This research report on India addresses an important policy issue faced by policy-makers in many developing countries: how to allocate public funds more efficiently in order to achieve both growth and poverty-reduction goals in rural areas. This research is particularly important at a time when many developing countries are undergoing substantial budget cuts as part of macroeconomic reforms and adjustment. The econometric model employed in this research includes a broad range of government expenditure items.

The purpose of this paper is to understand to what extent such a strategy is appropriate for the low income rice-based countries of the Indochina-Myanmar Region1 (IMR). On the one hand, the arguments in favor of agricultural diversification and agrofood based rural industrialization seem even more pressing than for the lower-middle income countries of Southeast Asia.

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.

Empowerment of the poor is one ingredient in effective poverty reduction. A demand-driven participatory approach enhances effectiveness and efficiency. Accountability is the central lever for participatory governance. Capacity building is necessary for making participatory governance a reality.

The move towards decentralisation of resource control and management promises more efficient, equitable and sustainable resource use. Debate centres on what type of institutional arrangement in a given context is most appropriate and will lead to the fulfilment of the above ideal. Aspects of these arrangements include property rights structures as well as organisational structures.

This study examines the use and management of natural resources in an area of South Africa at a time of profound political and social change. It takes as its focus the Mutale River valley, which lies almost entirely within Venda, a former black 'homeland' under the South African system of apartheid, and now part of the Northern Province. Venda is situated in the north-eastern corner of the country, adjacent to the Kruger National Park and the border with Zimbabwe.

What have we learned about land markets in South Asia about land reform, land fragmentation, sharecropping, security of tenure, farm size, land rights, transaction costs, bargaining power, policy distortions, and market imperfections (including those associated with gender)?Faruqee and Carey review the literature on land markets in South Asia to clarify what's known and to highlight unresolved issues. They report that: We have a good understanding of why sharecropping persists and why it can be superior to other standard agricultural contracts.

What are the gains from a better education, more land ownership, or a different occupation in Bangladesh? Do the gains differ in urban and rural areas? Have they remained stable over time? Do household size, family structure, and gender affect well-being? Do consumption, poverty, and inequality depend more on characteristics of households or on the areas in which those households are located?Using household data from five successive national surveys, Wodon analyzes the microdeterminants of (and changes in) consumption, poverty, growth, and inequality in Bangladesh from 1983 to 1996.

Finds that a new system of social stratification is emerging in rural China as a result of economic reforms, that is far less equal than what preceeded it. As part of this trend, wealth inequality has increased, markedly in a short period of time. A relatively equal distribution of land has prevented furher inequality an dblocked the rise of a landed elite.However what has emerged is a "worker elite", mainly concentrated in cooperative enterprises in the coastal provinces and in richer provinces.