The Select Committee on Land and Mineral Resources having conducted oversight at the Council of Geosciences (CGS), the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP), from 21 – 22 October 2014 reports as follows:

1. Background and Introduction

Environmental stress is a serious
concern in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Recent years have witnessed important changes that are
pushing the boundaries of the region's environmental
legacy. The current trends are declining water resources per
capita, shrinking arable land, deteriorating vulnerable
coastal zones and marine resources, rising energy use, and
mounting pollution, particularly in urban areas. This

Recognizing the importance of policy
debate and knowledge sharing in the field of development,
the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the
World Bank (Middle East and North Africa Region) agreed in
March 2010 to hold joint high-level development seminars
around issues pertaining to the Arab World. These were to be
known as the Arab Development Symposia (ADS) and will be
held on a regular basis, every 18 months or so, at the Arab

Global insurance markets are vast and diverse, and may offer many opportunities for remote sensing. To date, however, few operational applications of remote sensing for insurance exist. Papers claiming potential application of remote sensing typically stress the technical possibilities, without considering its contribution to customer value for the insured or to the profitability of the insurance industry. Based on a systematic search of available literature, this review investigates the potential and actual support of remote sensing to the insurance industry.

It is clear that climate change involves changes in temperature and precipitation and, therefore, directly affects land productivity. However, this is not the only channel for climatic change to affect agro-systems. Biodiversity is also subject to climatic change. The present paper illustrates a unique attempt to economically assess the potential effects of climate change induced impacts of biodiversity on the agricultural sector in terms of changes in land productivity, changes in agricultural output and, ultimately, changes in national GDPs.

This paper provides evidence on the
effects of agricultural productivity on wage rates, labor
supply to market oriented activities, and labor allocation
between own farming and wage labor in agriculture. To guide
the empirical work, this paper develops a general
equilibrium model that underscores the role of reallocation
of family labor engaged in the production of non-marketed
services at home (`home production'). The model

Understanding the trade-offs in
improving the precision of agricultural measures through
survey design is crucial. Yet, standard indicators used to
determine program effectiveness may be flawed and at a
differential rate for men and women. The authors use a
household survey from Mozambique to estimate the measurement
error from male and female self-reports of their adoption
and knowledge of three practices: intercropping, mulching,

In a context of rapid urbanization and
energy transition, massive investments will be required to
develop efficient public transport networks. Capturing the
increase in land value caused by transport infrastructure
(for example, through a betterment tax) appears a promising
way to finance public transport. However, it is no trivial
task, as it is difficult to anticipate the rent creation.
This paper uses a simple city model based on urban economic

In the past 50 years women's legal
status has improved all over the world. But many laws still
make it difficult for women to fully participate in economic
life whether by getting jobs or starting businesses.
Discriminatory rules bar women from certain jobs, restrict
access to capital for women-owned firms and limit
women's capacity to make legal decisions. Gender
differences in laws affect both developing and developed

“Environmental Perception Process of Desertification in Perú”, try to do an analysis and evaluation of Peruvian territory in terms of enviromental degradation due to problems of biodiversity loss, progressive loss of productive capacity land ecosystem in the climaterelevant ecological Peruvian territory. The purpose is to know the territorial spaces with problems of environmental degradation and prevention alternatives to existing problems.

Differences in relative female
employment by soil texture are used to explain the
heterogeneous deficit of female children across districts
within India. Soil texture varies exogenously and determines
the depth of land tillage. Deep tillage, possible in loamy
but not in clayey soil textures, reduces the demand for
labor in agricultural tasks traditionally performed by
women. Girls have a lower economic value where female labor

Livestock are critical to building sustainability in food and agriculture. Current and future livestock sector development needs to produce more, from less, and in ways that benefit all. Solving the sector’s challenges requires stakeholders to find common ground and to join forces towards continuous practice change. The Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock is one example of these new ways of working.