CONTENTS:; African Stakeholders Committed to Building Consensus on Biotechnology. 2; A Safety Net with Investments in Children. 3; Assisting China with Rural Development Challenges. 3; Interview with Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India. 4; Commentary: Managing Water Competition in South Asia. 7; Putting Gender into the Global Food Picture. 8; IMPACT Software Now Available. 8; Building Public-Private Partnerships for Agricultural Innovation. 9

Book chapter

Customary land areas in Western Ghana have been evolving towards individualized ownership. Inherited and temporarily allocated family lands are being transferred to wives and children as inter-vivos gifts, to be planted with cocoa. Giving gifts is a way to circumvent the traditional Akan matrilineal land inheritance system in which land is transferred from a deceased man to his matrilineal relatives but not to his wife and children.

"Close to one billion people worldwide depend directly upon the drylands for their livelihoods. Because of their climatic conditions and political and economic marginalization drylands also have some of the highest incidents of poverty. Pastoral and sedentary production systems coexist in these areas and both very often use common property arrangements to manage access and use of natural resources. Despite their history of complementary interactions, pastoralists and sedentary farmers are increasingly faced with conflicting claims over land and other natural resources.

In 1997, CARE-Bangladesh undertook a livelihood security assessment of urban slum households in the cities of Tongi, Khulna and Bogra. Based on the findings of that study and a review of secondary literature, the SHAHAR (Supporting Household Activities for Health, Assets and Revenue) project was conceptualized and designed.

In 1987, an improved resource management system that incorporates velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens var. utilis) to address soil fertility and weed (Imperata cylindrica) infestation was introduced to the small-scale farmers in a densely populated area of the derived savannas in Benin Republic (West Africa). Six years later, an adoption study was conducted to assess factors driving the adoption process. Four types of land tenure systems based on mode of access to land were identified: divided inheritance, purchasing, gifts, and sharecropping/renting.

"Using survey data from the Upper East region of Ghana collected in 2005, the paper evaluates the household- and community-level factors influencing women’s and men’s decisions to participate in off-farm activities, either in the off-farm labor market or in local community groups, and the relationship with on-farm crop returns. Results indicate that crop returns are not affected by increased labor availability over a certain labor-land ratio.

This paper analyzes how women’s participation affects institutional outcomes related to the decentralized governance of community forests in Madhya Pradesh, India. The analysis is based on data from a representative sample of 641 cases of joint forest management, India’s flagship program to involve communities in forest governance. We focus on two outcomes relevant for local livelihoods: control of illicit grazing and control of illicit felling in the forest.

Despite the fact that nonincome dimensions of well-being such as nutrition and health are now placed on the global development agenda, substantial gaps remain in our knowledge about patterns and trends in nutrition inequalities in many developing countries.

This paper explores the global prevalence of an emerging phenomenon: the coexistence of a stunted child and an overweight mother in the same household. It also tests whether this phenomenon is associated with a country's level of economic development and urbanization. Policy directions for public nutrition are highlighted. Data from 36 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) were used (23 in Africa, 8 in Latin America, and 5 in Asia). Stunting was defined as height-for-age 25 kg/m 2 .

"In 1993, India introduced quota-based political reservations for women in rural areas with the objective to promote gender equality in human development by making rural service provision and local governance inclusive and responsive to the needs of women. Recent evidence shows that reservation policies for women (1) stimulate the political participation of women in rural areas, (2) shift rural service provision to public goods that reflect gender preferences, and (3) improve the access to and the quality of public services.

This study analyzes the determinants of land tenure insecurity and its impact on intensity of use of purchased farm inputs among households in Southern Ethiopia. Seventeen percent of the households stated that they were tenure insecure. The feeling of tenure insecurity could be caused by the land redistribution policy in Ethiopia where household size has been the main criterion used for land allocation after the land reform in 1975. This would imply that land rich households should be more tenure insecure.