country, which limits its generalisation. The findings of this study could be enhanced by conducting comparative studies in other regions or economies.

This empirical study examined the barriers to enterprise for SMFs in the Indian Punjab; it examined the causes and consequences and the implications for food security for India. The findings of this study highlight the importance of developing the entrepreneurial capabilities of SMFs through effective education, training and above all through an adequate access to finance to enable them to adapt their technology. Furthermore, the findings make a case as to why SMFs are an integral part of the food chain and why it is necessary to enhance their efficiency, productivity and their access to finance.

This study aims to understand whether poverty alleviation can be realized in tourism via tourism cooperatives. As a fast growing industry in the world, tourism has accelerated economic development in many participating places. A large number of tourism cooperatives have emerged to capture conspicuous economic benefits from tourism in many rural areas of China. The role of tourism cooperatives has not yet been explored from the poverty alleviation perspective.

Two field trips to Yuhu Village, Lijiang, China, which included in-depth interviews, were conducted during August and December 2011, aiming at understanding the roles of tourism cooperatives in poverty alleviation. In-depth interviews with villagers (45) and mangers of tourism cooperative (5) were conducted. A systematic coding procedure including open, axial and selective coding was conducted with the software assistance of ATLAS.TI6.2.

Evidence from Yuhu suggested that resources and power changes, both of which are further divided into both individual and collective levels, are the main contributors to substantial improvements of the poor. Material and social resources were significantly accumulated. In addition, empowerment, referring to the improvements in status, legitimacy and capability/knowledge, facilitated villagers to obtain favorable policies. By embracing a more broad understanding of poverty, the tourism cooperative is proven to effectively alleviate the poverty suffering of Yuhu villagers.

Understanding poverty from a multi-dimensional perspective is deemed to be critical to reveal the actual story, as evidenced in this study, with analyzing resource flows and power changes at different stages of tourism development. By embracing a more broad understanding of poverty, the role of tourism cooperatives in poverty alleviation was able to be noticed and emerged from in-depth interviews. A systematic scrutiny has been carried out to examine the pro-poor effects brought about by tourism cooperatives.

Slowly, and driven by a growing recognition of the impact of organised crime on developing countries, as well as the allure developing countries represent to criminal groups, development agencies have begun to engage with the problem of criminality. As a new actor in this area though, the linkage between development actors and other stakeholders – particularly those at the security end of the spectrum – is mired by a series of tensions. The explicit connection between crime and development in the Sustainable Development Goals increases the incentive, and urgency, for development actors to work through these tensions. However, the response often replicates the focus of security actors, such as building the capacity of law enforcement agencies to arrest criminals and seize illicit goods. This approach neglects the specific value that development offers in the response to organised crime. This chapter will map out the tensions that exist between security and development actors, and their impact on the response to organised crime. It will then consider what development can contribute to the response, drawing on examples from Libya and Mexico.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the dilemma of global sustainable economic development and poverty alleviation in the context of the environmental concerns.

A range of recently published literature focusing on the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) is reviewed. The arguments that are in favor and against the notion of poor being a “market” are examined. The implications of increased consumption by the poor even while the developed countries maintain their levels of consumption are discussed.

This paper argues that current levels of consumption by the developed world is not sustainable even as the world's poor begin to consume more to maintain a reasonable standard of living. New business models and models for sustainable development are called for.

Sustainable development is an extremely complex issue and it is impossible to address this complexity in a single article.

The paper challenges businesses to develop new business models that have more stringent constraints imposed on them.

This paper challenges the current norm of unbridled growth. The paper calls for academicians and practitioners to develop new models.

This paper aims to study the Pesantren’s role in alleviating the poverty in rural region, and the discussion is connected to the theory of local economic development and Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah.

This paper engages a case study and an interview to get insight into the subject matters.

This study finds that the roles of an entrepreneur and a stimulator are evident from the sampled Pesantren in empowering the local economy and the underprivileged community. Further, inasmuch as the fundamental concept of local economic development is in line with Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah, the evidence from the sampled Pesantren is also representative of its role in actualising it. This study is relevant for academics, local government in Indonesia and other related stakeholders.

This paper credits both theoretical and practical implications for academics and the government. Firstly, by discussing the concept of prosperity from the Western and Islamic perspective, this paper creates a notion that these theories are harmonisable. Secondly, by sampling a Pesantren to draw how these two concepts are applied to advance a rural economy, this paper comes out with the hands-on advice for Indonesian government to legally engage with the existing Pesantrens to perform its rural development programmes.

While a Pesantren’s role in empowering a disadvantaged community is comprehensively investigated, an accurate evidence is documented which can best challenge its radicalism and terrorism issues.

This is the first study to harmonise the theory of local economic development and Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah and presents the practical evidence from a Pesantren.

Development ethics is a new and rapidly expanding discipline within development studies and social science. The cultivation of development ethics has the potential to produce a coherent account of human well‐being for guiding development policy and thinking. Although discussions of well‐being can be traced back to Greek antiquity, most development economists have managed to avoid reflecting sufficiently on the concept and meaning of “development”. While philosophers have reflected more fully on the nature and character of a good human life, they have not tested their theories of well‐being in the public domain or confronted their accounts of the “good” with the values of ordinary people. This is partly because philosophers (in contrast to social scientists) lack the necessary tools and expertise for such tasks. Yet it is only through the synthesis of scientific inquiry and philosophical reflection that we will uncover the central human values behind a more realistic and reliable development ethic. While a first attempt has now been made to develop an account of human development that rests firmly on the values and attitudes of ordinary people, more empirical work is required to confirm the strength of the results.