Community partnered projects: a case study of a collaborative effort to improve sanitation in a marginalized community in northwest Mexico

There is a growing recognition in developing countries that community participation in water and sanitation projects is a necessary strategy in sustainable development. The main advantage of following such an approach is that, if participation can encourage a sense of ownership of the projects, the benefits of the project are more likely to extend over the long term. The case study at hand focuses on the challenges faced in implementing a wastewater treatment system to solve an environmental and public health problem in a rural community, Rosario de Tesopaco, in northwest Mexico. Until recently, the community has been unable to implement an effective plan to treat the wastewater generated in the community. The problems faced by the community can be attributed to the political arrangement of water and sanitation decentralization in Mexico that occurred in the mid 1980’s, whereby communities were required to meet wastewater treatment standards, but were not given the technical and political guidance needed to achieve this goal. However, in this instance, cooperation between the authorities in Rosario de Tesopaco, the federal agency for social development, and an academic institution has led to the successful design and approval of a wastewater treatment project. This achievement can be attributed to the use of an effective collaborative strategy, tailoring the project to the needs and capacity of the local community, positioning the community as the leaders and owners of the project. A model for following this strategy for developing rural sanitation projects in Mexico is proposed. Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Sustainable agriculture and eradication of rural poverty in Pakistan

Poverty is rampant in the rural areas of Pakistan, where people are in a state of deprivation with regard to incomes, clothing, housing, healthcare, education, sanitary facilities and human rights. Agriculture generates nearly 20.9 percent of the country's GDP and provides employment for 43.4 percent of its workforce. Most importantly, 65.9 percent of the population living in rural areas is directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture for their livelihood. Rising population, shrinking agricultural land, increasing demand for water resources, widespread land degradation and inadequate infrastructure appear to be major concerns of the agriculture sector in Pakistan. An attempt has been made to examine the population growth–agriculture growth–poverty alleviation linkage. It is argued that agriculture will continue to be one of the most important sectors of Pakistan's economy for years to come. To alleviate poverty, it is suggested that Pakistan enhance the productivity of the agriculture sector through the provision of a series of inputs including provision of easy credit to the small farmer, availability of quality fertilizers and pesticides, tractor and harvester services, improvement in the effectiveness of the vast irrigation system and, finally, farmer education. It is concluded that the high rate of population growth needs to be curbed for increased agricultural productivity to have any significant effect on poverty in rural areas of Pakistan.     

Review, development and monitoring of national sustainable development strategies in Ghana

Agenda 21 requires that countries adopt ‘national sustainable development strategies’ (NSDS), and this has been emphasized in several international commitments. Ghana has contributed to the methodology for peer review of such national strategies, as well as to guidelines designed by OECD and the United Nations for the NSDS process. Ghana has also adopted mechanisms to manage its own development planning in a sustainable manner. This article highlights various types of frameworks for sustainable development currently operating in Ghana, and considers to what extent they conform to NSDS principles. The article concludes that Ghana has made progress in several ways, but faces some of the same challenges as other countries in adhering to sustainability principles. The article offers recommendations as to how Ghana can achieve sustainable development. The article is an independent assessment by the author, who has also formulated most of the recommendations, except where otherwise indicated.     

National minerals policies and stakeholder participation for broad-based development in the southern African development community (SADC)

This paper explains how the well-accepted concept of improved stakeholder participation during mineral policy development leads to a national mineral policy that accommodates the diverging views and interests that allows wide acceptance of decisions, enhancing the success of implementation and, ultimately, national benefits. This process is based on lessons learnt during the South African experience and has been successfully applied in the development of the Namibian and Malawian national minerals policies. An effective policy in the SADC will engineer the delicate balance between poverty reduction and an internationally competitive minerals sector. This balance enhances the possibility of long-term economic growth and development in the SADC region. The overriding advantage of this strategy is that it generates ‘home-grown’ policy instruments and implementation of mineral law with which stakeholders can identify. This process presents a new challenge to traditional policy formulation strategies in emerging economies and the bottom-up approach, linked to wide political support, allows the potential realisation of national objectives.     

我国农村生态贫困研究

本文在界定生态贫困内涵的基础上，对我国农村生态贫困的规模作了粗略的估计，并对我国农村生态贫困的特征、形成机理和治理对策进行了分析。     

中国西部地区生态扶贫策略研究

西部地区是我国贫困面最大、贫困程度最深的地区,同时也是生态环境最脆弱的地区.改革开放以来,虽然西部地区社会经济发展水平得到了一定的提高,但与东中部地区的收入差距却在不断的扩大.同时,随着全国贫困人口绝对规模的减少,贫困人口的分布进一步向西部地区集中,生态环境在诸多致贫因素中越来越突出.文章从西部贫困地区与生态脆弱区和重要生态功能区空间分布的关联性以及地区贫困对生态环境的影响等方面深入解析了西部地区贫困和生态环境互为因果的耦合机理;分析了当前西部地区扶贫开发面临的生态环境、资金、人力资本、管理体制等方面的严峻挑战;提出了生态扶贫的概念和基本内涵,即:生态建设与扶贫开发同步进行,生态恢复与脱贫致富相互协调;设计了原地扶贫和离地扶贫两大生态扶贫模式,并提出了不同生态扶贫模式的特点、实施范围和基本内容.原地扶贫通过创造生态管护就业岗位,发展当地特色生态绿色产业体系,实现贫困人口在当地就业,增加贫困人口的收入.同时,通过拓展整村推进和本地教育工程,改善贫困地区生产、生活条件,提高贫困人口稳定脱贫能力.离地扶贫则以生态移民为主,并结合城镇化战略,引导贫困地区劳动力向城镇和东部沿海地区转移,通过异地就业、生活实现脱贫.最后,提出了实施生态扶贫战略的相关政策建议,包括以教育为核心的人力资本开发,以特色农副产品开发、特色生态旅游和绿色品牌建设为核心的特色优势产业发展,以及以生态移民制度和政府管理体制为核心的制度建设创新等.     

基于农户视角的脱贫类型划分与路径研究——以新晃侗族自治县84个出列村为例

以新晃侗族自治县（以下称“新晃县”）84个出列村农户为研究对象,从基础设施、教育医疗、收入状况、产业发展四个方面构建脱贫成效指标体系,对2019年新晃县出列村农户脱贫成效的空间格局、脱贫类型划分与路径进行研究。结果表明：（1）新晃县出列村农户脱贫成效呈现出明显的空间分异特征,基础设施脱贫成效平均得分为2.53,整体呈“北高南低”的态势;教育医疗脱贫成效平均得分为2.65,呈现出“东南高、西北低”的空间分布格局;收入脱贫成效平均得分为2.48,呈高、中、低得分区域交替分布态势;产业脱贫成效平均得分为4.23,但差异明显,仅东部、南部少数村域得分较高。（2）新晃县出列村农户脱贫类型可分为单因素主导脱贫型、双因素驱动脱贫型、多因素综合脱贫型三个大类和F因素主导型、F-E因素驱动型、P-E-I因素综合型等13个小类,同时针对不同脱贫类型提出巩固脱贫成效的策略与路径。     

易地扶贫搬迁对西藏典型迁入村可持续发展的影响

基于联合国2030年可持续发展目标（UN-SDGs）,融入生态系统服务,建立了面向易地扶贫搬迁政策的村落和农牧户尺度可持续发展评价指标体系,定量分析了西藏典型易地扶贫搬迁迁入村——白朗村及村内农牧户在搬迁前后可持续发展目标实现状况变化。结果表明：在村落尺度,易地扶贫搬迁实施后迁入村在消除贫困（SDG 1）、能源可持续（SDG 7）和可持续住区（SDG 11）三项目标下的可持续发展指标数值较搬迁前显著增加,但可持续发展指数总分降低2.91%;易地扶贫搬迁政策直接影响的农牧户收入、用水和交通等可持续发展指标的可持续发展指数贡献率从49.4%增加至54.23%,但政策间接影响的生态系统相关的指标,其可持续发展指数贡献率由50.6%降低至45.77%;在农牧户尺度,易地扶贫搬迁显著促进了搬迁农牧户消除贫困（SDG 1）和体面工作（SDG 8）目标的实现,且在村落资源总量有限、大量人口迁入的情况下原住农牧户各项可持续发展指标依然稳定增长。研究为白朗村搬迁后的管理和投入工作提供方向,并为未来其他地区搬迁工作中的土地利用规划制定和迁入人口数量的确定提供思路。     

Disarming the population bomb

This paper argues for a renewed international focus on managed population reduction as a key enabler of sustainable development. The paper presents development data that demonstrate why population reduction should be elevated to share top priority with poverty alleviation, as the two over-arching goals of international development strategy. The critical analysis put forth in this paper argues that the current ‘unsustainable’ approach to sustainable development stems from (1) ‘empty world’ economic growth theory applied to a ‘full world’, which is (2) supported and driven by socioeconomic incentives to expand population, (3) justified through flawed interpretation of demographic transition theory, (4) bolstered by the exaggerated efficacy of environmental economic theory applied in a resource-constrained world, (5) insulated from challenge by limitations of scientific knowledge and (6) perpetuated by herd behavior. This paper concludes that failure to reduce global population will inhibit attainment of poverty alleviation and worsen environmental degradation.     

A Revealed Preference Approach to Estimating Supply Curves for Ecosystem Services: Use of Auctions to Set Payments for Soil Erosion Control in Indonesia

Abstract:  To supply ecosystem services, private landholders incur costs. Knowledge of these costs is critical for the design of conservation-payment programs. Estimating these costs accurately is difficult because the minimum acceptable payment to a potential supplier is private information. We describe how an auction of payment contracts can be designed to elicit this information during the design phase of a conservation-payment program. With an estimate of the ecosystem-service supply curve from a pilot auction, conservation planners can explore the financial, ecological, and socioeconomic consequences of alternative scaled-up programs. We demonstrate the potential of our approach in Indonesia, where soil erosion on coffee farms generates downstream ecological and economic costs. Bid data from a small-scale, uniform-price auction for soil-conservation contracts allowed estimates of the costs of a scaled-up program, the gain from integrating biophysical and economic data to target contracts, and the trade-offs between poverty alleviation and supply of ecosystem services. Our study illustrates an auction-based approach to revealing private information about the costs of supplying ecosystem services. Such information can improve the design of programs devised to protect and enhance ecosystem services.