Physical resources such as land, labour and livestock, and nonphysical resources such as indigenous knowledge and institutions of producers in the grain surplus and deficit regions of the Central Highlands of Ethiopia are examined under situation of environmental and policy risks. Frequency...

Much ecosystem service (ES) research is structured around four often implicit assumptions about ES, benefits, and stakeholders' conceptions of these: 1) ES assessors can identify and characterize priority ES across stakeholders without local participation; 2) Stakeholders derive one kind of...

This Digest focuses on early marriage - the marriage of children and young people under the age of 18 - from a human rights perspective. Research into early marriage has tended to concentrate on its impact on reproductive health, school drop-out and rising population figures, and there has been...

Yet again, no significant economic stimulus is expected from this year’s World Cup. Investments in stadiums and infrastructure in Brazil have certainly resulted in high costs for the public sector, but no significantly positive overall economic impact is expected in the course of the next few...

The study examined a simplified conceptual model which incorporates variables that influence the processes and consequences of household decision-making in the Ada and Selale districts of the Ethiopian highlands. Linear structural relations (LISREL) analysis was performed on three conceptual...

(english) The classical and more recent theories on development all fail to explain Madagascar’s long-running economic underperformance. This paper proposes a reinterpretation of Malagasy history based on the analytical framework of political economy. Our analyses point to the fact that,...

This paper constructs a Good Society Index for 45 African countries, termed the Good African Society Index (GASI). The GASI consists of nine main indexes: (i) economic sustainability, (ii) democracy and freedom, (iii) child well-being, (iv) environment and infrastructure, (v) safety and...

The classical and more recent theories on development all fail to explain Madagascar’s long-running economic underperformance. This paper proposes a reinterpretation of Malagasy history based on the analytical framework of political economy. Our analyses point to the fact that, despite...

We discuss and test the relevance of the adaptation of the controversial sociological concept of “Middle Class” to African rural areas. We propose the concept of Moderate Prosperity and apply it to the Malagasy rural area, particularly in the Itasy region. This paper aims to emphasize the...