Listing for change? Exploring the politics of relief lists in Bangladesh after Cyclone Sidr

Ideal notions of efficient aid are challenged continuously by realities on the ground in the wake of major disasters, such as dire needs, limited resources, and opportunism. This paper demonstrates how ‘relief lists’ can be productive entry points for a systematic inquiry into the pervasive politics of disaster assistance. Through an analysis of qualitative data collected during the five years after Cyclone Sidr struck Bangladesh on 15 November 2007, it examines how relief lists featured in both physical and phantom forms and then developed beyond their transparency-making aims, becoming elevated sites of struggle for post-disaster resources. Three list processes, selected to indicate the temporal, material, and spatial dynamics of relief encounters, are assessed in depth. Although recipients of cyclone relief appreciated its value, the paper argues that list politics also stimulated structures of vulnerability, including inequality. Gradually, relief, as governed after Sidr, also served to restore the differential vulnerability of the country's coastal poor.     

Targeting vulnerability after the 2005 earthquake: Pakistan's Livelihood Support Cash Grants programme

The 7.6 magnitude (Richter scale) earthquake that struck northern Pakistan on 8 October 2005 was devastating. This paper gauges success in targeting vulnerable families during the transition from relief to reconstruction through cash assistance provided by the Livelihood Support Cash Grants (LSCG) programme. Families without a male member, with a disabled male member aged between 18 and 60 years or with more than five children, defined as vulnerable, were provided with USD 50 per month for six months via a bank transfer. The LSCG scheme enrolled around 750,000 families and selected 267,402 vulnerable families to whom it disbursed a total of USD 86.95 million. Using a community‐based survey, this paper assesses leakage and under‐coverage (exclusion). Approximately 30 per cent of families received the cash grant. However, only one in two was eligible for the benefit, and one in two deserving families was excluded. This is a matter of grave concern.     

NEW FEDERAL SUPPORT FOR PRIORITY WATERSHED MANAGEMENT NEEDS1

ABSTRACT: In the past five years, USDA and EPA programs became major players in implementing watershed programs. The 1996 Farm Bill for the first time required that USDA assistance for farmers address priority environmental needs on a site‐specific, or watershed, basis. USDA involves farmers and other players in locally run watershed programs and focuses cost share and incentive payments on nutrient planning, riparian protection, and other practices prioritized to most efficiently achieve watershed goals. As a result, USDA has become a funding source for environmental initiatives targeted to watersheds, as well as a technical resource that attempts to support more efficient use of federal and state environmental expenditures. Analysis identifies institutional and technical barriers to targeting the very limited, new assistance and suggests how those barriers are being addressed by some innovative programs. Since Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) and other state run programs face many of the same challenges of ranking watersheds, setting goals, and finding cost effective remedies, this paper identifies a very close fit between the new federal programs and other watershed programs.     

农村最低生活保障政策在实施过程中的瞄准分析

随着我国扶贫战略从区域扶贫向个人扶贫的转变,2007年我国在农村地区全面建立了最低生活保障制度.基于一份具有全国代表性的农户资料,本文采用赤贫指数从多维度度量了农户的贫困程度,并将其应用于农村最低生活保障制度的瞄准效率研究.赤贫指数越低,表示农户越贫困,理论上,这些农户也越应该获得领取最低生活保障资格.结果发现,现阶段我国农村最低生活保障制度瞄准效率不高,瞄准遗漏和瞄准漏出同时存在.其中,在村级层面的分析结果发现,样本村中只有25.5%的最贫困农户在2007年得到了低保;同时,处于赤贫指数最低端的20%和40%的农户分别只得到了最低生活保障名额的50.67%和73.33%.而在获得最低生活保障的农户中,有1/5以上的农户认为低保金对改善他们家庭经济状况帮助很小或者没有任何帮助.基于以上研究结论,本文认为政府在继续增加对农村最低生活保障制度的财政投入的同时,应当在建立健全更为规范完善的收入核算标准的基础上,从研究和实践两个方面继续探索发展适合我国农村的多维度的贫困户鉴别制度,提高农村低保的瞄准效率.     

Improving Environmental and Social Targeting through Adaptive Management in Mexico's Payments for Hydrological Services Program

Natural resource managers are often expected to achieve both environmental protection and economic development even when there are fundamental trade‐offs between these goals. Adaptive management provides a theoretical structure for program administrators to balance social priorities in the presence of trade‐offs and to improve conservation targeting. We used the case of Mexico's federal Payments for Hydrological Services program (PSAH) to illustrate the importance of adaptive management for improving program targeting. We documented adaptive elements of PSAH and corresponding changes in program eligibility and selection criteria. To evaluate whether these changes resulted in enrollment of lands of high environmental and social priority, we compared the environmental and social characteristics of the areas enrolled in the program with the characteristics of all forested areas in Mexico, all areas eligible for the program, and all areas submitted for application to the program. The program successfully enrolled areas of both high ecological and social priority, and over time, adaptive changes in the program's criteria for eligibility and selection led to increased enrollment of land scoring high on both dimensions. Three factors facilitated adaptive management in Mexico and are likely to be generally important for conservation managers: a supportive political environment, including financial backing and encouragement to experiment from the federal government; availability of relatively good social and environmental data; and active participation in the review process by stakeholders and outside evaluators. Mejorando los Objetivos Ambiental y Social Mediante el Manejo Adaptativo en el Programa de Pagos por Servicios Hidrológicos en México     

SPATIAL ECONOMICS OF TARGETING MANURE POLICY1

ABSTRACT: Increasing specialization separates animal production from cropland, complicating manure management. To assist policy targeting efforts, we highlight areas where on-farm use of manure may be problematic. Matching confined animal production with land, on the farm- rather than at the county-level, gives our analysis an advantage over previous studies in avoiding aggregation problems. With manure-based water quality problems, data aggregated to the county level may fail to convey the heterogeneity of animal production across regions and animal types. Aggregation bias blurs the distinction between areas with specialized animal production and those that merely have numerous animals. We estimate bias from using county aggregates, show its distribution spatially and by animal sector, and link it to concentration. Ongoing vertical integration in agriculture likely alters in-county variability in facility scale and scope, and may influence decisions about which data we should gather and use.     

Assessing radon concentrations in areas with few measurements

The New York State Department of Health has estimated and mappedradon concentrations for every town and city in the State. Sincefor many towns there are few indoor radon measurements, the radonestimates for these towns were determined using correlations to surficial geology. A project was conducted to target towns for additional measurements that currently have few data but, based on the surficial geology of the town, are estimated to have elevated levels of indoor radon. The objective of the project wasto obtain at least 30 additional measurements for the targeted towns and to compare the measurement results with the estimates based on geology. The study completed 1606 radon measurements from 9080 detector applications mailed to home owners in 94 underserved towns spread throughout the State. Of the 1115 basement measurements, 43% exceeded 148 Bq m^-3, with a maximum of 6900 Bq m^-3. Three homes measured in one town hadradon concentrations above 2900 Bq m^-3. Of the 491 living-area measurements, 19% exceeded 148 Bq m^-3, with a maximum of 2700 Bq m^-3. About 60% and 86% of measurementresults were within one standard deviation and a factor of two,respectively, of estimated concentrations. Results indicate thatregardless of the magnitude of radon potential, the estimates arein good agreement with measured concentrations.     

Assessing the efficiency gains of improved spatial targeting of policy interventions; the example of an agri-environmental scheme

GIS-based spatial targeting is increasingly recognised as a potentially useful tool to design more efficient policy interventions. The use of this tool has also been advocated in the context of incentive-based agri-environmental schemes, but there has been little work to date to estimate the level of efficiency gains which it may help to achieve. This paper investigates the requirements to arrive at such estimates, using a Scottish farm woodland scheme as a case study. This agri-environmental scheme aims to provide visual amenity and biodiversity. Maps of these two benefits are used to develop improved spatial targeting scenarios that deliver significant efficiency gains in comparison to the existing scheme design. The paper discusses the nature of the spatial distribution of the relevant benefits at the landscape scale and the data requirements for the realistic estimation of efficiency gains. It concludes that although much work needs to be done, the methods available today could and should play a much greater role in improving the landscape-scale design of existing land use schemes focused on the delivery of non-market benefits.     

Economic Valuation of Subsistence Harvest of Wildlife in Madagascar

Wildlife consumption can be viewed as an ecosystem provisioning service (the production of a material good through ecological functioning) because of wildlife's ability to persist under sustainable levels of harvest. We used the case of wildlife harvest and consumption in northeastern Madagascar to identify the distribution of these services to local households and communities to further our understanding of local reliance on natural resources. We inferred these benefits from demand curves built with data on wildlife sales transactions. On average, the value of wildlife provisioning represented 57% of annual household cash income in local communities from the Makira Natural Park and Masoala National Park, and harvested areas produced an economic return of U.S.$0.42 ha^?1· year^?1. Variability in value of harvested wildlife was high among communities and households with an approximate 2 orders of magnitude difference in the proportional value of wildlife to household income. The imputed price of harvested wildlife and its consumption were strongly associated (p< 0.001), and increases in price led to reduced harvest for consumption. Heightened monitoring and enforcement of hunting could increase the costs of harvesting and thus elevate the price and reduce consumption of wildlife. Increased enforcement would therefore be beneficial to biodiversity conservation but could limit local people's food supply. Specifically, our results provide an estimate of the cost of offsetting economic losses to local populations from the enforcement of conservation policies. By explicitly estimating the welfare effects of consumed wildlife, our results may inform targeted interventions by public health and development specialists as they allocate sparse funds to support regions, households, or individuals most vulnerable to changes in access to wildlife. Valoración Económica de la Caza de Subsistencia de Vida Silvestre en Madagascar     

Targeting sites for conservation: using a patch-based ranking scheme to assess conservation potential

Rare habitats are increasingly threatened by fragmentation and measures are required to conserve these valuable resources. Here, we present a method of targeting habitat patches for conservation using a Geographical Information System. We ranked patches of chalk grassland in the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty using simple abiotic criteria, namely: patch area, patch shape, proximity to areas of the same habitat and surrounding land-use type. We compiled a regionally specific list of indicator species and ranked the habitat patches based on their alpha diversity (calculated from species richness). We compared the results of the two ranking schemes and identified key aggregations of the existing reserve network. These could form the basis of future habitat expansion as required by the United Kingdom Biodiversity Action Plan.