How can links between disaster mitigation and urban planning be strengthened? Can urban livelihood strategies reduce poor city dwellers’ vulnerability to disaster? Scant attention is currently paid by relief organisations to urban planning and disaster mitigation, according to a recent Care…
Could more efficient use of energy have an impact on poverty alleviation? What changes in energy use patterns are likely to generate the greatest benefits for the poor? What are the constraints on the uptake of energy efficiency measures? Can they be overcome?
What factors motivate developing countries to prevent deforestation, which can cause serious environmental damage, such as flooding? Do democratic states take action more effectively than authoritarian states? This paper considers these questions using two case studies: the 1988 floods in…
The Gujarat state government has followed a strategy focussed on industrialisation and urbanisation with an open door policy ever since its inception in 1960. Economic reform measures at the centre with an explicit emphasis on trade and industry considerably benefited Gujarat, making its…
This report gives a description of the financial life of residents with a limited basis for cash-crop and off-farm opportunities, hence restricting them to size of landholding as a critical indicator of wealth and status and influences access to cheap bank finance.The authors demonstrates…
This toolkit provides a framework for main-streaming gender in rural development activities.It addresses the lack of conceptual and practical tools in the area of sustainable land management. Its modular design allows for individual approaches and targets development staff at the project and…
What are the effects of trends away from legal pluralism towards more uniform approaches to the law? This paper analyses the effects of legal changes in property rights for people's welfare and development in India. Sen's concepts of capabilities and entitlements are applied to study…
This report argues that land reform, both tenancy reform and redistribution of ceiling surplus lands to the landless, is important to poverty alleviation.The paper argues that in addition to production benefits, land reform helps to change the local political structure by giving more voice to…
Do women have effective land rights in practice? Research and policy have only recently begun to engage with the need for women to have independent rights to fields of their own. What needs to be done? Four areas for action are identified with associated strategies: improve women's claims…
Discusses and illustrates concepts for identifying ways of improving productivity of water within basins. The results of applying a water accounting procedure to four sub-basins in South Asia (Bhakra in India; Chishtian in Pakistan; Huruluwewa in nothern Sri Lanka; and Kirindi Oya in southern…