In rural Africa and the Middle East, many ecosystems are on the verge of collapse. The interplay of social, ecological, and political-economic forces has compromised the ability of farmers to sustain their precious soil. As a result, farmers, and especially women farmers, face a constant daily struggle to survive.

In this paper we investigate whether a conditional cash transfer program such as the Programa Nacional de Educación, Salud y Alimentación (PROGRESA) can simultaneously combat the problems of low school attendance and child work. PROGRESA is a new program of the Mexican government aimed at alleviating extreme poverty in rural areas. It combats the different causes of poverty by providing cash benefits that are targeted directly to households on the condition of children attending school and visiting health clinics on a regular basis.

This study analyzes the determinants of land tenure insecurity and its impact on intensity of use of purchased farm inputs among households in Southern Ethiopia. Seventeen percent of the households stated that they were tenure insecure. The feeling of tenure insecurity could be caused by the land redistribution policy in Ethiopia where household size has been the main criterion used for land allocation after the land reform in 1975. This would imply that land rich households should be more tenure insecure.

Taking the step from appraisal to action using planning techniques that respond to the needs expressed by women and men.

This is a module for project planning from a gender perspective. It outlines experiences learned by various projects in Central America and provides practical guidleines for how to manage gender equity in the plannig process of a project.

You can download this module from the International Union for Conservation of Nature's website (IUCN).

This paper is based on community-level data from 188 villages in rural Madagascar. The survey that was conducted in 1997 made extensive use of long-term recall questions ascertaining changes during the past 10 years in rice yields, wages, population, soil fertility, and other pertinent variables of rural development. We find that—on average for all villages—the yields of irrigated rice, the major food crop, and real agricultural wages declined, while the communities expanded their upland area by nearly a quarter and experienced deteriorating fertility of their upland soils.

In 1987, an improved resource management system that incorporates velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens var. utilis) to address soil fertility and weed (Imperata cylindrica) infestation was introduced to the small-scale farmers in a densely populated area of the derived savannas in Benin Republic (West Africa). Six years later, an adoption study was conducted to assess factors driving the adoption process. Four types of land tenure systems based on mode of access to land were identified: divided inheritance, purchasing, gifts, and sharecropping/renting.

In rural areas of Bangladesh, poverty is pervasive and associated with high rates of malnutrition especially among preschool children and women. Apart from low levels of energy intakes, it is increasingly recognized that rice-dominated diets such as those consumed by most poor in the countryside may not supply all micronutrients required for a healthy life and productive activities. Children and women are particularly vulnerable to these micronutrient deficiencies as they face relatively higher requirements for growth and reproduction.

In early 1998, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) was asked to assist the PROGRESA administration to “determine if PROGRESA is functioning in practice as it is intended to by design.” This document summarizes the findings contained in a series of reports presented by IFPRI to PROGRESA from November 1998 through August 2000. A more detailed description of the research, rationale and methods appears in the list of supporting documents from which this document has been derived.

This brief describes research in Bangladesh. The brief argues that poor diet quality and low bioavailability of dietary iron are important factors contributing to iron deficiency anemia (IDA). Nevertheless, can food-based interventions be successful in reducing IDA? Will such interventions be cost-effective as compared with alternative interventions such as supplementation? Unfortunately in attempting to answer these questions, little is known, under actual living conditions in rural areas, about the magnitude of the effects of various components of the diet in reducing IDA.

The Optional Protocol entered into force in 2000.

[adapted from GTZ] 1999- More than one hundred technical co-operation projects on three continents supported by the various technical departments of GTZ were involved in this discussion on Land Use Planning, paying specific attention to gender and women’s promotion through its pilot program “Gender and Women’s Promotion”.