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The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of gender and social inequality in the agricultural sector of South Asia with a focus on wheat as a major staple crop, which underpins the breadbasket of the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). It provides new insights, as examined through a climate justice lens, into the status of women and socially excluded groups in the region and, based on this, calls for re-thinking both politically and practically on how to shape future initiatives to be more gender and socially inclusive, thereby supporting the rights of the neediest.

An overview of research and evidence is conducted on how gender and social inequality is currently being addressed in the agricultural sector through an analysis of peer reviewed and grey literature. This is followed by a synthesis which is presented as directions and recommendations for future initiatives developed through a climate justice lens.

Gender and social inequality issues are rife across the IGP. This may be for many reasons including poor targeting, little capacity, lack of strategic positioning in programme and project design – all of which have enormous implications for the poorest and most marginalised communities and, especially, women. The need to conduct more gender-inclusive and socially inclusive research to enhance gender equity and equal opportunities for women and men is highlighted. The need to include a human rights-based approach to safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable affected by climate change is indicated through the gender analysis; the finding provides some guiding principles in moving towards the new 2015 climate agreement and Post 2015 Development Goals.

The results provide a foundation which stimulates thinking around climate justice, and the contribution this approach can make to better inform future agricultural initiatives/policies to be more gender-inclusive and socially inclusive.

Micro-businesses contribute to economic development by improving individual welfare. Women are the primary drivers and owners of such businesses in urban Ethiopia. The purpose of this study is to investigate the poverty status and determinants among women-owned micro-businesses.

The basic study units were women who owned micro-businesses. A sample of 384 women-owned micro-business was chosen using a stratified and systematic random sampling technique. Thirty-six participants were purposely chosen for in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Questionnaires, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data. The poverty head count, poverty gap and poverty severity indices were computed to estimate poverty status. The major determinants of women’s poverty were investigated using a logistic regression model.

The overall poverty incidence, gap and severity were estimated to be 24.27%, 3.85%, and 1.11% respectively, among the women who owned micro-businesses. Eight of the 14 poverty determinants, including age, dependents, savings, remittance and the number of days and hours women work in their businesses, were found to have a significant effect on women’s poverty. The results suggest that local governments, technical and vocational training institutions should work together to reduce the impact of poverty-aggravating factors on women and increase the contribution of women-owned micro-businesses to poverty reduction.

This study addressed the poverty status of women who run micro-businesses, which is a crucial issue in Ethiopia’s urban context. It adds new knowledge to the issue of gendered economic participation, poverty reduction and poverty determinants in the Ethiopian context.

There has been growing interest in recent years in modelling various poverty‐related issues. However, there have not been many attempts at empirical estimation of best‐fit income distribution functions with an objective of subsequent use in poverty focused models. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by empirically estimating best‐fit income distribution functions for different household income groups and computing poverty and inequality indices for Sri Lanka.

The authors empirically estimated a number of popular distribution functions found in the income distribution literature to find the best‐fit income distribution using household income and expenditure survey data for Sri Lanka and subsequently estimated various poverty and inequality measures.

The results show that the income distributions of all low‐income household groups follow the beta general probability distribution. The poverty measures derived using these distributions show that among the different income groups, the estate low‐income group has the highest incidence of poverty, followed by the rural low‐income group.

According to the best of the authors' knowledge, empirical estimation of income distribution functions for South Asia has never been attempted. The results of this study, even though based on Sri Lankan data, will be relevant to most developing countries in South Asia and will be very useful in developing poverty alleviation strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight to policy-makers into a framework for action, which is needed to effectively reduce poverty in its monetary and non-monetary dimensions.

Specifically, an exact decomposition analysis is conducted that is based on the Shapley value method, and investigated the growth and redistribution effects as well as changes due to mobility and sector-specific effects of the variation in both income/expenditure and non-income poverty dimensions.

Growth in mean consumption and household assets accounted for the bulk of the improvement in poverty reduction and the results complement the evidence obtained from the “sectoral decomposition” of poverty in Cameroon which may indeed have a strong bearing on the sectoral shares of poverty. The temptation is resisted, however, not to deny that redistribution also has an important role to play, yet there must be severe limits to what can be achieved by growth neutral redistribution. The redistribution effect had an ameliorating tendency in household asset deprivation among farming households.

This paper is a well-written piece using quite rigorous and interesting methodological approach. To obtain a measure of non-income dimensions of well-being, the authors constructed composite indices on household assets reflecting household access to a range of physical assets and services including human capital by polychoric principal component analysis method.

Despite the widely acknowledged prognosis that the danger of unrelenting hunger and famine looms large in sub‐Saharan Africa and that there is a constant need for donors to provide much required food relief, there is a paucity of literature based on comprehensive empirical work at the household or individual level. Based on data collected across two years and two locations in rural Kenya, attempts to develop further the literature on household food security. Food balances are computed and various approaches to food poverty analysis are employed by setting a very low poverty line to determine the proportion of households whose members would require external food support. Results show that per capita food production is low and varies with rainfall, and food poverty and inequality in distribution are high. A great deal could be done, therefore, in the sphere of livelihood opportunities to enhance household purchasing power and hence effective demand and food distribution.

This study aims to examine the impact of fiscal space and governance quality on inclusive growth in African countries.

In total, 28 African countries were analyzed from 2000 to 2020 using the generalized method of moment regression method. An inclusive growth index was developed using the principal component analysis (PCA) method. The PCA-derived index incorporates factors such as poverty, income inequality, economic participation and per capita income.

The main findings suggest that fiscal space availability (de facto fiscal space and fiscal balance) promotes inclusive growth. The study also showed that lagged inclusive growth, digitalization and governance indicators positively influence inclusive growth. The study concludes that fiscal space availability fosters inclusive growth, but this effect is mediated by governance quality in Africa.

Several studies examined the role of fiscal policy on inclusive growth. However, it is crucial to assess the fiscal space, that is, the financial capacity of the government to implement its fiscal policy without harming its financial stability. This paper, therefore, contributes to the existing literature by using de facto fiscal space indicator to comprehend fiscal dynamics contributing to inclusive growth. In addition, the paper uniquely constructs an inclusive growth index by including poverty severity, which considers both the incidence and depth of poverty and inequality in society.

This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of Baitul Maal wat Tamwil (BMT) in reducing poverty.

The case study approach on BMT MMU Sidogiri (located at East Java Province) is taken. Two important and dominating products of BMT MMU Sidogiri (i.e. ba’i bithaman ‘ajil (BBA) and mudarabah) are examined carefully on how much they have helped the customers in reducing their poverty. The paper goes beyond data measurement using descriptive statistics, paired t-test and some poverty measurement indexes such as headcount index; poverty gap; Sen index; and Foster, Greer and Thorbecke Index to investigate the effectiveness of the BMT in reducing poverty.

This paper reveals that BMT financing is effective in reducing poverty. Most of respondents can increase their income after receiving BMT financing. Products of BMT, especially BBA and mudarabah, to empower the poor in various productive businesses have been able to reduce the extent and severity of poverty. This paper also discloses some interesting and important findings related with how BMT’s work, so that it can contribute more to the knowledge enrichment, as well as the development of BMTs, in general, in realising their mission.

The establishment of the so-called BMT in the form of an Islamic microfinance is intended initially to effectively help the poor. At present, there are around 3,874 BMTs operating around the country. Although the BMTs have been existing since more than ten years, no research has been conducted to examine their effectiveness in alleviating the poverty. This study in aimed at fulfilling this important gap.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors influencing the use of family planning and its link with multidimensional poverty in rural Nigeria.

The Alkire and Foster measure of poverty as well as the Logistic and Probit models were used to identify the factors influencing the use of family planning and its effect on the multidimensional poverty status of rural households in Nigeria.

The results indicate that 31.1 percent of rural households were poor with deprivations in health and education contributing the most to multidimensional poverty. The low use of contraception was closely linked to low level of literacy, lack of awareness of the different methods and high levels of poverty. The use of contraception reduced the level of poverty in the household.

The intensity of poverty should be considered in the design of policies and programs. The wide and proper use of family planning is a sine qua non for any significant reduction in poverty. Potent and assertive family planning programs by government could be achieved through public-private sector partnership and assistance of international development partners.

This paper attempts to bridge the knowledge gap in the empirical literature on the link between multidimensional poverty and family planning. In particular`, its application to the rural context, often characterized by high rate of poverty and unmet needs for family planning employing nationally representative data is of immense value for social policy.

This study aims to examine whether social inclusion policies promote financial inclusion. Three social inclusion policies were analyzed: gender equality policies, environmental sustainability policies and social protection (SP) policies.

The study used the panel fixed effect regression methodology to analyze data from 48 low- and medium-income countries.

The results show that social inclusion policies do not have a significant effect on financial inclusion. Also, the older population is less likely to own an account at a formal financial institution in low- and medium-income countries that have strong environmental sustainability policies and institutions. The implication of the finding is that the policies and institutions established to promote environmental sustainability can discourage the older population from keeping the population's wealth in formal financial institutions in the country.

Policy makers should consider how social and environmental policies and programs can be designed to promote financial inclusion for older individuals in the individuals' countries.

The financial inclusion literature has not considered the role of social inclusion policies in promoting financial inclusion for individuals, businesses and the excluded groups in a country.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of migration on economic growth and human development in selected Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.

The estimations were carried out in a panel of 19 selected SSA countries over the period 1990-2013, using the two-stage least squares estimation techniques. Two measures of migration, namely stock of international migrants and the ratio of personal remittances received to personal remittances paid were used in the study to carry out this investigation.

The results conform to the findings of existing literature, namely that social expenditure, domestic investment, financial inclusion, income inequality, income and human poverty are significant determinants of either human development or per capita GDP in Sub-Saharan Africa. The distinctive feature of the study is the significant but negative role played by migration in explaining human development and economic growth in the region. The results from the panel estimations reveal that an increase in the measures of migration deteriorates the level of human development and growth of the region.

The major limitation of this study is the unavailability of quality data on migration flows. Therefore, it would be imperative to reinvestigate the specifications adopted in this study in follow-up studies.

The study includes implications for policy makers, especially in SSA countries, that the pattern and flow of migration does not circulate within the region and has tended to drain out human capital to other regions of the world. In the same event, the stock of migrants residing in the region may be low-skilled migrants that do not contribute directly to the level of human development.

To assess the impact of migration on economic growth and development such as the SSA region, it is imperative to follow the growth-based, capacity-based and asset-based approaches to development. This study has made this distinction.