越南农村地区环境问题:现状及解决措施

越南农村地区面临着环境污染问题,越南政府已颁布了多项环境保护政策和措施以有效保护环境和促进农村的可持续发展。这些政策包括:提高人口素质、减少贫困、增加农村基础设施投入、扶助农村和农村家庭经济发展、环境保护,以及保障清洁水供应、提高农村环境卫生质量、修建畜牧业沼气站、建立生态示范村、鼓励新鲜食品生产和采取有效措施应对气候变化等。     

发展中国家农村饮用水设施供给制度经验研究——以印度农村社区管理为例

国际饮水供给与卫生十年活动标志着农村供水制度的变革，即由传统的政府供给驱动模式向农村社区需求响应模式转变。农村社区管理制度是在政府、捐赠机构和专家帮助社区建设饮用水设施之后，社区单独负责管理这个系统，承担运营与维护供水系统的全部管理任务。印度北方邦“Swajal”供水工程是发展中国家农村饮用水制度成功变革的代表，以三层制度设计激励农村社区成为供水主体，其中，宪法秩序是印度一场国家分权制度试验，治理结构采取三方合约相互制衡模式，操作规则是从社区需求出发切实减轻农民经济负担。     

Harnessing the plurality of actor frames in social-ecological systems: ecological sanitation in Bolivia

This article uses a case study on ecological sanitation as a basis for lessons on identifying and harnessing the plurality of actor frames in social-ecological systems, thereby moving beyond the advocacy positions often taken by implementing NGOs. The study aimed to explore how perspectives between the implementing agencies of an ecological sanitation project in rural Bolivia and the owners of a urine-diverting dry toilet (UDDT) relate to each other, and how this influenced the outcome of the project. The article provides key elements and an example methodology for social learning in the context of multiple interpretative frames in development projects.     

Environmental sanitation and pollution control measures in the Odaw-Korle River catchment,Ghana

This article reports on a study that sought to understand the major factors to consider in changing poor environmental sanitation practices in urban communities in Accra, Ghana. The study focused on three main issues: the drivers of sanitation and pollution control measures in the communities; community members’ perceptions on the influence of poor planning on environmental sanitation and pollution; and how existing local governance arrangements influence environmental sanitation and pollution control. It found that efforts are made at the city, community, and individual levels to control poor environmental practices. In order to control environmental pollution, policy initiatives on sanctions should be coupled with the provision of efficient sanitation facilities and services.     

Combining sanitation and women's participation in water supply: an example from Rajasthan

Water supply and sanitation provision are key elements in progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Women's participation is considered integral to the sustainability of the projects created to meet these two MDGs. Bringing feminist and geographic critiques to bear on gendered approaches to improving sanitation coverage, the research reported on in this article indicates that latrine building and women's participation may be contradictory goals for sanitation projects, despite the fact that women are the target group for latrine-building interventions. The findings of the analysis suggest that attention must be given to latrine building as both a technical undertaking and a gendered political intervention.     

Gender,development, and training: Raising awareness in the planning process

Several decades of development experience have yielded a wealth of findings about the key assumptions, procedures, and practices by which women have been marginalised in development planning. The value of these insights lies not only in highlighting flawed planning procedures, but also in helping to formulate alternative frameworks for thinking about development. This article discusses ways in which such findings can be used in gender-awareness training for development practitioners, and sketches out the main elements of an analytical framework for reconceptualising development from a gender perspective.     

Social Protection in India: A Welfare State Sans Public Goods?

Of the two principal components of social welfare policy—basic public services and social protection—India has focused disproportionately on the latter in the last two decades, expanding existing social protection programs and creating new ones. By contrast, the country’s basic public services, such as primary education, public health, and water and sanitation have languished. What explains this uneven focus? Why has India prioritized social protection over public services? This article considers explanations suggested by the existing literature on welfare states and concludes that they do not account adequately for the Indian case. Instead, it argues, the prioritization of social protection in India results from a combination of political, ideational, and institutional factors rooted in India’s political economy.     

The role of marginalised women in sanitation initiatives: Somali women in northern Kenya

Research has shown women from marginalised communities have significant articulated needs for sanitation that are often unmet. Using focus group discussions with displaced Somali women living in rural villages in northern Kenya, this study found that women’s central concerns were for personal safety and convenience rather than hygiene; and for alleviation from the pain and discomfort associated with female genital mutilation and reproduction. Based on the findings, the article recommends organisations supporting sanitation initiatives should adopt approaches responsive to women’s particular concerns and needs. It makes specific recommendations for implementing an agenda of participation in a context where women are highly marginalised.     

Iraq. Country profile

Iraq, with a population of 15.9 million, is blessed with vital natural resources, oil being its chief export product, as well as barley, dates, and wheat. Fertile land and unlimited supplies of water give it enormous productive potential. However, that potential has not been realized because of the war with Iran, which began in 1980 when President Hussein sent troops to Iran, after continual border skirmishes. Prior to that time, there was a pattern of large rural migration to towns, and a period of rapid growth of the economy. The country was run by the Ba'athist Party who instituted a successful program of development. With the advent of war, development plans have been crippled by shortages of electricity, spare parts, and labor, especially in rural areas. Some agricultural and urban projects are maintained but the large-scale plans of the 1970's have been abandoned. The oil glut and the war economy have contributed to Iraq's new status as a debtor nation. In addition, the war has increased the cultural tensions between the Ba'athists and the Kurds of the North and the Shi'ite Arabs of the South. The Ba'athist Party is dominated by the Sunni Arab minority, whose goal during the 1970's was to reassert Iraq's ancient traditions. Toward that end, the government began a program that sought to restore medieval mosques, and reestablish Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul as centers of Arab culture. Arabic is Iran's official language, although Kurdish is used in the North and East. Iraq is overwhelmingly Muslim, with a small Christian minority. Its infant morality rate is 73/1,000 live births. The war with Iran has touched every area of the nation's life, and severely curtailed government development programs.     

Rural development from the ground up: agro-food initiatives in Tasmania

Concerns about the decline of rural agricultural communities have recently refocused on new economic opportunities available in regional food production. This article analyses three on-the-ground case studies of rural development projects in Tasmania, Australia that aimed to develop new regional food opportunities. It analyses these projects to identify how local food producers can create viable economic alternatives in rural settings. The projects illustrate that the existence of regional food assets alone is not enough to guarantee economic development success: rural producers need connections into relevant knowledge networks if they are to identify and respond to new agro-food market opportunities.     

Challenges and lessons learnt from a sanitation project in rural Bolivia

The University of Arizona chapter of Engineers Without Borders USA has faced multiple challenges involving community participation in rural development, in the Andean community of Marquirivi, Bolivia, both in rural design and in community participation. Despite successful construction of a shower house in 2014, the EWB-USA UA team experience with community participation revealed the numerous complexities involved in engaging successfully with communities. The importance of previous aid in a community with development projects also emerged as critical in shaping actions. This article discusses lessons learnt and recommendations for rural infrastructure projects, as well as the EWB-USA model of sustainable development.     

WaSH as a maternal health issue: three perspectives from rural Uganda

Inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) knowledge and practices affect maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality. This article describes postpartum knowledge, resources, and practices in three rural Ugandan hospitals. A lack of WaSH resources was problematic for both staff and newly-birthed mothers who demonstrated a lack of knowledge about the appropriate use of WaSH resources and the links between WaSH and health protection. These results suggest that in addition to increasing the availability of medical interventions, basic preventative public health practices should be reflected in policy and practice integrated across the spaces inhabited by pregnant women to achieve improved maternal and newborn outcomes.     

Best practice for rural food security projects in Southern Africa?

It has been widely believed that commercialisation is the solution to food insecurity in rural Africa. Project designs have attempted to set up agricultural cooperatives and encourage entrepreneurial farmers. Yet the problems revealed in the 1950s are still widespread. In a counter-perspective, some have argued for the relevance of subsistence and low-input agriculture. This article examines three NGO projects in South and South-eastern Africa which prioritise food security through household subsistence, using low-input technologies, along with an encouragement to produce a surplus for cash. We look at what these projects share and why their strategies work.     

Gender,energy, and empowerment: a case study of the Rural Energy Development Program in Nepal

Rural women in general, and mountain women in particular, are greatly involved in managing household energy systems in Nepal. Alternative energy technologies have a high potential to reduce women's workloads and improve their health status, as well as increasing efficient energy supply. Interventions in rural energy are primarily aimed at reducing firewood use and increasing economic growth through rural electrification, rather than aiming to reduce human drudgery, especially that of women. Hence, such intervention takes place without considering the needs, roles, interests, and potential of rural women, even though women are the primary users and managers of rural energy resources. This article aims to analyse the gender implications of rural energy technologies in Kavre district, where the Rural Energy Development Program (REDP) has been implemented, especially in terms of saving women's labour and increasing socio-economic opportunities for women.     

印度农村就业保障政策及对中国的启示

在社会转型过程中，印度农村失业和就业不充分现象日益凸显，成为影响农村经济社会发展的主要难题。为维护农村劳动力的就业权益，印度政府在农村就业保障工作方面做出积极探索和持续努力，综合运用立法、公共就业工程项目、开发职业培训计划等政策工具保障和促进农村劳动力就业，并取得一定成效。我国在解决农村就业问题时，可以借鉴印度的经验和做法，从而促进农村劳动力的充分就业。     

城乡统筹视角下吉林省县域经济发展的思考

"十二五"时期,吉林省社会经济的发展关键在于统筹城乡,而发展县域经济是统筹城乡的必由之路。目前,吉林省县域经济发展的质量和效益都有稳步提高,但仍然存在着经济整体水平不高、地区发展不平衡、产业结构需调整、城乡差距大、生态环境差的问题。要全面推进县域经济,必须遵循"三化"统筹、推进城镇化和低碳化发展的原则:转变政府职能和经济发展方式;打造产业集群以推进工业化;发展城镇经济以推进城镇化;培育龙头经济以促进农业现代化。     

The role of local institutions in sustainable watershed management: lessons from India

The implementation and effective management of watershed-development projects is recognised as a strategy for rural development throughout the developing world. Several government and non-government agencies have launched watershed-development projects to tackle the challenges of soil conservation, improving land productivity, and economic upliftment of the rural poor for efficient use of natural resources. Participatory community-driven institutions of integrated watershed management are considered vital for the sustainability of natural resources. This study focuses on the impact of local institutions on watershed development in India and examines the degree of women's participation in relation to the effective management of natural resources and sustainable development.     

Supporting local climate adaptation planning and implementation through local governance and decentralised finance provision

Policies developed at national levels can be unresponsive to local needs. Often they do not provide the rural poor with access to the assets and services they need to allow them to innovate and adapt to the ways that increased climate variability and change exacerbate challenges to basic securities – food, water, energy, and well-being. In development deficit circumstances, common pool resources are important for climate adaptation purposes. In order for climate adaptation actions to deliver resilience, local perspectives and knowledge need to be recognised and given due priority in formal planning systems. Basing formal adaptive development planning on local strategies can support and strengthen measures that people have been tested and know to work. Local climate adaptation through collective action can address current increases in climate variability, future incremental changes, and the need to transform existing systems to deal with qualitative shifts in climate. These types of adaptation can work in cumulative ways. The results of local adaptation collective action that have benefits of low rivalry between users while being highly inclusive can be considered “local public goods”. Evidence is beginning to emerge that when local governance systems facilitate high levels of participation in planning collective action for climate adaptation, and direct access to resources for implementing local plans, “local public goods” can be created and common pool resources better managed.     

Development perspectives: Views from rural Lebanon

This paper explores development issues from the perspective of two villages in rural Lebanon. Educated male villagers see themselves as initiators of development and use the same language as NGO officials. Client-patron relationships and wasta (the act of accessing material favours, such as development projects, from the powerful) are means for these men to achieve their political ends. Women and the less powerful men, who are not part of the wasta network, tend to be disregarded in decision making, but nonetheless have strong views about the needs of the villages. The Islamic view emphasises the moral life.     

澜湄水资源安全与合作:流域发展导向的分析视角

进入21世纪,澜湄流域的人口增长、经济快速发展和城镇化,增加了各国用水需求,而各国对水资源的非协调性开发以及气候变化影响下的极端天气频发,导致水安全问题凸显,流域可持续发展面临压力。当前,澜湄流域水安全处于中等脆弱状态,但已建、在建和计划建设项目的累积影响将进一步加剧水资源脆弱性。为保障水安全,湄公河国家迫切期望加强彼此之间及与上游的中国在水资源问题上的磋商、协调和合作,其共同水安全需求从低到高可分为四个层次:防洪安全、供水安全、生态安全及水—粮食—能源协同安全。这四种安全需求是同时存在的,但在流域国家社会经济发展所处的不同阶段,亦有不同侧重。澜湄水安全合作既要满足流域各国水安全需求,又不能脱离流域的整体发展,因此应正确把握安全与发展的辩证关系,分阶段、有步骤地推进和深化:尽早建立风险防控协调机制,开展流域国家联合勘察和应对气候变化协同研究;2030年左右建立供水安全和生态安全合作机制;到21世纪中叶开展全流域水资源综合管理,实现水—粮食—能源协同安全。