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This paper aims to examine impacts of the poverty alleviation relocation (PAR) program on diet quality of low-income households in China. We explore the impact mechanism of relocation on diet quality and the heterogeneous effects of different relocation modes.

A fixed effects model is constructed using panel data of 1126 low-income households collected over three years in eight provinces of China. The PAR program provides a natural experiment which dramatically changes the living conditions surrounding farmers. We are able to identify the causal effects of relocation on diet quality free from selection bias.

The empirical results show that the PAR program improves diet quality of low-income households and that better market access and increasing incomes induced by relocation play an important role in this improvement. Improved market access significantly reduces the over-consumption of staple foods, whereas higher income significantly reduces the intake divergences of non-staple foods. The impacts of different relocation modes on diet quality are highly heterogeneous.

Our findings indicate that the PAR program benefits diet quality of low-income households through greater market access and increases in total household income. Market improvements and food subsidies are conducive to improving the diet quality of the low income.

Despite widespread evidences of healthy diets being associated with household environments and income, selection bias remains. This paper utilizes an exogenous program to explore the causal impacts of market access and family income on diet quality and to separate their different effects.

Poverty alleviation is a global challenge. Human society has never ceased to fight against poverty. China was once the developing country with the largest rural poor population in the world. Remarkable achievements have been made in China’s antipoverty program over the past decades, shaping a unique poverty reduction strategy with Chinese characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to first review the history of China’s rural reform and antipoverty, and then analyze the related policy systems, mechanism innovations and future challenges in poverty alleviation and development. At last, some specific policy implications were provided.

Literature on China’s antipoverty history was reviewed and mechanism innovations on targeted poverty alleviation strategy were investigated.

Along with the deepening of the rural reform, the poverty alleviation and development in new China have undergone six stages, and experienced a transformation from relief-oriented to development-oriented poverty alleviation. The object of poverty alleviation has gradually targeted with a transformation from poor counties/areas to villages/households, and the effectiveness of poverty alleviation is also gradually improved. However, the increase in the difficulty of antipoverty, fragile ecological environment, rapid population aging and rural decline poses challenges to the construction of a well-off society in an all-round way in China. Specific antipoverty measures were put forward based on the investigation. Finally, the authors emphasize the importance of strengthening the study of poverty geography.

This study investigates the history of China’s antipoverty policy and analyzes the future challenges for implementing targeted poverty alleviation policy. These findings will lay a foundation for the formulation of China’s antipoverty policies after 2020, and provide experience for poverty alleviation in other developing countries around the world.

This study aims to construct an evaluation system for farmers’ livelihood capital in minority areas and evaluate the impact of relocation in response to climate change on farmers’ livelihood capital.

According to the characteristics of Yunnan minority areas, the livelihood capital of farmers in minority areas is divided into natural, physical, financial, social, human and cultural capital. The improved livelihood capital evaluation system measures farmers’ livelihood capital from 2015 to 2021. The net impact of relocation on farmers’ livelihood capital was separated using propensity score matching and the difference-in-difference (PSM-DID) method.

The shortage of livelihood capital makes it difficult for farmers to resist climate change, and the negative impacts of climate change further aggravate their livelihood vulnerability and reduce their livelihood capital. Relocation has dramatically increased the livelihood capital of farmers living in areas with poor natural conditions by 15.67% and has enhanced their ability to cope with climate change and realise sustainable livelihoods.

An improved livelihood capital evaluation system is constructed to realise the future localisation and development of livelihood capital research. The PSM-DID method was used to overcome endogeneity problems and sample selection bias of the policy evaluation methods. This study provides new ideas for academic research and policy formulation by integrating climate change, poverty governance and sustainable livelihoods.

This paper aims to study the conditions of the regional ecology, environment, resources and social harmony from the perspective of the new farmer-entrepreneur training process.

The study focuses on the poor conditions in relocation settlements currently developing in China.

The results show that the building of a new farmer-entrepreneur training system is a vital factor in the process of relocation development, where new farmer-entrepreneurs are characteristic of knowledge, innovation, openness and ambition.

For farmers participating in the program for the relocation of poor resettlements, a combination of these features is required for the process of building the new farmer-entrepreneur training-system to do well.

The Chinese Government initiates the targeted poverty alleviation strategy to lift 70.17 million population out of poverty in five years time until 2020. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the targeted poverty alleviation policy was implemented. The investigation focusses on the people’s voices, implementation challenges and implications for policy making and improvement.

A nationwide survey covering 2,075 households in 22 impoverished counties of 13 provinces was carried out in August, 2015, providing rich statistics and evidence for the paper. Literature review of China’s poverty alleviation history is also made to lay a research basis for the study.

There are diverse needs of the impoverished households of different ages and different poverty causes. The defects of the policy are revealed such as the impractical way of accurate poverty identification, the existence of poverty-returning problem and passive poverty alleviation.

The study of the paper investigates the current challenges for carrying out the targeted poverty alleviation and indicates implications for policy improvement. These contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of the targeted poverty alleviation policy in China.

The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness of the role of Islamic endowments (awqaf) as viable mechanisms for financing poverty alleviation programmes and the value of the third sector in promoting public welfare.

Secondary sources provided the main data for the study. These were supplemented with personal discussions and observations. Narrative approach was used for analysis.

The lack of awareness about endowments (awqaf) is a barrier to harnessing their potentials in redressing socio‐economic inequities and enhancing the quality of life of the poor in Kano.

Scholars, merchants and civil society organizations will be awakened to the need to cooperate in employing the institution of awqaf reducing poverty through the provision of quality education, better health care and employment opportunities. Government will be made aware of the need to explore non‐conventional methods in tackling poverty, recognize Islamic endowments (awqaf) as viable alternatives in financing community welfare programmes and provide all necessary policy support –legal/institutional/financial – for their smooth operation.

The worth of this paper lies in drawing the attention of stakeholders, like policy makers, and the general public to the contemporary relevance of, and demand for, Islamic endowments (awqaf) in solving many of the socio‐economic problems excluding the poor from leading a decent life.

This study explores whether targeted microcredit can effectively alleviate households’ multidimensional relative poverty (MdRP) in rural China in the new era following the poverty elimination campaign and discusses it from a gendered perspective.

This study applies a fixed-effects model, propensity score matching (PSM) and two-stage instrumental variable method to two-period panel data collected from 611 households in rural western China in 2018 and 2021 to explore the effects, mechanisms and heterogenous performance of targeted microcredit on households’ MdRP in the new era.

(i) Targeted microcredit can alleviate MdRP among rural households in the new era, mainly by reducing income and opportunity inequality. (ii) Targeted microcredit can promote women’s empowerment, mainly by enhancing their social participation, thereby helping alleviate households’ MdRP. The effect of the targeted microcredit on MdRP is more significant in medium-educated women households and non-left-behind women households. (iii) The MdRP alleviation effect is stronger in villages with a high degree of digitalization.

Learn from the experience of targeted microcredit. Accurately identify poor groups and integrate loan design into financial health and women empowerment. Particularly, pay attention to less-educated and left-behind women households and strengthen coordination between targeted microcredit and digital village strategies.

This study clarifies the effect of targeted microcredit on women’s empowerment and households’ MdRP alleviation in the new era. It also explores its various effects on households with different female characteristics and regional digitalization levels, providing ideas for optimizing microcredit.

Reports that urban poverty in Malaysia is not considered a serious phenomenon; however, rapid urbanization and industrialization is expected to bring in rural migrants into urban centres bringing along low incomes while putting pressure on urban services, infrastructure and the environment. Reviews past and present trends of urbanization and urban poverty, especially in the metropolitan city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and highlights evidence on the nature and causes of urban poverty based on a recent survey of urban poverty in Kuala Lumpur. Also assesses past policies on urban development and urban poverty alleviation programmes and makes recommendations for alternative policies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for understanding and analysing business's role as a development actor, and the distinction between development tool and development agent.

The paper presents a theoretical analysis based on secondary data and empirical research.

Business has various roles to play in the social and economic development of poorer countries, but are all of them equally important and laudable? Mainstream economics has long held that the private sector is essential to economic prosperity, and this has led policy‐makers and neoliberal thinkers to treat it as a tool for development. But under what circumstances does business go beyond acting out its assigned role as a tool of development to become what this article calls a “development agent” – something that consciously strives to deliver, and moreover be held to account for, developmental outcomes?

The article presents a framework for a more structured approach to further empirical research, but does not claim to apply that framework in empirical situations.

Despite the considerable literature advocating why business should be a development agent, much less attention has been paid to two more fundamental questions: whether and under what circumstances business will take on such a role; and what being a development agent means. These are the central questions of this article. Answering them enables business practitioners, policy‐makers and academics to predict more accurately when business engagement is likely to deliver genuine development value and be sustainable, and hence when it is a worthwhile business, advocacy or policy objective. It also enables improved decision‐making by non‐private sector partners such as development agencies and NGOs.

The article addresses the above questions in turn with reference to empirical research by the author over nearly two decades, and both the corporate responsibility and the international development literature. It discusses what being a genuine development agent means, and provides a framework for understanding the business‐poverty relationship based on business as a cause, a victim, and a solution in international development terms. It concludes with a discussion of how well business is performing as a development agent, and the future potential and limitations of this role.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.