Recent literature indicates the significant role played by rural infrastructure in improving agricultural productivity in developing economies. While the availability and quality of rural infrastructure are never substitutes to efficient macroeconomic and agriculture-specific policies and the...

Most poor people of the world reside in rural areas, which are frequently characterized by low levels of public infrastructure, especially roads. Inadequate roads raise transport costs, limiting the use poor people can make of local markets for the sale of their produce, the purchase of consumer...

In China, as in many developing countries, poverty is primarily a rural phenomenon. Considerable efforts have been made over the last few decades to reduce poverty in China's rural areas; and indeed, the poverty rate in these areas has fallen from 30.7% in 1978 to 3.8% in 2009. This paper begins...

In recent decades, Zimbabwe's development record has been disappointing. In the last few years, a severe drought and the Covid-19 pandemic have added to the country's development challenges. This paper is concerned with the long-run need to find a path toward faster growth in GDP, employment,...

Many rural poor people in developing countries depend on agriculture and are highly influenced by climatic change. Hence, sustainable livelihood approaches are used at both policy and project level to initiate new poverty reduction activities and modify existing activities to improve livelihood...

This paper explores the complex process of rural development at the community level in the Philippines. From the complementation among the essential elements of rural development (social infrastructure, physical infrastructure, and financial services), linkages are traced towards the attainment...

The search for an effective policy direction to contribute to the alleviation of rural poverty requires understanding of various socio-economic dynamics affecting the household. The central issue in the economic dimension is inefficiency in production, which may contribute to the widening income...

Urban concentration differs across countries. One determinant of these differences is economic development, which first increases and subsequently decreases urban concentration. I condition the degree of urban concentration on the potential of countries to develop a balanced urban system. These...