Shock Waves


Book Description

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.




The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment


Book Description

This open access volume is the first comprehensive assessment of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. It comprises important scientific research on the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable mountain development and will serve as a basis for evidence-based decision-making to safeguard the environment and advance people’s well-being. The compiled content is based on the collective knowledge of over 300 leading researchers, experts and policymakers, brought together by the Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme (HIMAP) under the coordination of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). This assessment was conducted between 2013 and 2017 as the first of a series of monitoring and assessment reports, under the guidance of the HIMAP Steering Committee: Eklabya Sharma (ICIMOD), Atiq Raman (Bangladesh), Yuba Raj Khatiwada (Nepal), Linxiu Zhang (China), Surendra Pratap Singh (India), Tandong Yao (China) and David Molden (ICIMOD and Chair of the HIMAP SC). This First HKH Assessment Report consists of 16 chapters, which comprehensively assess the current state of knowledge of the HKH region, increase the understanding of various drivers of change and their impacts, address critical data gaps and develop a set of evidence-based and actionable policy solutions and recommendations. These are linked to nine mountain priorities for the mountains and people of the HKH consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals. This book is a must-read for policy makers, academics and students interested in this important region and an essentially important resource for contributors to global assessments such as the IPCC reports.




Poverty, Vulnerability, and Agricultural Extension


Book Description

The study draws on evidence from India and a range of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to argue that agricultural extension has an essential role in helping farmers to reach into new, often global, markets. There should be a comprehensive strategy within agricultural extension to address low-income agricultural households in the context of their wider livelihoods and not merely as commodity producers.







Farming Systems and Poverty


Book Description

A joint FAO and World Bank study which shows how the farming systems approach can be used to identify priorities for the reduction of hunger and poverty in the main farming systems of the six major developing regions of the world.




Agricultural Extension Reforms in South Asia


Book Description

Agricultural Extension Reforms in South Asia: Status, Challenges, and Policy Options is based on agricultural extension reforms across five South Asian countries, reflecting past experiences, case studies and experiments. Beginning with an overview of historical trends and recent developments, the book then delves into country-wise reform trajectories and presents several cases testing the effectiveness of different types (public and private) and forms (nutrition extension, livestock extension) of extension systems. Further, the book provides a comprehensive overview of challenges and constraints faced in formulating and implementing reforms, tying the results into a concrete set of lessons and highlighting areas that require further research. In addition, the book discusses how a major aspect of agricultural development is the productivity increase from the knowledge base of farmers, and how translating research results into a knowledge base for farmers requires designing and implementing well-functioning extension programs. - Presents the current challenges and solutions by region, and provides insights for application in global settings - Provides key foundational information for the effective and efficient design of future intervention programs - Includes workshops and presentations based on real-world research of specific aspects of extension systems and provision of advisory and consultation services to various governments




Livelihood Strategies in Southern India


Book Description

​This volume is a compilation of essays that focus on livelihood issues faced by forest communities of the southern Western Ghats region of India. Communities living along the fringes of forests are, more often than not, overlooked in academic and policy discussions. However, they face considerable pressures, being sandwiched between conservation endeavours and the forces of urbanization and commercialization. The chapters in this book provide an insight into the kinds of livelihood issues these communities face and the potential means that can be adopted to sustain these livelihoods. This volume provides a unique alternative perspective by locating livelihood issues within socio-ecological-economic narratives of communities living at the intersection of the three southern Indian states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and suggests directions for policies to address these challenges.




Fundamentals of Human Ethics and Agriculture Extension


Book Description

This book is prepared for Under-graduate agriculture students of ‘Fundamental of Agricultural Extension and Human Ethics’ as per revised curriculum in Extension Education for B.Sc. Ag. degree programme. It covers the whole content related with recent schemes, extension developmental programme with new trends in agriculture extension, self-awareness, motivation, self exploration, mission, planning, designing the programme. Agriculture education has undergone a change in its contents, new approaches or schemes. As vast research knowledge is being generated, new areas of learning in agriculture are being explored, and teaching approaches are constantly modified. The 5th Dean’s committee recommended the present course curricula and this book is prepared as per the new course content. Some additional but important contents are also included in the book for the benefit of the students.




Agricultural extension in transition worldwide


Book Description

This publication contains twelve modules which cover a selection of major reform measures in agricultural extension being promulgated and implemented internationally, such as linking farmers to markets, making advisory services more demand-driven, promoting pluralistic advisory systems, and enhancing the role of advisory services within agricultural innovation systems. The reform issues consider the changing roles of the various public, private and non-governmental providers, and highlights the collaboration required to create synergies for more efficient and effective high quality services responding to the needs and demands of smallholder farmers. The modules draw on reform experiences worldwide and provide an introduction, definitions and a discussion for each specific reform measure, as well as case studies, tools, exercises and a reference list. The reform topics are envisaged for policy-makers, management and senior staff of institutions providing agricultural and rural advisory services. It can also be very useful for students studying agriculture, rural development, and extension in particular. This is a substantially updated version of the 2009 publication of the same title, but with only nine modules. These nine modules were restructured and up-dated, and three modules were added. The layout of the modules changed to allow a better overview for the reader.




Globalization and Poverty


Book Description

Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.