The countries of circum-Sahara Africa adversely affected by desertification, their sub-regional organisations, their Northern partners and the concerned international organisations of the United Nations System have created the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) in May 1992. OSS's mission is conducted within the international framework of the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) and Agenda 21 and aims to favour the development and the optimisation of its African partners' information wealth, for an optimal use of the means for combating desertification.

This global survey examines the impact of current trends and policies on the overall social and economic situation of women. It starts by describing the main economic trends produced by globalisation: trade liberalisation; increased globalised production due to direct investment of multinational corporations; and financial liberalisation. The gender impact of those trends are then analysed in detail beginning with employment and displacement effects, including their influence on women's position within the household and the labour markets around the world.

James D. Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank Group, discussed the international development framework; legal and justice system; financial supervision and control at the level of banks, financial markets, capital markets, leasing, and agricultural banks; and social safety net and a social structure to come up with programs for privatization in the former Soviet Union. Governments must be the dominant power in deciding the development agenda. In partnership with a country’s government, the Bank agrees upon a Comprehensive Development Framework.

In recent years, many development agencies have made intensive efforts to improve their efficiency and increase their impact on rural poverty. At the heart of this new strategic management process is the measurement of performance.

A growing recognition of the need to delimit the role of the government, to promote the market framework, and to rely on the private sector as the engine of growth, offers the prospect of a new beginning in rural development in Africa. Rural people must take a more dominant role, both in shaping their economic prospects and in assuming the responsibility for a high quality of stewardship of natural resources. To help to bring about such an empowerment of the people, governments and the donors will need to undertake some drastic reforms in the old systems and habits of governance.

Private (especially foreign) investors find Viet Nam's legal framework the most serious impediment to investment. Policy changes to reverse the former command system may be enough to initiate the transition. But without an appropriate legal framework, they will be insufficient for long-term development.A major objective of Viet Nam's transition to a market economy has been to reactivate the private sector in a mixed economy.

Localization—the growing economic and political power of cities, provinces, and other sub-national entities—will be one of the most important new trends in the 21st century. Together with accelerating globalization of the world economy, localization could revolutionize prospects for human development or it could lead to chaos and increased human suffering.Improved communications, transportation and falling trade barriers are not only making the world smaller they are also fueling the desire and providing the means for local communities to shape their own future.

Communities of present-day or former hunter-gatherers live in scattered communities across the world, although their precise numbers and status are very uncertain. Their often marginalised status and ethnolinguistic diversity has made it hard to articulate their case for land rights outside Australia and North America. Their preferred subsistence strategy, hunting, is often in direct conflict with conservation philosophies and protected areas often fall within their traditional hunting areas.

This paper discusses the assumptions underlying non-timber forest product (NTFP)-based approaches. The authors examine conservation dimensions, highlighting the differences in perceptions among different stakeholder groups about what should be conserved, and development issues, including the role of NTFPs in meeting cultural and subsistence, and in enabling people to deal with increasing integration into market systems. This is followed by an examination of the institutional frameworks that influence pursuit of both conservation and development objectives.