Unreliable electricity supply is a major obstacle to economic development in countries such as India. While electricity problems in the rural areas are widely recognized, scholars have yet to analyze the situation in urban slums. Drawing on 2004-2005 survey data from the India Human Development Survey, we document the electricity situation in slums. We find that while households located in slum...

This study looks at rural livelihoods in semi-arid and arid rural areas in post-2000 Zimbabwe. The decade-long socio-economic recession coupled with recurrent droughts presented a myriad of challenges to rural households in Zimbabwe. Taking Mudzi, a rural district in Zimbabwe, as a case study, the study explores the livelihood conditions and how households have managed to organize and cluster t...

Rural societies in war-affected areas can be described as ’distressed livelihoods’: they experience a dramatic increase in risk and uncertainty. How does this affect land use and agricultural coping strategies of small-scale farm households? This was the key research question of a multi-disciplinary, comparative village study carried out in the war-torn areas of Sri Lanka. The study employed th...

The dependency of many African rural households on natural resources for sustenance is widely acknowledged. The utilization and commercialization of indigenous fruit trees (IFTs) has in the past been overlooked by extension agencies due to the misconception that they do not play a major role in contributing to the rural livelihoods. There is new and increasing emphasis on the contribution of in...

Rural road improvement that enhances access to input and output markets and agricultural extension services may aid agricultural technology adoption. There is a growing body of literature on the impact of rural roads on technology adoption. However, most studies have so far relied on cross-sectional surveys comparing households with and without road improvement, which have causal attribution pr...

Despite becoming one of China’s fastest expanding and most valuable forest land uses, bamboo’s role in livelihoods and rural development is poorly understood. Detailed quantitative data from 240 households were used to study the contribution of bamboo to household income and rural livelihoods in 12 remote and mountainous villages in southern China. Bamboo was a ubiquitous and highly utilised re...

for the rural population, an improvement in the income of the agriculture and allied sectors is essential for improving the welfare, rural economic prosperity, and the overall economic development. the objective of this study was to determine the optimal pattern in various activities of forest fringe villagers of hezarjarib area in 2013 for management of resources and rural development planning...

In rural areas of developing countries, farming systems tend to be household-based. These household production systems are also highly integrated with land-based natural resources such as forests, range areas and pasture lands. Households depend on these resources for fuels, animal food, building materials, fruits and medicines, and often these resources have ownership and control structures th...

BACKGROUND Several years have passed since the rural New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) in China was established and policies kept continuous improvement. Its policies on chronic diseases vary by county but have certain shared characteristics. Following this modification of medical insurance policy, this study reassesses the provision of insurance against expenditure on chronic diseases in r...

BACKGROUND China has been experiencing the largest rural to urban migration in history. Rural-to-urban migrants are those who leave their hometown for another place in order to work or live without changing their hukou status, which is a household registration system in China, categorizing people as either rural residents or urban residents. Rural-to-urban migrants typically find better job opp...