The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is the breadbasket of China. Rural areas constitute a major center of grain and cotton production, and, as a result, rural wealth is highly dependent on access to irrigation water. A changing climate and increasing competition from the urban and industrial sectors as well as the implementation of province-level water withdrawal quotas equivalent to 37 km3 since 1999 described below threaten the agricultural sector�s sustained access to water resources.

In recent years access to safe and reliable water supplies has received increased government attention in Ethiopia. As a result, the national coverage rate for this service has gradually improved. Yet millions of people in rural areas still do not get drinking water from an improved water source. While expanding improved water source schemes is generally essential, it is equally important to ensure that the schemes have increased users' satisfaction with water quality and availability for everyday use.

Traditional authorities are powerful leaders alongside the state in Ghana. The chieftaincy has been resilient to “modernization”—maintaining land rights, allegiance from citizens, and influence in rural communities. Nonetheless, there are few rules defining their official role in the local government structure. It is empirically acknowledged that chiefs seriously impact the development of their communities. Hence, this study looks for factors that might explain the state’s deficiency in policy regarding chiefs.

This paper presents the results of interviews with 44 stakeholders in the Nigerian fertilizer sector eliciting their perspective on various aspects of the federal and state government fertilizer subsidy programs. The stakeholders interviewed include persons employed at state-level ministries of agriculture and the agricultural development programs (ADPs), agricultural input dealers, members of small farmers associations, and farmers not aligned with a farmers association.

Providing safe drinking water in rural areas is a major challenge because it is not easy to establish institutional arrangements that will ensure that drinking water facilities are provided, maintained, and managed in an efficient, equitable, and sustainable way. Like many other countries, Ghana has adopted a community-based approach to meet this challenge. Community-based water and sanitation committees (WATSANs) are in charge of managing drinking water facilities at the local level.

With the beginning of the new millennium and the increasing concerns with regard to wild privatization reforms, African governments, international donors and development scholars have been showing renewed interest in collective action. As a result, farmer-based organization (FBOs) and agricultural cooperatives (agri-coops) are back on the policy agenda for Africa as a preferential means to achieve a more equitable, inclusive and community-driven development of rural areas.

The Nicaraguan Water Law, enacted in September 2007, is the first attempt to implement a new water law in the country. This is not an isolated legislative process in Central America, as other countries initiated similar reforms based on the Dublin principles. Although all new water laws need time to be implemented, the progress in Nicaragua has so far been meager. This paper provides a diagnosis about the Nicaraguan Water Law by identifying the major factors that may impede or delay its future implementation and enforcement.

Effective poverty reduction programs require careful measurement of poverty status. Several studies have shown conceptually that assets reflecting productive capacity form a more robust basis for identifying the poor than do flow variables such as expenditures or income. Nonetheless, little work has empirically compared poverty measurements based on assets and expenditures. This paper uses panel data from Ethiopia to generate an asset-based poverty classification scheme. Regression results are used to estimate an asset index and classify households into categories of structural poverty.

Clearly defined and legally enforceable water rights and responsibilities for water operators and users in an irrigation system are the foundation underlying the incentives for conserving water and improving irrigation efficiency.

The outbreak and spread of Asian-lineage highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) from Asia to Europe and Africa in 2003-2007 challenged national disease surveillance and response programs particularly in those countries where infection occurred. Ethiopia has not had the disease, but it is considered as being vulnerable because it lies under the pathway of migratory birds and has an expansive border that makes it difficult to control cross-border trade in poultry and poultry products.

For thousands of years, the Yellow River Basin (YRB) has been the cultural and economic center of China. The nutrient-rich soils transported by the river from the Loess Plateau have supported an economy largely based on agriculture-and increasingly irrigated agriculture. Since the 1978 reforms, industries began to develop in the lower river reaches; since then, industries have gradually expanded westward toward relatively cheaper labor and more abundant raw materials.

This paper documents a Vietnam Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for the year 2007. The national SAM is based on newly estimated supply-use tables, national accounts, state budgets, and balance of payments. The SAM reconciles these data using cross-entropy estimation techniques. The final SAM is a detailed representation of Vietnam’s economy. It separates 63 activities and commodities; rural/urban labor by different education levels; and households by rural/urban areas and farm/nonfarm expenditure quintiles.