Key challenges in Malawi’s paprika supply chain: new insights into contract farming

Contract farming is a vital tool for linking small-scale farmers with modern supply chains. This study explored challenges resulting from contracting in the paprika supply chain in Malawi. The study used focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and email correspondence with 100 supply chain participants. The identified challenges include: inadequate input provision via the contract, a lack of opportunities to bargain and participate in contract design, and side-selling. While the contract secured the outlet for paprika, it failed to provide a reliable paprika supply for the contracting company. Thus, Malawi’s case analyses the potential of contract farming to champion the development of vulnerable economies.     

Microfinance and Poverty in Bolivia

Both in its institutional range and in its penetration of financial markets, the microfinance sector in Bolivia rivals any in the world, and has played a major part in extracting the macro-economy from meltdown since the mid-1980s. We seek specifically to assess its impact on poverty, and do this through small-sample surveys on four microfinance institutions, two urban and two rural, using a range of poverty concepts: income (generated both through the borrower's enterprise and through the labour market), asset holdings and diversity, and various measures of vulnerability. All the institutions studied had, on balance, positive impacts on income and asset levels, with income impacts correlating negatively with income on account of poor households choosing to invest in low-risk, low-return assets. Microfinance may, however, augment vulnerability: average debt-service ratios of microfinance clients are disturbingly high, and if the coping mechanisms used by borrowers fail, borrowers may be forced out of the microfinance system, possibly resulting in decapitalisation and impoverishment. Poorer households are more restricted in their choice of coping strategy, and many as a consequence 'choose' coping strategies more likely to jeopardise their long-term income prospects, in particular asset sales and cuts in children's schooling. The more successful low-income borrowers are those who have voluntary savings deposits and do not rush into fixed capital purchases too early: collapse back into poverty is associated with multiple crises and the failure of one or more 'safety nets', in particular of one or more 'safety nets', in particular support from a member's solidarity group. The following actions appear to be promising for the further reduction of poverty in Bolivia: stronger efforts to mobilise rural savings, removal of lower limits on loan size, and the introduction of appropriate insurance mechanisms. In comparison with other anti-poverty measures, microfinance appears to be successful and relative cheap at reducing the poverty of those close to the poverty line, but ineffective, by comparison with labour-market and infrastructural measures, in reducing extreme poverty.     

贵州喀斯特少数民族地区区域贫困机制研究

贵州喀斯特少数民族地区的区域贫困有其客观的自然、历史与社会基础.喀斯特环境的地表破碎、山高谷深、土地贫瘠、自然灾害频繁、生态系统失调、使人群生活和生产条件较差.少数民族长期的自然经济形成了比较封闭的人文社会环境.应该说喀斯特民族贫地区是由长期劣势自然条件形成的失衡的生态系统,长期的自然经济形成的封闭的人文社会环境和长期的单一经济结构形成的脆弱、低值的经济态势共同组合的一个区域封闭、主体薄弱、供体贫瘠、载体超负的地理综合体.     

复合治理:地方脱贫进路的一个理论解释——基于153个脱贫摘帽县的扎根研究

准确诠释精准脱贫战略实践以来的地方治理经验是一项亟待推进的研究议题。论文以153个脱贫摘帽县作为分析样本,基于扎根方法提炼“复合治理”分析性概念诠释地方脱贫经验。“复合”属性表明地方减贫过程受到多重机制共同作用而形塑出复杂叠加的治理样态,具体表现为:(1)中央政府建构“刚性时间约束”要件,为地方政府“复合治理”提供外在驱动力;(2)贫困县党委、政府调用“党政统合”形式凸显任务首位、塑造体制联动效应,它是“复合治理”的组织轴心;(3)“复合治理”实践运作依托于横向维度“利益整合”与纵向维度“政治关联”,前者表征政府与市场主体建构治理共识以形成长效治理机制,后者表征地方政府将外生性政治权威嵌入村庄场域提升治理合力。“复合治理”为精准脱贫实践提供了一个理论视角,后续研究应强化对2020年后相对贫困治理实践的实证解读。     

新时期扶贫开发的着力点

新时期的扶贫开发,要创新思路:给钱给物不如给思路,扶人扶村不如扶产业。要根据 贫困地区的特点和优势,培育发展主导产业,提高起点,形成规模。