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This paper focuses on three key metrics of poverty, income distribution and employment to ascertain the pro-poor and inclusive-growth position of the western African region. The roles of governance structures and their interactive effects are also accommodated to capture the peculiarity of the region.

The paper employs fixed and dynamic models.

Evidence suggests that growth is pro-poor, although virtually all governance indicators are sterile in stimulating poverty reduction. The authors observe that health and education spending coupled with trade-openness stimulate pro-poor growth potentials, whereas conflicts culminate the pervasiveness of poverty in the region. By empirically answering the question of how inclusive is economic growth through the lens of income-distribution and employment, the authors show that growth has been exclusive as per-capita-GDP growth rather dampens income shared by the poorest 20%. Also, it is observed that growth has not been inclusive as the jobless-growth argument remains valid while high inequality further exacerbates unemployment in the region. It is further shown that governance has been generally weak in propelling inclusive growth except where the institutional-component of governance stimulates inclusive growth through improvement in equality and labor employability.

The study jointly examines the metrics of poverty, income distribution and employment to ascertain growth pro-poorness and inclusivity which are key for the achievement of African-union (AU) agenda 2063. The study captures cross-sectional dependence among selected countries which previous studies ignored.

There are many farmers in rural Ethiopia, who do not join cooperative societies, despite the different technical and financial supports from the government. This study thus aims to investigate the main factors that inspire rural people to join into the cooperatives.

The study collected relevant primary data from 400 sample households using a special household survey designed for this study. The study also reviewed different secondary materials. The collected data were analyzed using the two-sample t-test principle and cooperative participation probit model.

The finding of the binary choice model illustrates that information access, special skill, membership in rural association, frequency of attending a public meeting/workshop, household head education, credit access, training access, number of family members in school, distance to main market, availability of infrastructures, farmland ownership and farmland sizes are the major explanatory variables that have statistically significant (p-value <0.05) influence on the rural people joining in the cooperative societies in the study areas.

This study was based on a cross-sectional survey. As a result, the finding may be subjected to some limitations though the study made all possible efforts to minimize the limitations.

Many studies found that cooperatives are a basis for food security. Accordingly, the government can increase a number of cooperative societies in the region by giving more focus to knowledge- and awareness-based instruments like education, information center, rural associations, communication services and roads. These campaigns can attract more people to join the cooperatives and then get the different economic and social advantages from the cooperatives in order to ensure household food security.

Some studies found that state, leadership, success history of the cooperative and autonomous status are the most important factors that determine not only the expansion of cooperatives in terms of a number of and types but also for the success of the cooperatives. This study, however, found the importance of information- and knowledge-based mechanisms as a basis to attract more people so that increase in a number of and types of the cooperative societies. Thus, the result of the study is significant for policy makers, social science students, researchers and cooperative societies.

This paper aims to describe global trends and policy responses with respect to the social sustainability of urban mobility which, put simply, refers to whether the benefits and costs of transport and travel services (mobility) and the spatial organisation of facilities and services (accessibility) are equally and equitably distributed in a society or community. Considering urban transport provision from a social sustainability framework raises critical issues of policy goals and purpose, not least of which is the consideration that policies aimed at stemming or reducing urban mobility should not accentuate existing inequities and inequalities in accessibility. It also raises issues of reshaping urban decision-making structures to better integrate the end-user, where the end-user includes both those who are presently included in mobility and accessibility provision and, most importantly, those who are presently and have been previously excluded.

Comprehensive research into the global policy literature and urban practice around socially sustainable urban mobility under the auspices of an international agency.

The databases and methodologies around social sustainability have not been sufficiently developed to permit ready operationalisation. The use of electronic technology and user feedback – which such technology makes possible – has not been adequately harnessed to develop the necessary methodologies for the measurement of social sustainability with respect to urban mobility.

The development of improved social sustainability methodologies will increase the probability of the building of pro-poor infrastructure.

The development of improved social sustainability methodologies will proved improved frameworks for evaluating the social responsibility of transport options.

The development of participatory methodologies and evaluatory frameworks will lead towards more cohesive and better integrated cities, that is more socially sustainable cities.

This paper makes the case that the participatory research necessary to the evaluation of transport projects, schemes and networks as socially sustainable has not yet been undertaken. It brings together a set of global evidence to make the case that current discussions of the social sustainability currently take place in an evidence and policy vacuum.

Buildings/infrastructure are recognised to have a significant impact on the environment and the community, and hence there is pressure on industry practitioners to incorporate environmental and social considerations in addition to the traditional cost, time and quality. The development of sustainability reporting tools (SRTs) to assist in the management of “green” building/infrastructure projects is pivotal in informing on progress in sustainability practices. However, the rapid growth of SRTs in the last decade, with different criteria and methodology, has created complications for stakeholders.

The paper provides a comprehensive review of tools to guide practitioners, property investors, policy makers and developers towards making informed choices in “green” building/infrastructure projects. Comparative analyses, benefits and limitations of these tools are discussed in the paper.

Some of the findings from the analysis of SRTs include: an emphasis on environmental issues; scoring which does not account for uncertainty or variability in assessors’ perceptions; lack of published reasoning behind the allocation of scores; inadequate definition of scales to permit differentiation among projects; and the existence of non-scientific benchmarks.

The paper departs from earlier reviews to include a discussion on infrastructure SRTs, life cycle tools, and issues broader than the environment. Changes and additions, subsequent to earlier reviews, have been made to SRTs, making the updated review provided here useful.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between infrastructure development, rural–urban income inequality and poverty for BRICS economies.

Pedroni’s panel co-integration test and panel dynamic ordinary least squares (PDOLS) have been used to carry out the analysis.

The empirical findings confirm a long-run relationship among infrastructure development, poverty and rural–urban inequality. The PDOLS results suggest that both infrastructure development and economic growth lead to poverty reduction in BRICS. However, rural–urban income inequality aggravates poverty in these nations. The paper advocates for adopting policies aimed at strengthening infrastructure and achieving economic growth to reduce the current levels of poverty prevailing in the BRICS nations.

Significant limitations exist in the literature in terms of not clearly defining the nature of relationship and interlinkages between infrastructure development, poverty and inequality, with regard to the BRICS nations. The available studies mainly focus on the relationship between infrastructure and growth, with the universal agreement being that these two are positively related. However, it is still not right to assume that economic growth attributable to infrastructure development will, therefore, subsequently lead to a reduction in inequality. This forms the basis for this study, that is, to critically examine the relationship between infrastructure development, inequality and poverty for BRICS nations.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on households' willingness to pay for electricity consumption and mitigation expenditure due to poor electricity infrastructure as a measure of demand and tariff setting.

In this paper, the demand side management (DSM) approach was adopted in establishing user demand for electricity in the study area.

Based on the high cost (averting expenditure) of providing alternative power supply, households are willing to pay extra for more reliable and regular power supply.

The study is a deviation from the usual command or supply side management approach to infrastructure provision and management.

There is limited research on DSM approach to electricity infrastructure provision in Nigeria. The study will enhance the chances of cost recovery under private‐public partnership arrangement. The paper identifies that a reliable and reasonable priced electricity supply is essential for a developing country.

We aim to explore to what extent and how pro-poor PPP projects engage with local communities and what the possibilities are for the communities to become genuine partners with governments, businesses and civil society organizations (CSOs). We look into three different PPP projects funded by the Dutch international cooperation that emphasize the pro-poor aspects in Africa and find patterns of how local communities are positioned in each project. The analysis of the three projects indicates that the existing pro-poor PPP projects deal with local communities as either mere beneficiaries, business partners with substantial brokering by CSOs, or those who potentially lead the projects. The difference stems from how a PPP project allows local communities to participate and balance the relationship between the project’s profit maximization and benefit-sharing for the poor. Our findings can be used to evaluate pro-poor PPP projects by reference to its local development relevance. They also show possibilities for local communities to identify their positions vis-à-vis large-scale investment projects and reflect on what pro-poor projects actually mean. The importance of PPP projects to become pro-poor and enhance its local development relevance has been widely discussed; however, the actual positionality of the poor within PPP projects remains unclear. In this chapter, we specifically look into the question of where local communities are in pro-poor PPP projects in order to suggest a new research and policy agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to examine pro-poor urban asset adaptation to climate variability and change. It constructs a conceptual framework that explores the appropriate asset adaptation strategies for extreme poor households as well as the process of supporting these households and groups in accumulating these assets.

Qualitative data are obtained from life histories, key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus-group discussions (FGDs). These data are collected, coded and themed.

This research identifies that households among the urban extreme poor do their best to adapt to perceived climate changes; however, in the absence of savings, and access to credit and insurance, they are forced to adopt adverse coping strategies. Individual adaptation practices yield minimal results and are short lived and even harmful because the urban extreme poor are excluded from formal policies and institutions as they lack formal rights and entitlements. For the poorest, the process of facilitating and maintaining patron–client relationships is a central coping strategy. Social policy approaches are found to be effective in facilitating asset adaptation for the urban extreme poor because they contribute to greater resilience to climate change.

This study analyses the empirical evidence through the lens of a pro-poor asset-adaptation framework. It shows that the asset-transfer approach is an effective in building household-adaptation strategies. Equally important is the capacity to participate in and influence the institutions from which these people have previously been excluded.

The purpose of this paper is to question the extent to which Sub-Saharan African cities are progressing towards promoting pro-poor economies through pro-poor tourism (PPT). It specifically examines how African cities are resilient towards attaining sustainable urban tourism destinations in light of high urbanization.

The methodological framework is interpretive in nature and qualitative in an operational form. It uses meta-synthesis to evaluate the causal relationships observed within Sub-Saharan African pro-poor economies to enhance PPT approaches, using Accra, Ghana, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Harare, Zimbabwe, as case studies.

Tourism development in Sub-Saharan Africa has been dominantly underpinned by neoliberal development strategies which threaten the sustainability of tourism in African cities.

The study is limited to three Sub-Saharan African countries. Further studies may need to be done in other developing countries.

It argues for good governance through sustainability institutionalization which strengthens the regulative mechanisms, processes and organizational culture. Inclusive tourism approaches that are resilient-centered have the potential to promote urban tourism in Sub-Saharan African cities. These findings contribute to the building of strong and inclusive Institutions for Sustainable Development in the Sub-Saharan African cities to alleviate poverty.

These findings contribute to the building of strong and inclusive institutions for sustainable development in the Sub-Saharan African cities to alleviate poverty.

The “poor” are always within the communities, and it takes a community to minimise the impact of poverty among the populace. The study is conducted at a pertinent time when most African government’s development policies are pro-poor driven. Though African cities provide opportunities of growth, they are regarded as centres of high inequality.