“It is paradoxical but hardly surprising that the right to food has been endorsed more often and with greater unanimity and urgency than most other human rights, while at the same time being violated more comprehensively and systematically than probably any other.”

Richard Cohen, in Causes of Hunger, 1994

This compendium and analysis of Cities in the BRICS countries were developed through a partnership between the South African Cities Network (SACN) and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP) at the University of the Witwatersrand. Since South Africa joined BRICS in 2010, multiple connections have been forged between South Africa and its alliance partners. However, although there is a growing volume of engagements, there is still inadequate knowledge and understanding across the BRICS.

Most stakeholder-based research concerning agri-environmental schemes (AES) derives from work engaging with farmers and land managers. Consequently, the voices and opinions of other actors involved in AES tends to be unrepresented in the wider literature. One group of actors that seem particularly overlooked in this respect are private (independent) farm advisors (i.e., the consultants contracted by farmers and land managers to advise-on AES and agronomic matters).

The survival of farms requires innovative adaptation and investment to take advantage of the characteristics of the peri-urban environment. In Ontario, Canada, the Provincial Government passed in 2005 the Greenbelt Act that delimits Ontario’s Greenbelt—an area of 1.8 million acres where land is protected from development around the metropolitan region of the Greater Golden Horseshoe. This paper presents research on farm-level analysis of farmers’ investment decision-making aiming at understanding the impact of Ontario’s Greenbelt on farm investment.

The year 2015 will be remembered for the waves of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region looking for a safer future in other parts of the world. While millions of people crossed into Europe, the international community looked for the roots causes of the migration, recognizing that food insecurity, unemployment, drought and environmental degradation all play a role in the uprising and coalescing of conflict.

The eucalypt sector in Lao PDR consists of several large eucalypt developers and a growing smallholder base. This Discussion Paper, developed through a multi-stakeholder process coordinated by Earth Systems, assesses the status of and explores key challenges and opportunities for the sustainable development of the eucalypt sector in Lao PDR. 

The seventh session of the Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) of the Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission (WECAFC) was held in Panama City, Panama on 7-8 November 2015. The Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute (GCFI) hosted the session at the venue of its sixty-eight annual conference. The SAG discussed the outcomes of the work carried out by various joint working groups in 2014–2015 and their recommendations to WECAFC 16, the fisheries resource status in the Wider Caribbean Region, and activities to be undertaken by WECAFC in 2016–2017.

Primary aim is to provide a backdrop on relevant policies and practice, and to inform practitioners, policy makers and researchers about key governance issues relevant to the strengthening of women’s empowerment in community land stewardship and accountability in agricultural investments. Conducted in April 2016 on selected communities in Tana River County, providing an in-depth case study of the application of statutory and customary laws affecting women’s access to and management of land. Concludes that implementation of gender equality provisions has been weak overall.

The project took place in Katima Mulilo and Rundu during 2007-11. The project consisted of 66 township extensions, and resulted in 18,500 plots developed in a period of 5 years. The project was funded by LUX Development, the cooperation agency from Luxemburg, which poured significant funds to make the project possible. One of the innovation aspects was to do the topographic and cadastral mapping in parallel with the layout and design. This was done by teams consisting of a town planner, a surveyor , and community facilitators selected by the inhabitants of the settlement in question.

Although many studies consider the
spatial pattern of manufacturing plants in developing
countries, the role of services as a driver of urbanization
and structural transformation is still not well understood.
Using establishment level data from India, this paper helps
narrow this gap by comparing and contrasting the spatial
development of services with that in manufacturing. The
study during the 2001-2010 period suggests that (i) services