This Elmhirst lecture first discusses the factors that allow rural people in low-income countries to design, plan, and implement their own rural development. These are divided into two broad groups: the institutional environment for rural development (the private sector, communities, civil...

The article examines the coping strategies that rural households adopted during the 1998 flood in Bangladesh and assesses its impact on household welfare, including coping and vulnerability. Both vulnerability and poverty have in general declined in Bangladesh. Yet, 60% of rural households...