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Sustaining the Soil: Indigenous Soil and Water Conservation in Africa

Indigenous soil and water conservation practices are rarely acknowledged in the design of projects. Instead, the history of soil and water conservation in Africa has been one of imposing external solutions without regard to local practice.

Commons and Collectives: The Lack of Social Capital in Central Asia’s Land Reforms

Published by: IDS

Current debate about land and agrarian reform in the post-Soviet Central Asian republics tends to be couched in terms of stark choices between state, collective and private ownership. There is little discussion of the full range of potential tenure arrangements in the 'middle ground' between private and state ownership.

Banking Policy in Botswana: Orthodox but Untypical

Published by: IDS

Financial sector policy in Botswana was unusual. In most other African countries, newly independent governments intervened extensively in the ownership, management and credit allocation of domestic banks.

Privatisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Progress and Prospects During the 1990s

Published by: IDS

Privatisation of state-owned enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is accelerating, according to this study, and has already progressed much further than previous reports have indicated. Up to now, the analysis of the privatisation in sub-Saharan Africa has been based on very incomplete and out of date data.

Organisational Issues in New Forms of Multi-Sectoral Planning

Published by: IDS

Despite current ideological and philosophical objections to planning, it survives in new forms, generating Policy Framework Papers, Poverty Assessments and Food Security Strategies.

Surplus Labour and Productivity in Chinese Agriculture: Evidence from Household Survey Data

Published by: IDS

This paper investigates whether the concept of surplus labour adequately characterises the labour conditions facing rural Chinese households, and whether, therefore, it affects household labour allocation decisions.

Local Heroes: Patterns of Field Worker Discretion in Implementing GAD Policy in Bangladesh

Published by: IDS

This paper examines how field workers use their discretion to interpret and implement policy in rural credit programmes in Bangladesh, looking in particular at differences in attitudes and practices between women and men field staff.

Fuzzy Entitlements and Common Property Resources: Struggles Over Rights to Communal Land in Namibia

Published by: IDS

This paper addresses some conceptual difficulties of applying the entitlement approach to contexts such as common property regimes, where overlapping institutions or groups of individuals all exert valid claims over a single resource endowment, and where claims on resources are socially sanctioned rather than legally enforceable.

When Livestock are Good for the Environment: Benefit Sharing of Environmental Goods and Services

Published by: IDS

Livestock producers are coming in for increasing criticism world-wide on the grounds that livestock production is bad for the environment. But the environmental consequences vary widely, depending on the specific local circumstances.

Does European Aid Work? An Ethiopian Case Study

Published by: IDS

The future of European aid is being hotly debated. This paper presents the results of a major evaluation of EU aid to Ethiopia over the period from 1976 to 1994. It concludes that the effectiveness of aid has varied. Some, perhaps most, 'worked', but some did not - for reasons partly internal to Ethiopia and partly internal to the EU.