越南农业农村发展引人瞩目

越南是一个农民占总人口70%的农业国,发展农业的自然条件较为优越.     

The role of local government in rural communities: culture-based development strategies

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses local development and various governance strategies that local governments can use to engage actors in rural communities and resources from a broader environment to achieve desired socio-economic outcomes. We ask: How can local governance vary in rural communities? How can governance arrangements lead to contrasting socio-economic outcomes? Our conceptual framework combines a typology of local governance roles with socio-economic outcomes associated with neo-endogenous development theory. We explore culture-based development projects from three rural communities. We find that local governance strategies vary between relatively similar rural communities and that they represent compromises in terms of socio-economic outcomes. Local government in rural communities can act strategically through use of local networks. Local governance here is best understood as an emergent quality of the local context, history, institutions, culture, and, power relations. Therefore, governance strategies in rural contexts should be based on careful reflection on potential roles, trade-offs and desirable outcomes.     

The state and rural development in Tanzania: The village administration as a political field

The Village Administrations (VAs) created by the Tanzanian state in the 1970s have been regarded as new state apparatuses intended to facilitate control over a recalcitrant peasantry. Field research in Dodoma revealed two kinds of factions competing for their control: Christians, who co‐operated with higher level state apparatuses in establishing working institutional structures, and Traditionalists, who sought to reconstruct the VA as an entity performing predominantly ritual functions and, by tactful non‐compliance, to insulate households from the demands of the state. If the VA is to be regarded as a state apparatus then it must be recognised that it has substantial autonomy, conditioned by its internal constitution as a political field.     

Enhancing sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa: concepts,recommendations and illustrations

In recent years, the concept of sustainable development has received renewed attention. As global resources shrink and needs continue to grow, the staying power of development impact is becoming central concern of both governments and donors. Recent studies have shown that only a small percentage of projects throughout the world have achieved sustainability, and the need for improving the long-term vitality of development investments is growing. No area in the world has shown more need of this than Africa. This paper outlines a conceptual approach for analyzing sustainability and synthesizes the lessons learned from the application of this model in recent field work. The model is based on the theory that two preconditions must exist before sustainability can occur: 1 ) commitment to long term sustainable development; and 2) beneficiary and stakeholder involvement via incentives which support achieving sustainability . Fieldwork-based recommendations to enhance sustainability include: 1) understand the long-term incentive structure that drives the project; 2) identify performance targets and communicate results early-on; 3) identify long-term recurrent costs and funding options; 4) build in flexibility to the project plan; 5) build-in ways for participants to support and “take ownership” of the project; 6) use local resources, both human and physical, and keep technologies simple; and 7) use marketing strategies to reinforce perceived, satisfactory benefits of the project. Case examples of successful African projects from West Africa, Burkina Faso and Kenya illustrate the application of the sustainability concepts. In the context of these illustrations, the sustainability framework appears useful for understanding and analyzing sustainability and provides a necessary addition to thinking about development projects and programs.     

The role of a small town in rural development: A Sierra Leone case study

The distribution of services, personnel, and infrastructure in rural development projects has not usually been subject to a thorough scrutiny. Locational decisions have been arbitrary, without reference to the needs and mobility of the rural population. This study advocates one particular revision of past policies: the incorporation of small towns into programs designed to improve agricultural production and economic opportunity in rural regions. When such towns already function as a center for political activity, marketing, employment, and service provision, a development project can reinforce these linkages in ways that enhance productivity. A case study is used to illustrate the efficacy of this proposal: the town of Panguma, Kenema District, Sierra Leone and its role in development programs. Panguma has several features that make it an ideal focal point, but it has not been incorporated into regional projects in any systematic way. This town and its hinterland provide an illustration of how rural-urban interaction at a local scale can further the achievement of rural development goals. C.A.R.E.     

Land consolidation as a factor for rural development in Moldova

This article draws on data from several recent surveys in Moldova to examine the question of land consolidation within the process of agrarian reform. It suggests that larger individually owned farms produce higher family incomes than smaller ones and thus farm augmentation makes a positive contribution to the well being of the rural population. Also, for farms of a given size, productivity increases as the number of parcels decreases. The article then proceeds to discuss the actual use of various market mechanisms for land consolidation, including leasing as well as buying and selling of land. According to various surveys, farms with leased land are in fact larger than farms that rely on owned land only. The article argues that land consolidation leads to better economic performance, while land leasing is actually used as a market mechanism for consolidation, which benefits both lessees, through increased farm incomes, and lessors, through income from lease payments for their land.     

Of texts and practices: Empowerment and organisational cultures in world bank-funded rural development programmes

The World Bank's recent concern for ‘empowerment’ grows out of longer standing discussions of participation, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society. While commitments to empowerment enter World Bank texts with relative ease, their practice within Bank-funded projects is far more contingent, and the meanings they assume become much more diverse. This paper considers the relationship between such texts and the development practices which emerge, using an analysis of the ‘organisational cultures’ of the Bank and the many organisations on which it depends in the implementation of its rural development programmes. The paper presents a framework for analysing these organisational cultures in terms of (a) the broader contexts in which organisations and their staff are embedded; (b) the everyday practices within organisations; (c) the power relations within and among organisations; and (d) the meanings that come to dominate organisational practice. A case study of a development programme in Bangladesh is used to illustrate the ways in which cultural interactions between a variety of organisations – the World Bank, government agencies, NGOs, organisations of the poor, social enterprises – mediate the ways in which textual commitments to empowerment are translated into a range of diverse practices.     

The ethics of managing scarcity: approaches to economy and prudence in a consuming society

This essay analyzes our character as a people, and its interplay with dramatic changes in our society before and after the formal close of the American frontier in 1890. Many of our prized character traits actually work against the prosperity we seek in the current day. We have not yet come to terms with the greed that contaminates every level of social analysis in American history. Nor have we moderated our individualism, entrepreneurialism, and anti-statism, even as we lose the promise of an expanding and vibrant middle class. Our faith in a great destiny must now embrace public purposes, plans, and management as necessary and desirable facets of ordered liberty.

I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. Jeremiah 2:7     

Promoting neoliberal ideology in Finnish rural community development: the creation of new moral actors

ABSTRACT

Today’s political ambitions are based on the neoliberal aspiration to diminish the state’s role and responsibilities, and to transfer those responsibilities to local communities and individuals in ways that idealise those communities, promising to ‘give power to the people’. Instead of highlighting individualism, neoliberalism now celebrates communities and participation. This article deals with the effects of this ideology with regard to Finnish rural policy objectives. Drawing on Finnish village action programmes as data, we argue that these ideological views aim to transform individuals and create new moral actors. Our research indicates that Finland’s rural policy objectives invoke actors that are responsible for their communities, have an ‘enterprising spirit’, and are change-friendly and innovative. However, the ideology disregards the economic and social preconditions and resources necessary for building affluent communities and villages, which are difficult to attain when there is less government involvement. Thus, rural communities face increasing demands and less government involvement.     

Environmental dimensions of managing public budgets and public enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study examines the nature of the environment in which public budgets and public enterprises are managed in developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. It develops a model of the environmental dimensions in the general environment and dimensional components in the task environment of public budgeting and public enterprise management including the economic, political, socio-cultural, and technological dimension which determine public budget and public enterprise management in developing countries like those in Sub-Saharan Africa. The implications of those environmental dimensions and their components are evaluated for budgetary processes and budgetary outcomes in selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa - Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. The impact of economic dimensions in inducing repetitive budgeting in the budgetary processes of developing countries was highlighted. The results of the analysis of expenditure patterns in these countries tend to support the greater strength of the economic functional dimension in influencing budgetary outcomes. The implications of the environmental dimensions of the model for the management of public enterprises was also investigated. Numerous dimensional components of the major dimensions of the model developed in the study were found to have had an impact on the development of the public enterprise sector in developing countries like those in Sub- Saharan Africa. Moreover, the performance of public enterprises was strongly linked to the dimensions and components of the model. The interactive effects of public enterprise management on public budgeting in developing countries is also addressed as a consequence of the environmental model. Reform efforts must contend with altering the environmental state depicted in the model or accommodating to it.