Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Livelihoods'
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1
Lasso, Aldi Herindra. "The Double-edged Sword of Tourism: Tourism Development and Local Livelihoods in Komodo District, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia." Thesis, Griffith University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/370982.
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Tourism development has long been promoted as an effective means of bringing
improvements to local communities. However, along with many positive benefits of
tourism there are many negative impacts on economic, social and environmental aspects
of communities. The introduction of tourism often triggers alterations in the way local
people make a living. Such alterations often lead to full tourism-dependent livelihoods,
affecting the sustainability of traditional livelihoods due to the unreliability of the tourism
industry. This study provides empirical evidence of such alterations in local communities.
The research data for this study was collected in Komodo District, West Manggarai, East
Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, with the souvenir, tour boat and travel businesses as case
studies. Using qualitative methods, this study elaborates the impacts of tourism on local
livelihoods, by focusing on: the process of how tourism affected local livelihoods; the
opportunities and threats emerging from the impact of tourism; the strategies applied to
respond to the challenges; and the locals’ perspectives of influential stakeholders and
sustainable tourism development. Although the current businesses provide the local
businesspeople with a relatively immediate income, potential challenges have emerged
that threaten the sustainability of their tourism-based livelihoods: their full reliance on
tourism; fierce competition; extensive low seasons; and their lack of required skills. The
locals’ strategies responding to such challenges remain focused on tourism-dependent
businesses that have a high reliance on tourism. If tourism declines, the local people will
have insufficient alternatives to maintain their livelihoods. Preserving non-tourismrelated
businesses as a livelihood diversification strategy will significantly increase their
ability to cope with difficult times.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Dept Intnl Bus&Asian Studies
Griffith Business School
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Lautze, Susan Lorraine. "Militarised livelihoods in Uganda." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.539971.
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Mogobe, Serati S. "Exploring livelihood strategies employed by women street food vendors in Gaborone, Botswana." University of Western Cape, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/7833.
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Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS)The informal economy has continued to increase in developing countries, giving jobs and income to marginalised groups, the majority being women. The rise of the informal sector is perpetuated by exclusionary social policies and the continued increase in unemployment. In Botswana, street food vending, the most visible form of the informal sector trading, has evolved to be a survivalist activity that women populate. Increasing poverty levels, gender inequalities, and high unemployment rates have resulted in poor urban women being vulnerable to the stresses and shocks caused by these factors. Street food vending is therefore pursued by women to mitigate their vulnerability. Additionally, street food vending allows for more flexible working hours, thus accommodating women’s community, household, and productive roles. Despite women’s substantial contribution to Botswana’s informal economy, the government has not done much to support them.
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Acheampong, Emmanuel. "Sustainable livelihoods of forest fringe communities : forests, trees and household livelihood strategies in southern Ghana." Thesis, University of Hull, 2003. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:5460.
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Forests play fundamental roles in supporting rural livelihoods in Ghana. They form an integral part of the rural economy, providing subsistence goods and services as well as items of trade. Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) contribute in many ways to improving diets, combating hunger and increasing incomes for rural households in Ghana. Indeed, wild plants and animals have traditionally been the major insurance of many rural households against food and livelihood insecurity. Yet past forestry development efforts have primarily focused on timber, and on building the forest capital, without paying equal attention to how these particular assets combine with others to sustain livelihoods, especially for the poor. This oversight has resulted in gaps in our understanding of the contribution of forest products to sustainable livelihoods. This study focuses primarily on the role of forest products (especially NTFPs) in rural livelihoods, the institutional issues that mediate local people's access to forest products, the impact of forest degradation and decline on rural livelihoods, and the forms of adaptation to forest resources decline. By combining qualitative and quantitative processes of enquiry (rapid rural appraisal, household questionnaire survey, key informant interviews, household case studies, literature search and direct detailed observations), the extent and manner in which forest-based resources form part of livelihood structures of forest and near-forest dwellers was examined in three forest fringe communities in the Wassa Amenfi District of southern Ghana. The results of this study reveal that NTFPs provide critical resources across southern Ghana, fulfilling nutritional, medicinal, cultural and financial needs, especially during periods of seasonal hardship and emergencies. Virtually all households consume a wide variety of forest foods, and forest-based activities provide one of the most common income-earning options for households throughout the study area. The contribution of forests and forest products to rural livelihoods is also manifested in the spiritual, cultural and traditional values placed on them. Forest products feature in many cultural ceremonies such as marriages, funerals, initiations, the installation of chiefs and the celebration of births. In spite of the important contribution of forest resources to rural livelihoods, current statutes in Ghana do not recognise indigenous rights to NTFPs in forest reserve areas. All products within forest reserves, including timber and NTFPs are vested in the government. Local people must obtain permits to harvest products from forest reserves. Similarly, all naturally occurring timber trees - whether on private or on communal land, or even on private farms - 'belong' to the government. It is an offence for an individual or community to cut or sell timber or merchantable tree species without permission from the Forestry Department (FD). Local people resent this form of exclusion and see the permit system as too expensive and complicated. This policy of exclusion discourages any sense of stewardship or responsibility towards forest resources. It alienates, and is a strong disincentive to local management of forests and timber resources. Because of this, people harvest NTFPs profligately and often destroy valuable timber species on their farms before concessionaires can gain access to them. The potential of forest products to continue to support rural livelihoods in Ghana can only be realised by an increase in the stream of forest benefits to local people. This will require security of access to forest resources, local incentives to protect the forest and its timber resources, and the involvement of local communities in forest management. These are critical issues if local communities are to use the forest resources in their localities sustainably. Because local communities are primary users of forest products, and create rules that significantly affect forest condition, their inclusion in forestry management schemes is essential.
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Okunlola, Adetola S. "Local economic development, agriculture and livelihoods." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/5194.
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Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS)A total of 25 million South Africans are living in poverty, the majority of them in rural areas (SPII, 2007) added to this, the percentage of people living in poverty in rural areas more than doubles those living in the same conditions in an urban context (Armstrong, Lekezwa & Siebrits, 2008). Alleviating poverty and promoting development in rural areas is Strategic Priority no.3 in the National Government’s medium term strategic framework, through the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (DRDLR, 2010). It has also been shown that poverty alleviation through small-scale agricultural projects can be successful in both creating income and improving household nutrition (Lahiff, 2003). The South African Government has attempted multiple varied approaches towards poverty alleviation in rural South Africa with mixed success. One of these approaches is that of a formalised strategy for Local Economic Development (LED) at the municipal government level. LED has been placed firmly in the remit of local government and in some areas has been undertaken by LED agencies (LEDAs) which are autonomous entities but are operating within municipal legal structures. The Blue Crane Development Agency (BCDA) is one such LEDA based in the Blue Crane Route Municipality of the Cacadu District of the Eastern Cape. The main aim of this study is to explore how the BCDA’s agricultural projects affected the livelihoods of their participant communities. The study utilises the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) in order to measure primarily qualitative differences the LED program has made to local livelihood strategies and outcomes. The research takes the form of a case-study, utilising in depth interviews and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools. It was found that the agricultural LED projects did increase livelihoods and capital during the time they were ongoing. However, as the projects had ended there was no long term increase to livelihood strategies and security. Multiple factors were responsible for the project failures. These include the lack of clear delineation in roles between the BCDA and their employees, lack of re-investment once projects were inherited by the beneficiaries and insufficient post hand-over mentoring.
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Knutsson, Per. "Interdisciplinary knowledge integration and the sustainable livelihoods approach : case studies on rural livelihoods in Kenya and China /." Göteborg : Göteborg University, School of Global Studies, Human Ecology Section, 2005. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy0611/2006411343.html.
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Tamasane, Tsiliso. "Goodbye to Projects? ¿ A livelihoods-grounded audit of the Sustainable Coastal Livelihoods Programme (SCLP) in South Africa." Bradford Centre for International Development, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/3044.
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Approaches to projects and development have undergone considerable change in the
last decade with significant policy shifts on governance, gender, poverty eradication,
and environmental issues. Most recently this has led to the adoption and promotion of
the sustainable livelihood (SL) approach. The adoption of the SL approach presents
challenges to development interventions including: the future of projects and
programmes, and sector wide approaches (SWAPs) and direct budgetary support. This paper `A livelihoods-grounded audit of the Sustainable Coastal Livelihoods
Programme (SCLP)¿ is the twelfth in the series of project working papers.Department for International Development
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Nilsson, Wilda. "Spatiality of Livelihood Strategies : the Reciprocal Relationships between Space and Livelihoods in the Tibetan Exile Community in India." Thesis, Högskolan på Gotland, Institutionen för kultur, energi och miljö, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hgo:diva-1365.
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Research on livelihoods has been conducted across various fields but there has been less focus upon detection and analyzing of the interconnected relationships between space and livelihoods. This study investigates these relationships from a place-specific point of view utilizing the Tibetan exile community in India as a case study. The qualitative method of semi-structured, in-depth interviews has been employed in order to gather primary data. Theoretically, this thesis draws it framework mainly from the human geography perspective on space and place combined with the conceptual Sustainable Livelihood framework. This thesis argues that it is possible to distinguish four examples of reciprocal relationships between space and livelihoods in the places studied. These are spatial congregation into an ethnic enclave, the altering of place specific time-space relations which in turn alters livelihood possibilities over time, migration and spatial dispersion of livelihoods. These results are case specific and not generalizable.Forskning kring försörjningsmöjligheter har utförts inom en rad vetenskapliga fält men få har fokuserat på att finna och analysera ömsesidiga relationer mellan space och försörjningsstrategier. Denna studie undersöker dessa relationer med en plats-specifik utgångspunkt och använder det tibetanska exilsamhället i Indien som fallstudie. Den kvalitativa metoden semi-strukturerade djupintervjuer har använts för att samla in primärdata. Uppsatsen drar sitt teoretiska ramverk från det samhällsgeografiska perspektiven på space och place i kombination med det konceptuella ramverket Sustainable Livelihood framework. Uppsatsen menar att det är möjligt att särskilja fyra exempel på de ömsesidiga relationerna mellan space och försörjningsstrategier. Dessa är rumslig ansamling i en etniska enklav, förändringar i platsspecifika tid-rum relationer vilket påverkar försörjningsmöjligheter över tid, migration och rumslig spridning av försörjning. Dessa resultat anses vara fallspecifika och därför inte möjliga att generalisera.
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McDermott, Lindsay. "Contrasting livelihoods in the upper and lower Gariep River basin: a study of livelihood change and household development." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007147.
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This study investigated rural livelihoods in two contrasting environments in the upper and lower reaches of the Gariep River: Sehlabathebe in the Lesotho highlands, and the Richtersveld in the Northern Cape, and how these have changed over time. Livelihoods were examined using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework in conjunction with the household development cycle. This study therefore adopted a multi-scale approach, where a micro-level household analysis was framed within the macro level social, political, environmental, economic and institutional context, while taking into account the role of temporal scale of livelihood change. A multi-scale approach facilitated the identification of the major drivers of change, both exogenous and endogenous. The combination of livelihood strategies pursued differed between the two sites. Households in Sehlabathebe are reliant mainly on arable and garden cultivation, livestock in some households, occasional remittances, use of wild resources, petty trading and reliance on donations. Households in the Richtersveld relied primarily on livestock, wage labour, use of wild resources and State grants or pensions. The livelihood strategies pursued in each site have not changed markedly over time, but rather the relative importance of those strategies was found to have changed. The assets available to households, the livelihood strategies adopted and the changes in these livelihood strategies are influenced by a households stage in the development cycle and differing macro-level factors. Drivers of change operate at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and are often complex and interrelated. The major drivers of livelihood change were identified as macro-economic, demographic, institutional and social and climatic. This study highlights the importance of using historical analysis in the study of livelihoods, as well as the complexity and diversity of rural livelihoods. Ecosystem goods and services were found to play a fundamental role in rural livelihoods and are influenced by institutional factors. Rural households are heavily reliant on the formal economy, and macro-economic changes have had a significant impact on livelihoods. This is highlighted by how the drastic decline in migrant labour opportunities for households in Sehlabathebe has negatively affected them. Vulnerability was shown to be a result of external shocks and trends, such as institutional transformation, a decline in employment opportunities, theft and climatic variation; and differed between the two sites. The role of institutional breakdown was shown to be a major factor influencing rural livelihoods, and this is related to broader economic and political changes. This study contributes to the growing literature on rural livelihoods by allowing for an appreciation of how differing environments and contextual factors influence livelihood strategies adopted, and which different factors are driving change.
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Cohen, Leah. "The impact of illness on livelihoods in rural western Kenya the influence of livelihood type, gender, and seasonality /." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2004. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0005282.
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Hall, Lesley Ann. "Family childcare : supporting daily lives and livelihoods." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/252.
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Childcare provided by extended family members (mainly grandparents), operating in the non-marketed, unpaid, informal economy, accounts for the largest proportion of all childcare used by working parents in the UK. Yet policymakers continue to consider childcare needs and provision in terms of formal childcare only such as day nurseries, registered childminders and out-of-school clubs. This thesis provides much needed insight into the socio-cultural, political and economic processes which influence childcare selection, observing the way in which individual (or household) agency and structural constraints interact and highlighting the potential tension between social well-being and economic rationality. This is considered within the context of household provisioning, and the interdependence of the complementary (or informal) and formal economies, by demonstrating the vital role of `family childcare' as an unpaid contribution from mainly non-resident grandparents which complements the formal economy by allowing parents to work, while also contributing to household livelihoods and the social well being of working parents. The positive and negative aspects of the family childcare relationship have been explored in an empirical study of two socio-economically contrasting city wards of Newcastle upon Tyne, providing statistical evidence of the high levels of use of 'family childcare' in particular, presented with other data which offers a more `rounded understanding' of the parents' and childcarers' subjective experience. This in-depth study contributes to the contemporary debates about family obligation and normative consensus, and the 'nature of care' and whether or not care provided by family (or friends and neighbours) should be paid. The key warning from this study is that the current 'taken for granted' view held by the UK Government ignores the potential for family conflict created by excessive dependence on family childcare, and the objective consequences in terms of lost income and future pension entitlements for those providing it (mainly grandparents). The longer-term implications for the planning of childcare provision are considered, focusing on ways in which the beneficial aspects of the family childcare relationship could be preserved, at least on a part-time basis, by providing proper short and longterm support. This looks to the future of the value of care in all of society, recognising that formal childcare has a part to play, but that not everyone wants to relinquish all care to the market, calling for systems that facilitate the combination of childcare to fit the social, moral and economic circumstances of parents and carers.
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James, Robert C. "Rural Ugandan economies : livelihoods, institutions and decentralisation." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.423783.
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Milton, Ashley D. "Forest resilience for livelihoods and ecosystem services." Thesis, George Mason University, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3720748.
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Deforestation in the Congo Basin is altering the natural functioning and services of the ecosystem and adversely impacting highly vulnerable human populations who rely on their proper functioning. There is currently no framework that comprehensively addresses the historical and cultural complexities that are persistent in Central African societies and that also include, from a micro scale, the detailed voices of local communities. Without such a holistic framework, it is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness or harmfulness associated with current management strategies in responding to deforestation at the various levels. This transdisciplinary mixed method study determined the most salient indirect and direct causes of forest loss, the impacts resulting from an altered state, and the effectiveness of current management responses by assessing changes in forest cover, forest provisions, and trends in forest management. Because forests are common goods, the elasticity of forests are dependent on a multitude of human activities and attitudes. Therefore, data collected via survey tools were used to evaluate the role of multiple stakeholders in the state of the Congo Forest using the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact- Response (DPSIR) framework, a structured analytical tool created by the European Environmental Agency for better understanding of Integrated Environmental Assessments. To best explore local to international perspectives on the effectiveness of current strategies in sustaining forests for livelihoods and ecosystem services, research methods included conducting remote sensing analysis of Landsat satellite images, interviewing over 325 individuals living in 25 communities in the Lake Télé-Lake Tumba Landscape of northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo and 20 individuals working on forest management, conservation, and funding, and a climate analysis using 40 years of weather data collected from a scientific reserve located within the landscape. Results highlight that local populations are highly environmentally literate and their knowledge is a useful tool for qualifying environmental changes, such as reduced lake health, animal health, and plant health. Remote sensing results show the forest is in a state of decline and climate findings confirm the ecological health of the landscape has been reduced demonstrated by major shifts in the traditional agricultural calendars and the effects are having adverse public health impacts on local communities. The process of this research itself interfaces science and policy and thus recommendations focus on how to make effective payments to communities for supporting alternative livelihoods in order to prevent deforestation while next steps should focus on the implications of forest loss and the promotion of a One Health approach at the landscape level.
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Mdee, (nee Toner) Anna L. "Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches - Can they transform development?" Bradford Centre for International Development, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/2894.
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yesThis paper critically examines the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA) in the context of broader development debates, using a literature review as a tool to explore the origins, concepts and uses of the `approach¿. Whilst the concept of sustainable livelihoods is valuable in advancing our understanding the complexity and embedded nature of people¿s lives, sustainable livelihoods frameworks and principles are too simplistic to offer many answers. This paper argues that the idea of net sustainable livelihoods has much to offer the current discourse on rights and governance but that this is in danger of being diluted by its conceptualisation as a new `approach¿ to managing development interventions.
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Kamuzora, Faustin. "Goodbye to Projects? ¿ A livelihoods-grounded audit of the Magu District Livelihoods and Food Security Project (MDLFSP) in Tanzania." Bradford Centre for International Development, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/3041.
Full textAbstract:
Approaches to projects and development have undergone considerable change in the last
decade with significant policy shifts on governance, gender, poverty eradication, and
environmental issues. Most recently this has led to the adoption and promotion of the
sustainable livelihood (SL) approach. The adoption of the SL approach presents
challenges to development interventions including: the future of projects and
programmes, and sector wide approaches (SWAPs) and direct budgetary support. This paper `A livelihoods-grounded audit of the Magu District Livelihoods and Food
Security Project¿ is the ninth in the series of project working papers.Department for International Development
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Susanna, Dobrota. "Diversifying livelihoods and land management : A case study on the prospects and challenges of a permaculture project in rural Las Pavas, Nicaragua." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Kulturgeografiska institutionen, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-123844.
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The socioeconomic context of many biodiversity rich countries is argued to be heavily dwarfed in current conservation and development debate, resulting in that projects that intersect complex issues of development and conservation are often simplistically deemed as being unsuccessful. The aim of this research has therefore been to attain a more profound understanding of how socioeconomic conditions and local neoliberal contexts effect ICDP projects and to an extent also agroecological transition. In this case study ten qualitative life-story interviews were carried out during a minor field study in rural Las Pavas, Nicaragua. These were further analyzed through the use of the sustainable livelihood approach in order to identify what impacts the local socioeconomic contexts had on participant livelihoods and also what prospects and challenges C.I.P.P’s permaculture project presented in this regard. The empirical evidence shows that participant livelihoods were subjected to several constraints that were buttressed by the neoliberal development context which signified a great reliance on cattle raising as main financial activity at the expense of other important natural assets such as forest and water. Furthermore, demonstrating that permaculture projects had to provide the widest range of benefits with the least amount of risk in order to be adopted.
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Hebinck, P., and Averbeke W. van. "Livelihoods and landscapes: People, resources and land use." Brill Academic Publishers, 2007. http://encore.tut.ac.za/iii/cpro/DigitalItemViewPage.external?sp=1001974.
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Summary
This chapter brings to a conclusion the main issues that have been raised in the book and provides some ideas on the type of policies that are needed to enhance land-based livelihoods in the Eastern Cape Province and possibly elsewhere in South Africa. In our opinion the key objective of agrarian policy should be the facilitation of a process that can be labelled as repeasantisation (chapter 1). The empirical material in this book shows that there are still remnants of a peasantry in both villages, albeit few and limited in extent. By examining these we simultaneously explored what constitutes the agrarian in contemporary rural villages such as Guquka and Koloni. The evidence presented indicates a long process of retreat of the agrarian in the rural central Eastern Cape province. Critical examination of past and contemporary interventions in these rural areas, such as betterment planning and land and agrarian reform initiatives, raises questions about the role of expert knowledge in rural and agrarian development in South Africa. There are elements of continuity in the approach being used, leading to the conclusion that alternative expert curricula in agriculture and rural development are needed.
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Kraan, Marloes. "Creating space for fishermen's livelihoods : Anlo-Ewe beach seine fishermen's negotiations for livelihood space within multiple governance structures in Ghana /." Leiden : African Studies Centre, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1887/13977.
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Bishop, Elizabeth. "Schooling and pastoralists' livelihoods : a Tanzanian case study." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2007. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1444027/.
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Previous research on education amongst pastoralists has concentrated mainly on the reasons for their comparatively low rates of enrolment and attainment. This thesis examines education in pastoralist areas more critically. It is based on fourteen months of fieldwork carried out between 2003 and 2006 in a predominantly agro-pastoralist Maasai area in Monduli District in northern Tanzania. Quantitative and qualitative data are used to explore the nature of the schooling process and the ways in which schooling has influenced pastoralism and pastoralists' livelihoods. Theoretical approaches which view schooling as a diverse collection of socially situated practices embedded in a local context, as well as approaches which see 'development' as a discursive practice, are drawn on. Various actors have shaped the schooling process, including the Tanzanian government, teachers, non-Maasai in-migrants, and Maasai. The results of this process are shown to have been affected by discursive contestations, mediated by local constraints and opportunities. The schooling process in pastoralist areas in Tanzania has been informed by discourses of pastoral development that are not supportive of extensive pastoralism. Involvement of Maasai children in schooling has consequently brought practical as well as ideological challenges for those trying to maintain successful and sustainable pastoralist livelihoods. This thesis argues that the schooling process in this area has influenced livelihood choices and thus the practice and viability of pastoralism. Through examining the ideological basis, practices, and consequences of schooling, as well as through an analysis of the formulation of education policies, this thesis seeks to inform and stimulate current debate surrounding education provision for pastoralists.
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Mvula, Peter Mathias. "Fluctuating fisheries and rural livelihoods at Lake Malawi." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.247115.
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This research investigates the livelihoods of artisanal fishing families at Lake Malawi. The key research question that it addresses is how artisanal fishers adapt their behaviour to cope with fluctuations in fish availability that occur naturally, i. e. that do not occur primarily as the outcome of human fishing behaviour. In Lake Malawi two such fish species, usipa and utaka, exhibit considerable spatial, seasonal, and interannual variability. These species are also by far the most important for the artisanal fishery. Fluctuating fisheries pose special challenges for livelihoods and fisheries management. For livelihoods they imply big seasonal variations in the ability of families to rely on fishing as a primary livelihood component, and they make fishing-based livelihoods insecure and risky. For fisheries management, they pose the problem that the true status of the resource is almost impossible to measure, with apparent risks in both directions: that overly restrictive management will result in an unexploited resource that could have made a greater contribution to the livelihoods of poor people and to the nutritional status of the population of Malawi more generally; or that overly lax management will result in a depletion of the resource beyond its sustainable yield. The research shows that fishers adapt to the fluctuating fish stocks in two main ways. One way is to specialise mainly in fishing but to emphasise mobility, so that short and medium term movements around the lake are made in pursuit of the resource. The other way is to maintain diverse livelihoods, combining fishing with farming and other non-farm income generating activities. There are, of course, also intermediate cases between these two opposing poles. The research demonstrates that migration for fishing purposes brings benefits both to migrants and resident communities. While for the migrants it is important to be allowed to settle for varying periods at different lakeshore beaches and villages; for residents the presence of the mobile fishers brings an increase of cash into circulation, the arrival of fish traders, the ability to open shops and bars to service this increased activity, and more buoyant markets for locally produced commodities. There are thus important income and employment benefits for resident communities that result from the behaviour of fishing migrants. At Lake Malawi, migrant fishermen tend to be from the Tonga ethnic group from the north of the country, and they generally differ in ethnicity from the resident communities where they take up temporary settlement. Fisheries policy in Malawi has been moving away from a top-down regulation by the Fisheries Department towards the idea of community management of fisheries. The argument is that if fishing communities are given their own powers to enforce regulations, within a participatory framework, then community self-interest will ensure that regulations are properly policed. This idea involves establishing territoriality over areas of the lake, so that "beach village committees" (BVCs) have regulatory powers over the lake areasa djacentt o villages. The researchd emonstratesth at there are many flaws in this concept in the case of Lake Malawi: BVCs are dominated by part-time fishing or non-fishing residents, migrants are excluded, territoriality is nonsensical for a mobile resource, and previously successful reciprocal relationships and other complex adaptive strategies are weakened and disrupted. The artisanal fishery in Malawi is opportunistic; it adapts to fluctuations either by ceasing to fish or by moving to other fishing grounds. It is argued that this sort of fishing requires minimal management, in which mobility and diversity are recognised and encouraged. If indeed there is a threat to the resource, it is rather the large scale commercial sector comprising a few trawlers of immense capacity relative to the yield potential of the Lake that pose that threat. There is an unequivocal need to monitor and regulate the catch volumes of this sector. For the artisanal fishery, however, a low key, flexible and resilient management approach is suggested; one that builds on the strengths of existing patterns of behaviour rather than seeking to change and undermine them.
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Kelly, Maxine. "Sustainable rural livelihoods : a case study of Malawi." Thesis, Kingston University, 2000. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/20682/.
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This thesis complements and extends understanding of the contribution of new approaches to development to the goal of achieving sustainable rural livelihoods. This is achieved by critically evaluating the concepts of agricultural sustainability and rural livelihoods. This study examines the use and management of natural resources by smallholder farmers in central Malawi. Development interventions by PROSCARP, a development project running nationally in Malawi and funded by EU, within the case study area were evaluated. This thesis has focused on land degradation and critically evaluates the new participatory or bottom up development paradigm in light of large-scale project interventions for land husbandry. A multidisciplinary approach, utilising a range of qualitative and quantitative methods provided a sound empirical basis for assessing the complexities of rural poverty and development interventions. This thesis identified a wide range of interlinked rural problems and opportunities. This clearly indicates that a single issue, such as soil conservation, cannot be separated from other aspects of sustainable rural livelihoods. This thesis therefore argues, on the basis of empirical evidence, as well as a critical review of the literature, that agricultural sustainability must encompass all aspects of rural livelihoods. The response of farmers to development interventions is highest for technologies that directly cater to their needs or which are based on local knowledge and technologies. This thesis highlights the need to identify and target appropriate interventions for individual households. Analysis of livelihood strategies also revealed a wide diversity of income sources within the case study area. The potential for increasing agricultural production is limited by landholding size and the potential for farmers to further diversify their income or food sources should be investigated in more detail. The evidence from the literature shows that participatory development processes have achieved successes in small-scale projects. This research concludes that it is also possible incorporate and change the type of participation in a pre-existing large-scale project. The analyses in this thesis suggests that unless interactive participation or self-mobilisation is achieved there is a strong possibility that introduced technologies will not be sustained and the community may not feel the long-term benefits of the project. The main obstacle to achieving interactive participation in a large-scale project is the empowerment of the beneficiaries. Finally, in light of the results of this research a number of recommendations are discussed which include a suggested focus on individual households or marginalized groups within a community, and a clear strategy for passing control of the project to the beneficiaries to ensure long term benefits after project withdrawal.
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Lakwo, Alfred. "Microfinance, rural livelihoods, and women's empowerment in Uganda." Leiden : African Studies Centre, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1887/11945.
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Loubere, Nicholas Darien. "Microcredit in rural China : implementation, development and livelihoods." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2015. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/10431/.
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Since the initiation of economic reforms in the late 1970s, China has undergone a radical socioeconomic transition, characterised by unprecedented economic growth and poverty reduction, but also rapidly increasing inequality – particularly between rural and urban areas. In recent years this uneven development has been increasingly perceived as a threat to ‘harmonious’ development, and the central government has prioritised the de-marginalisation of the countryside. Key to this development agenda is the incorporation of rural areas into the urban-based market-oriented financial system. For this reason, Chinese development planners have turned to microcredit – i.e. the provision of small-scale loans to ‘financially excluded’ rural households – as a means of increasing ‘financial consciousness’ and facilitating rural de-marginalisation. Drawing on a large original qualitative data set collected during in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in rural Jiangxi Province, this Ph.D. dissertation employs an actor-oriented livelihoods approach to address the question: What role do microcredit programmes play in local processes of socioeconomic development and the livelihoods of diverse local actors? By examining this overarching research question, this study makes a number of original contributions to current understandings of, and debates over, the nexus between microcredit, development and livelihoods in rural China and beyond. First, the research outlines how the heterogeneously implemented microcredit programmes must be understood as emerging from locally (re)produced processes, rather than the inevitable result of top-down causality. Second, the dissertation details how microcredit facilitates de-marginalisation for some, while simultaneously exacerbating the marginalisation of others – thereby contributing to our understanding of the multifaceted, non-linear and relational nature of external ‘impact’. Finally, this study exposes the ways in which external interventions (such as microcredit) reflect the contradictions and paradoxes implicit in rural China’s contemporary development landscape, thereby contributing to wider debates over the nature of rural development in China and other ‘developmental’ contexts.
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Ruohomaki, Olli-Pekka. "Livelihoods and environment in Southern Thai maritime villages." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 1997. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/28505/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores the diversification of local livelihood structure and the political economy of resource use in two maritime communities in Krabi, Southern Thailand. The thesis is divided into four parts as follows: Part I (i.e. Chapter 2) examines the political economy of resource use in the Andaman Sea region. The objective of Part I is to place the research sites in a larger political-economic framework and to delineate the main problems that are found in this region. Part II focuses on the research sites. After setting the geographical and historical contexts, the economic organisation of the communities are unravelled in chapter 3. Chapter 4 examines the village household and gender issues with case studies to illustrate the points made. Part III (i.e. Chapter 5) examines at length the sources and patterns of livelihood in the research sites. The various economic activities that villagers engage in are explored in detail and case studies are used to illustrate the arguments made. Part IV consists of chapters 6 and 7. The objective of these two chapters is to reflect on the dilemmas villagers face in confronting change and their responses. Chapter 6 outlines the collective meso-level responses of fishing communities against the conflicts over local resources examined in Part I. In addition, the role of external agencies, namely Thai nongovernmental organisations, in these collective meso-level responses of local fishing communities is considered. Chapter 7 considers the position of contemporary maritime villagers in the modern capitalist world-economy. Chapter 8 concludes the thesis by summarising the main points made and by reflecting on the relationship between livelihoods and the environment in Krabi.
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Dryland, Rhonda Kathleen. "Exploring household food insecurity through the livelihoods framework." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2021. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/212522/1/Rhonda_Dryland_Thesis.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis used the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework to explore the lived experience of women with children living with household food insecurity in south-east Queensland. The research was a phenomenological, qualitative longitudinal study that involved women from diverse economic backgrounds with a variety of household structures. The thesis identified that women used food and financial strategies that were pragmatic and were willing to sacrifice their self-identity in order to maintain social identity. The research highlighted that food insecurity in high income countries is a complex condition that involves a range of trade-offs that focus on maintaining household livelihoods.
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Wilkings, Ann Michelle. "Agrarian Transitions in Aquarian Contexts: Fisheries Transitions in Vietnam’s Tam Giang Lagoon." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/26284.
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This thesis investigates agrarian transitions within aquarian contexts by investigating livelihood transitions in a small rural fishing village in central Vietnam. Examined are powers at play that inform livelihood transitions as fishers and fish farmers respond by moving in and out of different production systems in order to maintain their fishing and fish farming livelihoods. This research reveals that aquarian transitions in Vietnam could follow a similar trajectory of agrarian transitions whereby smaller, less efficient production systems make room for more efficient economies of scale. In conducting a thorough and detailed empirical analysis of production systems, the socio-economic relations that shape production systems, and natural resource governance within the Vietnamese context, this research contributes to a better understanding of the knowledge surrounding fishery resources and livelihood options.
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Muhumuza, F. "Goodbye to Projects? ¿ A livelihoods-grounded audit of the Plan for the Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) in Uganda." Bradford Centre for International Development, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/3033.
Full textAbstract:
Approaches to projects and development have undergone considerable change in the last
decade with significant policy shifts on governance, gender, poverty eradication, and
environmental issues. Most recently this has led to the adoption and promotion of the
sustainable livelihood (SL) approach. The adoption of the SL approach presents
challenges to development interventions including: the future of projects and
programmes, and sector wide approaches (SWAPs) and direct budgetary support.This paper `A livelihoods-grounded audit of the Plan for the Modernisation of
Agriculture in Uganda¿ is the fourteenth in the series of project working papers.Department for International Development
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Collingwood, Clare. "Livelihoods, landmines and cluster bombs : assessing the impact of contamination and clearance on the livelihoods of conflict affected communities in south Lebanon." Thesis, Durham University, 2014. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11751/.
Full textAbstract:
The 1997 and 2008 UN Conventions on anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions mobilised the clearance of millions of square metres of land globally. Yet despite this success, concerns persist. Whilst areas of land made safe and numbers of items destroyed were systematically monitored, understanding the impact on livelihoods remains a goal of practitioners and policy-makers alike. This research explores the impact mines and cluster munitions, and their clearance, had on 66 households and in two communities in southern Lebanon. These communities lie within 20 kilometres of the United Nations delineated Blue Line: the militarised Lebanon/Israel border. The research had academic and applied objectives. It was guided by the following questions: How does contamination impact upon livelihoods? What impact does clearance have on livelihoods and local development spaces? And, how can any variations in the impact of contamination and clearance on livelihoods, within and across the field sites, be explained? Methodologically, it explored the implications of analysing livelihood change in insecure contexts. Literatures on livelihoods, well-being, disaster risk reduction, post-colonialism and political economy of conflict are used to ground the analysis and discussion: drawn together through the lenses of vulnerability and resilience. The findings highlight that contamination and clearance unsettled and reworked livelihoods and livelihood security in the field sites. Contamination caused costs to livelihood capitals. It led to threat avoidance, containment and confrontation mechanisms, to cope with, and adapt to, its presence. Where clearance followed, benefits associated with ‘undoing’ the costs of contamination on livelihood were found. Yet, impact was differentiated between and within communities. Further impact was non material as well as material and linked to an understanding of livelihoods as resistance. This highlights the need to see the impact of mine action ‘in the round’; attuned to context and the economic, political, social and cultural dimensions and insecurities of everyday living that this may imply. This may unsettle the assumptions upon which the conceptualisations of impact, and hence how it is primarily examined, have appeared to fall within mine action.
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Wellstead, K. James. "Evolving Governance Spaces: Coal Livelihoods in East Kalimantan, Indonesia." Thèse, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/19910.
Full textAbstract:
Coal mining carries significant impacts for surrounding livelihood practices. Yet, in order to explain how specific impacts become grounded within a particular community, attention must be given to the complex assemblage of socio-political and economic forces operating at the local scale. As such, this paper builds upon 3 months of field research in 2010 to describe the impact of decentralized extractive resource governance at coal mines near the rural coastal village of Sekerat, East Kalimantan. Employing evolutions in political ecology research, the analysis focuses on the evolving governance ‘space’ in order to explain how institutional analyses of resource extraction governance and livelihood governance can be integrated to understand how scalar processes construct a range of real and perceived impacts which condition the decision-making modalities of local villagers. A case is then made for giving greater consideration to the importance of temporality and materiality to explaining how land-based and wage-labour livelihood practices have become ‘reified’ within the local village.
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Von, Maltitz Graham Paul. "Biofuel, land-use tradeoffs and livelihoods in Southern Africa." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1021005.
Full textAbstract:
The rapid expansion of biofuel projects in southern Africa creates an opportune issue against which to examine land-use tradeoffs within the areas of customary land tenure. For this an ecosystems services approach is used. Jatropha curcas (L), a perennial oilseed plant which has been the key focus of most of the region’s biofuel expansion to date is used as the focus biofuel crop for which case study data were obtained from Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and South Africa. Despite the initial enthusiasm for jatropha, most projects have proven less successful than hoped, and many have collapsed. A few are, however, still showing signs of possible success and it is two of these that form the basis of the case studies. Hugely complex tradeoffs are involved when considering biofuel as a land-use option for communal areas. They range from global impacts such as biodiversity and global climate forcing, through national concerns of rural development, national food security and national fuel security, to local household concerns around improving livelihoods. Land that is converted to biofuel needs to be removed from some previous use, and in the southern African case it is typically woodlands and the multitude of services they provide, that suffer. The nature of the tradeoffs and the people affected change over the scale under consideration. For the local farmer it is only the local issues that are of concern, but national and global forces will change the policy environment and lead to new types of development such as biofuels. Change is inevitable, and in all developments there are likely to be both winners and losers. It is clear that the impacts arising from biofuel are situation dependent, and each community and location has unique social and environmental considerations that need to be taken into account. In the case of jatropha the final realised yield and the economic returns that this can generate, will be of critical importance and remain one of the main uncertainties. There are promising signs that under certain circumstances the balance of benefits from jatropha biofuel may be positive, but if implemented incorrectly or in the wrong place, there is extensive evidence of total project failure. It is clear that evidence-based data and assessment tools are needed to assist communities, developers and government departments to make sound decisions around biofuel (or other land-use based) development. A number of such tools are suggested in the thesis. Both the use of large-scale plantations or small-scale farmer centred projects have their advantages and disadvantages. It is probable that in the correct circumstances either can work. However, large-scale plantations can have huge negative social and environmental consequences if poorly implemented. Small-scale projects, though improving livelihoods, are unlikely to take the farmers out of poverty. Tradeoffs from any land-use change are inevitable. Empirical data on biofuel impacts on the environment and society are needed for the development of sound policy. A favourable policy environment can ensure that positive benefits from biofuel are obtained, whilst minimising negative impacts. To develop this policy means that southern African countries will have to clearly understand what they wish to achieve from biofuel, as well as having a clear understanding of impacts from biofuel implementation. Sound scientific knowledge needs to underpin this process. For instance governments may wish to increase the ratio of small-scale to large-scale plantation to increase the developmental benefits, ensure biofuel is used to promote national fuel security rather than being exported, or develop a medium-scale farming sector which can help move farmers out of poverty and assist in developing a market surplus of agricultural commodities. Analysing impacts from biofuel expansion is a complex and multi-dimensional problem and as such will require multi-criteria analysis tools to develop solutions. Global, national and local tradeoffs must all be considered. In addition a wide range of stakeholders are involved and participatory processes may be needed to capture their inputs. Tools to better analyse impacts, specifically at the local level are needed. These local results need to feed into national level economic assessments. The cost of biofuel introduction should be considered against the costs of not implementing biofuel, realising that doing nothing also has a cost and long-term impact. Third-party certification provides a useful tool for shifting costs of ensuring compliance with social and environmental legislation, from the state to biofuel companies. In addition ongoing monitoring and evaluation of existing projects is needed to learn from successes and failures, to identify unintended consequences, and to increase the resilience of projects, community livelihoods and the national economy. This will have to be supplemented with additional focused and ongoing research.
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Ambrose-Oji, Bianca Anna Augusta Elaine. "South West Cameroon : blinking participatory biodiversity conservation to livelihoods." Thesis, Imperial College London, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/8929.
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Mdee, (née Toner) Anna, and Tom R. Franks. "Putting livelihoods thinking into practice: implications for development management." Bradford Centre for International Development, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/3032.
Full textAbstract:
The failure of ‘blueprint’ development interventions to deliver substantive improvements in poverty reduction has been well recognised over the last twenty years. Process approaches seek to overcome the rigidity and top-down operation of much aid-funded intervention. Sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLA) are one of the latest additions to this family of approaches. As a theoretical framework and as a set of principles for guiding intervention, sustainable livelihoods thinking has implications for development management. Drawing on research exploring the application of sustainable livelihoods principles in ten development interventions, this paper considers how these principles have evolved from continuing debates surrounding process and people-centred (bottom-up) approaches to development management. This research suggests that whilst these principles can improve the impact made by interventions, the effective application of sustainable livelihoods and other process approaches are fundamentally restricted by unbalanced power relationships between development partners.BCID Working Papers: http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/bcid/research/papers/BCID_Research_Papers.php
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Dengler, Bettina. "Approaching vulnerability rural livelihoods in the West Bank, Palestine." Weikersheim Margraf, 2005. http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?id=2753272&prov=M&dok_var=1&dok_ext=htm.
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Sallu, Susannah M. "Biodiversity dynamics, livelihoods and knowledge in Kalahari dryland biomes." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.491074.
Full textAbstract:
The wealth of dryland biodiversity and associated knowledge is poorly documented and as a consequence dryland areas are now a thematic priority of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. A general lack of understanding of the multi-dimensional nature of environmental change and the complexity of these social-ecological systems has fuelled myths about degradation which persist today across Africa. Using a multi-methods approach, this research focuses on biodiversity as a concept through which a more holistic understanding of dynamics might be achieved.
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Musa, Agustina. "Sustainable livelihoods from fluctuating fisheries in West Java, Indonesia." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.268516.
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Bugri, John Tiah. "Land tenure and sustainable livelihoods in north-east Ghana." Thesis, University of Greenwich, 2005. http://gala.gre.ac.uk/6120/.
Full textAbstract:
Many authors have blamed African land tenure systems for the poor agricultural production and environmental degradation in sub-Saharan Africa, and therefore the resulting hunger, environmental refugees and the lack of socio-economic progress. The aim of this investigation was to investigate the customary and statutory tenure practices in north-east Ghana and their implications for agricultural production and environmental degradation and recommend ways of improving tenurial practices. The study revealed that contrary to the mainstream view that lack of security of customary land tenure is the main cause of the poor agricultural production and environmental degradation, stakeholders’ perceptions of their security of tenure was generally high. Stakeholders’ religious background, gender, levels of education, age, occupation and community membership status were important factors influencing their perceptions and attitudes to land tenure, and land and environmental management practices. Yet poor agricultural production and environmental degradation characterised the study area. Interviewees perceived the main causes to be due to non-tenurial factors including lack of finance, poor soil fertility, inadequate and unreliable rainfall, pests and diseases, inadequate farmlands, bush burning and excessive tree cutting. It was also shown in the study that women and strangers generally had little or no power and control over land use decision-making and management under customary land tenure. These findings have negative implications for tenurial conditions, environmental and livelihood sustainability in north-east Ghana since most women are involved in food production. Results of the investigation were used to develop a participatory and holistic approach to land use and management and developed an integrated framework of customary and statutory tenure as a way forward in sustainable land management and the provision of sustainable livelihoods in north-east Ghana in particular, and sub-Saharan Africa generally. The study has contributed to an understanding of the political ecology of north-east Ghana and concludes that the emerging changes in land resource access and use have conflicts as an inevitable element of the process, which broad-based stakeholder participation provides a useful solution.
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Marfo, Kofi Amoako. "Changing rural livelihoods : determinants of agricultural intensification in Ghana." Thesis, University of Reading, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.363804.
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Newton, Peter. "Opportunities for conservation and livelihoods in Amazonian extractive reserves." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2011. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/35365/.
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Mwaura, Grace Muthoni. "Educated youth in Kenya : negotiating waithood by greening livelihoods." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b58b7015-360c-4abd-af04-1ab008aae48f.
Full textAbstract:
The burgeoning scholarship on African youth indicates that young people are experiencing difficulties in attaining social adulthood and spend extended time in waithood - a period of economic and job insecurities that is becoming a permanent marker of their youth, affecting their life trajectories and future aspirations (Honwana, 2012; Locke & te Lintelo, 2012). Youth waithood involves navigating precarious conditions arising under neoliberalism and its economic liberalization reforms, and developing new subjectivities resulting from the acquisition of extra skills set, maintaining social networks, and engaging in new political formations (Jeffrey, 2008). Informed by concepts of neoliberal subjectivities, opportunity spaces, and Bourdieu's forms of capital, I conducted qualitative research with university students in six public universities, and with educated young farmers in Western, Eastern, and Central regions of Kenya. I investigated how Kenyan youth navigate waithood by occupying new opportunity spaces opened up by student environmentalism and agricultural entrepreneurialism - two areas that have been reconfigured by global discourses of environmental change, green jobs, and agricultural transformation. My findings show that the occupational aspirations of educated youth were changing to include navigation strategies of portfolio occupations, tarmacking, and side-hustling. Within the new opportunity spaces, these youth realized neoliberal subjectivities that enabled them to garner capitals through self-making, entrepreneurialism, and reworking of elite distinctions. Student environmentalists' navigation strategies included acquiring environmental knowledge and work experiences; joining networks of environmental professionals; and participating in environmental anti-politics. Educated young farmers embraced ideologies of portfolio occupations and green livelihoods. They also relied on the reconfigurations of gendered identities and the rural-urban divide, competitive individualism, and associational life to rework their occupational aspirations and maintain elite distinctions in society. In sum, negotiating youth waithood is a complex, intertwined, and uncertain process involving flexibilities and chance opportunities to access, maintain, and utilize capitals. The emergent subjectivities remain insecure, unstable and do not necessarily guarantee exiting waithood.
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Pittaluga, Fabio. "Poverty, Fishing and Livelihoods on Lake Kossou, Cote d'Ivoire." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/194347.
Full textAbstract:
Poverty analysis in fisheries is dominated by assumptions of a linear relationship between fishing, income and poverty. Poverty is seen as a function of income, and income as a function of fish catch. Thus, the analytical frameworks to understand poverty in fisheries, and the policies enacted to reduce it, have focused on issues of overexploitation, regulatory mechanisms to maximize rent extraction, and technological innovation to improve fisheries’ productivity. This set of relations is underpinned by the assumption that improving fish catch per se would reduce fishers’ poverty. The study of fishing livelihoods on Lake Kossou in Côte d’Ivoire problematizes some of these assumptions. I revisit the “essentialization” of fishers with fish by utilizing the Sustainable Livelihood Approach as a lens of analysis, and by demonstrating that fishers’ livelihoods are based on a diversified portfolio of activities that span multiple sectors. Looking at livelihoods also questions the validity of the conventional “sites” of poverty analysis in fisheries (i.e. the boat, the landing site) and how these lead to misrepresentations of fishers’ livelihoods by emphasizing the upstream elements (catches) to the detriment of downstream activities in the value chain (processing and trading) that are crucial in the realization of fishers’ sustainable livelihoods. Looking at the complexity of fishers’ livelihoods sheds light on the relations between poverty (as an outcome variable) and vulnerability as a constant condition that is linked to access to multiple types of assets, the institutional contexts in which they operate, and the ways in which access to natural resources is constantly re-negotiated. To that effect, this study shows how access to Lake Kossou took a completely new meaning when the coffee-cocoa economy collapsed and young Ivorians saw it as an opportunity being stolen from them by Malian fishers. The context of post-colonial national identity formation (epitomized in the search for “Ivoirité”) served as political justification for claiming new rights to natural resources that had been relatively unimportant until then in economic terms. Finally, this study provides an innovative approach to poverty analysis by emphasizing its multiple dimensions, and by utilizing the statistical fuzzy sets methodology to construct multidimensional poverty indices.
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Smith, Harriet Elizabeth. "The charcoal sector in southern Malawi : a livelihoods perspective." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2016. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/412709/.
Full textAbstract:
Charcoal has rapidly become the most widely used domestic source of urban energy for cooking and heating in sub-Saharan Africa, yet much of the sector is informally, or not at all regulated, with consequential detrimental impacts on livelihoods and the environment. Across Africa, 75% of urban growth is occurring in urban areas with populations of less than 1 million. Yet, these charcoal markets, their value chains, and the actors' livelihood outcomes are severely under researched. This thesis focuses on Zomba, a city of 164,000 people in southern Malawi. The research applies questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and a suite of rapid rural appraisal techniques to investigate actors' motivations, roles and livelihood outcomes along the charcoal value chain, examining processes at market, community and individual scales. By viewing the charcoal sector through a livelihoods lens, this thesis attempts to provide evidence and examine its implications for debate surrounding emerging charcoal policies across sub-Saharan Africa. The core findings of this thesis demonstrate that engaging in the production and transportation of charcoal strengthened actors' financial assets and delivered other benefits, such as improved access to goods and services and opportunities for livelihood diversification. These benefits contributed to reducing actors' vulnerability and improved their livelihoods. However, benefits were dependent on resource availability and a lack of charcoal resource management in the region has led to unsustainable harvesting practices. This resulted in localised forest degradation and charcoal-livelihood benefits were subsequently unsustainable in the longer-term. Lack of an environmentally sustainable commercial sector and enforcement of punitive regulations increased actors' vulnerability to reduced income, undermining market and livelihood security whilst having little positive impact on forest resource protection. This thesis provides original insights into the rural components of the value chain of small urban charcoal markets, the motivations of actors and livelihood outcomes. Combining a Value Chain Analysis with the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework supported an analysis of livelihood outcomes amongst actors along the chain and within the same node. The findings identify gendered nuances in participation and livelihood outcomes and in the distribution of enforcements amongst actors. This study confirms the importance of the charcoal sector for rural income generation, provides new context-specific insights into the contribution of charcoal to forest degradation and raises concerns over the levels of rent-seeking activities by authorities.
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Luecha, Rattiya. "Livelihoods of rural elderly in Thailand : a gender perspective." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50657/.
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This thesis aims to develop a better understanding of the livelihoods of older people in rural Thailand. It asks whether their involvement in socio-economic activities in their daily life enable them to maintain their livelihoods, highlights implications for Thai government policy. Drawing on a combination of the sustainable livelihoods framework and the gender perspective, the thesis examines the multiple activities performed by older men and women and analyses the factors affecting their engagement in these activities, and their access to different types of capital. The primary data is from 2 phases of fieldwork in a village in the North of Thailand, where 22 focus groups, 69 interviews and community maps and transect walks were conducted with the elderly. Further interviews with 75 carers of the elderly were conducted during the 2nd phase of fieldwork. The thesis highlights the broad range of socio-economic activities at household and community levels in which older men and women engaged, including agricultural and non-agricultural activities for the purpose of generating income and reciprocating or supporting family members and others. These activities enable older men and women to maintain their livelihoods despite of insufficient state support. They also reveal that family support is somewhat not the main support that it is commonly assumed to be in Thai culture, and that older people often continue to support their offspring and family members financially and non-financially. Older men are more likely to provide financial support, reflecting their roles as household leaders who are responsible for financial matters, whereas older women are more likely to provide support that is based on domestic work. Older men’s perspectives of involvement in activities are much focused on income generation, which makes it difficult for them to adapt in later life, situation when they may have to stop or decrease working. Older women are more likely to engage in domestic work and assist their spouses in farming. Both older men and women are willing to engage in any community activities, which in return provide them a link to cultivate other types of capital in maintaining their livelihoods. Therefore, ageing policy should take into account gender differences, the variation in livelihoods of the elderly, and the capacity of the community.
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Mdee, (nee Toner) Anna L., and Tom R. Franks. "Putting livelihoods thinking into practice: implications for development management." Bradford Centre for International Development, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/2892.
Full textAbstract:
YesThe failure of `blueprint¿ development interventions to deliver substantive improvements in poverty reduction has been well recognised over the last twenty years. Process approaches seek to overcome the rigidity and top-down operation of much aid-funded intervention. Sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLA) are one of the latest additions to this family of approaches. As a theoretical framework and as a set of principles for guiding intervention, sustainable livelihoods thinking has implications for development management. Drawing on research exploring the application of sustainable livelihoods principles in ten development interventions, this paper considers how these principles have evolved from continuing debates surrounding process and people-centred (bottom-up) approaches to development management. This research suggests that whilst these principles can improve the impact made by interventions, the effective application of sustainable livelihoods and other process approaches are fundamentally restricted by unbalanced power relationships between development partners.
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Kirumba, Edith Gathoni. "Coffee certification and small holder farmer's livelihoods in Kenya." Bordeaux 3, 2011. https://extranet.u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr/memoires/diffusion.php?nnt=2011BOR30056.
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This thesis analyzes the impacts of coffee certification on smallholder producers’ livelihoods in Kenya. It focuses on the governance strategies applied by lead actors and how these affect farmers’ participation in certification initiatives. It further examines producers’ awareness of certification schemes and the influence of certification on coffee returns and livelihoods. The findings reveal that in the initial stages of implementation, the top down governance strategy is widely employed by key actors in the introduction of certification initiatives, and that this strategy inhibits farmers’ interactive participation and bargaining power within the value chain. Farmers also have limited awareness of certification requirements, which often leads to non-compliance and suspension from certified markets. Moreover, certification does not guarantee better returns for coffee farmers and has a negligible effect on their livelihoods. We therefore infer that in its early developmental stages, certification alone is inadequate in enhancing producers’ livelihoods and in addressing the complexities facing Kenya’s coffee industry. Finally, certification is an imperfect tool for promoting supply chain governance and sustainable development. Thus, there is need for integrated remedial measures for the coffee industry, as well as broad based rural development programmes that offer producers more sustainable livelihood optionsCette thèse analyse les impacts de la certification du café sur les moyens de subsistance des paysans producteurs du Kenya. Elle se concentre sur les stratégies de gouvernance mises en place par les décideurs et leurs effets sur la participation des paysans aux initiatives de certification. La thèse examine aussi le niveau de connaissance qu’ont les producteurs des labels de certification et l’influence de cette même certification sur leurs revenus issus du café et leurs moyens de subsistance. Les résultats révèlent que la stratégie de gouvernance verticale est largement employée par les acteurs-clés dans les démarches d'introduction des certifications et que cette même stratégie empêche la participation active et limite le pouvoir de négociation des paysans dans la filière. De plus, les producteurs ayant une connaissance limitée des modalités de la certification, cela conduit souvent au non-respect de ces modalités et à l’exclusion des marchés certifiés. En outre, la certification ne garantit pas nécessairement aux paysans de meilleurs revenus tirés du café et n’a que des effets négligeables sur leurs moyens de subsistance. Nous en déduisons donc que la certification seule n’est pas en mesure d’améliorer les conditions de vie des producteurs ni de remédier aux difficultés liées à l’industrie caféière kenyane. En définitive, la certification est un outil mal adapté pour promouvoir une bonne gouvernance de la filière et un développement durable. Il est donc nécessaire d'appliquer des mesures correctives intégrées à l'industrie caféière mais aussi de mettre en place de vastes programmes de développement des régions rurales qui pourront offrir aux producteurs des moyens durables de subsistance
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Cooper, D., I. Goldman, J. Marumo, and Anna L. Toner. "Goodbye to Projects? - Review of Livelihoods Approaches and Development Interventions in South Africa." Bradford Centre for International Development, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/3035.
Full textAbstract:
Approaches to projects and development have undergone considerable change in the last decade with significant policy shifts on governance, gender, poverty eradication, and environmental issues. Most recently this has led to the adoption and promotion of the sustainable livelihood (SL) approach. The adoption of the SL approach presents challenges to development interventions including: the future of projects and programmes, and sector wide approaches (SWAPs) and direct budgetary support. This paper `An Appraisal of the use of livelihoods approaches in South Africa¿ is the second in the series of project working papers. This is the output of a literature review and series of interviews on sustainable livelihood approaches, projects, programmes and sector wide approaches in South Africa.Department for International Development
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Subrahmanian, Ramya. "Coproducing universal primary education in a context of social exclusion : households, community organisations and state administration in a district of Karnataka, India." Thesis, Open University, 2000. http://oro.open.ac.uk/58082/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis focuses on the challenge of achieving the goal of universal primary education in a context that is characterised by wide-ranging disparities in the education prospects of different social groups. An overall history of state failure to provide for universal education, and the patterns of exclusion and deprivation that constrain the participation of large sections of Indian rural populations provide the background to recent policy efforts to address the problem of low education participation. The thesis argues that concerted effort is required on the part of households and of the state if future efforts to achieve Universal Primary Education (UPE) are to be more successful than the past. It analyses new approaches which recognise the importance of challenging inequality in access to education, the role of community organisations in the process of stimulating participation in education, and the need for the reform of the administrative apparatus of the state into a more responsive, flexible institution. The coproduction framework facilitates the analysis of the means through which different institutional actors can co-operate in the production of goods and services. Recognition of the importance of social norms and networks that aid co-operation between different actors, and of the importance of effective governance on the part of the state in constructing positive relations between different actors are the strengths of the framework. However, the framework also has limitations. The thesis principally identifies the following: the assumption of shared orientations between users about the value of the good or service concerned, and the implicit assumption of homogeneity among service users and lack of attention paid to inequality and exclusion. Further, the thesis argues that there is insufficient empirical attention to the informal relations within which processes of implementation are embedded. Evidence of limitations is provided through application to a rural district, where the interface between state, community organisations and households in relation to primary education services is studied. Centrally, the thesis argues that the analysis of norms that perpetuate the reproduction of patterns of education exclusion is essential to identify the types of production processes and relationships that are necessary for inclusive and universal education.
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Kamuzora, Faustin. "Goodbye to Projects? ¿ A livelihoods-grounded audit of the Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS) in Tanzania." Bradford Centre for International Development, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/3039.
Full textAbstract:
Approaches to projects and development have undergone considerable change in the last decade with significant policy shifts on governance, gender, poverty eradication, and environmental issues. Most recently this has led to the adoption and promotion of the sustainable livelihood (SL) approach. The adoption of the SL approach presents challenges to development interventions including: the future of projects and programmes, and sector wide approaches (SWAPs) and direct budgetary support.This paper `A livelihoods-grounded audit of Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS) ¿ Tanzania¿ is the seventh in the series of project working papers.Department for International Development
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Hickler, Benjamin Hallam. "Epidemic oversight: Emerging infections and rural livelihoods in the Mekong." Diss., Search in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. UC Only, 2009. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3390047.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Francisco with the University of California, Berkeley, 2009.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 71-02, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Vincanne Adams.
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Adugna, Girmachew. "Livelihoods and survival strategies among migrant children i Addis Ababa." Thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Geography, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-938.
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This study attempts to explore the livelihoods and survival strategies of migrant children who live on the street or make a living on street based activities in Addis Ababa. It also depicts and analyses the forces behind children’s migration, their encounters and experiences while attempting to cope with the new environment. Structuration theory and livelihood approach were employed as a theoretical framework to address the research problem. Children form a part of the structure of the society, and as actors are struggling to adjust themselves to livelihood constraints. These theoretical frameworks helped to make a more realistic understanding of factors that shape the lives of street children within their society and of how they cope with and/or survive. On the other hand, research with street children can further our understanding or significantly contributes to theories of agency and competency and of risk and resilience. Giddens’ structuration is ontological in its orientation and focuses on theorizing human agency which in turn calls for in depth understanding of the lived experience of individuals. To better understand children and portray their everyday street life, various qualitative data collection methods: participant observation, key informant in-depth interview, focused group discussions have been employed. Giddens’ sees qualitative and quantitative methods as complementary rather than antagonistic aspects of social research. To this end, this study carried out a survey with a sample of fifty street children in four core areas of the city.
Although the problem of street children is understood as an urban phenomenon, the factors exacerbating the problem have their origin in the rural villages. This study confirms that determinants of rural children’s migration to Addis are not dominated by a single factor but caused by a combination of multiple interrelated factors. Chronic livelihood poverty in rural areas of the country which traditionally relied upon subsistence farming, in general, leads children to move to cities to find economic niches in the low paid informal sectors of urban areas. Once in the city, they have to struggle to survive, develop and integrate into the urban environment. As individual case studies implied, children who live on the street do not form a homogenous category. Nor do they earn their living similarly. Rather they adopt a range of survival strategies to confront the challenges of urban street life.
Street children draw diverse forms of assets or resources in the process of earning their livelihoods. Labor is the most important asset which helps street children either to generate income directly through wage employment or indirectly through the production of goods and services which are sold in the informal market. Street children engaged in legal, semi legal and/or illegal activities in order to earn income. Street children often do not have fixed carriers and they usually jump over opportunities often favoring the most rewarding in a particular time. Their livelihood depends on the efforts of a combination of portfolios of activities. Street children interact with each other through multiple networks and over the range of issues and concerns that constitute social life. Although they are economically disadvantaged; they have supportive social networks which act as a buffer against vulnerability, shocks and livelihood constraints. The informal networks support children socially, morally, economically and remain resilient feature in their street life. As survival requires grouping, their relations and way of life is characterized by hierarchies and power relations. The informal network established by street children extends to non-street social actors. In these interactions street children attempt to draw benefits and at the same time want to establish trust.
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Kaoma, Humphrey. "The contribution of trees to local livelihoods in urban areas." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003911.
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Trees in natural forests are widely known for their essential contribution to rural livelihoods in developing countries, providing both consumptive and non-consumptive products to rural inhabitants. These benefits are also obtained from trees in urban forests and used by urban households. In the past decades, the role of urban trees to urban livelihoods, municipalities, local and global environment has often been overlooked by researchers and development agencies, and hence are poorly documented, especially in Africa. In South Africa, the increase in urbanisation and urban poverty means many urban residents are expected to be dependent on trees and tree products from homesteads, neighbourhoods and edges of towns. There is however a paucity of literature on the potential of trees in sustaining livelihoods and poverty alleviation in urban areas. This study determined the magnitude and nature of the direct contribution of trees and tree products to local livelihoods in different urban residential areas (informal, Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), and township) in three South African towns (Tzaneen, Bela Bela and Zeerust) which cover a rainfall gradient from relatively higher (775 mm p.a.) to low (575 mm p.a.). The results showed that most (90%) households had an interest in planting and managing trees on homesteads, given the high proportion (71%) of residents who had planted trees on their homesteads. The abundance of trees followed the moisture gradient, with Tzaneen having a larger share (46.4%) of trees, followed by Bela Bela (27.5%) and Zeerust (26.1%). Larger plots in the informal residential area accounted for the larger proportion (42.8%) of trees on homesteads, followed by the township (32.9%) and RDP households being the least because they were recently established. Tree density was also higher in the high rainfall town but the pattern did not follow the moisture gradient between Bela Bela and Zeerust due to little rainfall difference. However, tree density across residential areas was similar to the proportion of trees on homesteads in residential areas. The most common tree species were alien, and mainly exotic fruit trees made up two-thirds of the trees encountered. Most households collected various products from urban trees, particularly fuelwood, from edges of towns. This was especially by households with lower cash income. However, fruits were collected from homesteads regardless of the wealth status. Tree products had a significant contribution to the total annual household income, with fuelwood alone contributing up to R5 663 per household per annum, equivalent to two-three month household cash income. Tree products added 20% to total household income, which represents the amount of money households save by collecting tree products for free. Therefore, trees within and around urban areas contribute significantly to livelihoods and reduce poverty in urban areas. There is need therefore to encourage urban residents to plant trees on homesteads and policy makers to come up with policies that promote sustainable harvesting of tree products from areas surrounding urban areas.