Investment In Rural Areas Research Articles

Exploring the relationship between rural village characteristics and Chinese return migrants' participation in farming: Path dependence in rural employment

China's unbalanced growth has caused a gap between urban and rural economic development, which is linked to rural residents migrating to cities in search of better-paid work. Government pro-rural policies over recent years have brought more rural migrants back to their hometowns. This study examines the relationship between village characteristics and return migrants' occupational choices through an analysis of China Labour-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) 2014 data. The results show that in rural villages where agriculture is the dominant industry, returnees are more likely to engage in farming occupations. The study also reveals that the promoting effect of return migration on rural economic development is subject to general economic conditions of the localities. This study supports the rationality of Chinese government's increasing investment in rural areas. To break out of path dependence for rural development requires the intervention of government forces in order to break through the existing urban-rural dual structure in China.

LAND CONSOLIDATION – A TOOL FOR SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Discussions of the future European rural development policy started in September 2016. Participants at the Cork 2.0 European Conference on Rural Development have declared that an innovative, integrated and inclusive rural and agricultural policy in the European Union (EU) should be guided on ten policy orientations. Rural Europe is home to more than half of the EU population and covers more than three quarters of the territory. Rural areas are also important in the preservation of Europe’s natural and cultural landscapes and heritage. EU support for investment in rural areas should focus on generating added value for society. Land management has a key role in the interface between citizens and the environment. Policies must incentivise the delivery of environmental public goods, including the preservation of Europe's natural and cultural heritage. Increased pressure on natural resources must be met by coordinated cross-sectorial policy responses. These should ensure the sustainable management of natural resources such as water, soil, and biodiversity, being the very means of agricultural and forestry production. There is a need to develop and mainstream innovative, science-based solutions that allow for producing more with less while ensuring that natural resources are at the disposal of future generations. Effective formats of knowledge exchange and advice should be developed and support provided for the adoption of well-designed land management schemes. For achieving the above-mentioned objectives, in the EU regulatory framework is envisaged a possibility for direct and indirect support for land consolidation, as a tool for sustainable rural development.

Gestión catastral en las zonas rurales de Colombia: una oportunidad para el desarrollo territorial

Rural areas in Colombia are the ones that have suffered the most historically because of the armed conflict present in the territory for more than 50 years. The distribution of land, measured by the Gini coefficient, places Colombia as the fifth most unequal country in the world, which has led to the correlation of the inequitable distribution of the legal property of the land with the persistent high poverty figures in the countryside. The formation, updating and cadastral conservation allow to obtain information of the territory that serves for the prioritization of investment in rural areas. Additionally, the cadastral management allows an increase in municipal revenues thanks to an increase in the unified property tax, progressive tax - to more land property, plus tax payment - that allows a targeted investment that allows the improvement of the social conditions of the rural population in Colombia.

BAYESIAN SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF CHRONIC DISEASES IN ELDERLY CHINESE PEOPLE USING A STAR MODEL

Abstract Chronic diseases have become important factors affecting the health of elderly Chinese people. Because the prevalence of chronic diseases varies among the provinces, it is necessary to understand the spatial effects on these diseases, as well as their relationships with potential risk factors. This study applies a structured additive regression model and the R2BayesX package to conduct a Bayesian analysis. The data are taken from the 2000, 2006, and 2010 Chinese Urban and Rural Elderly Population Surveys. The findings are as follows: (1) the following covariates have considerable effects on chronic diseases in general, and on specific chronic diseases (hypertension and heart disease) (in descending order): census register (rural or urban), gender, smoking, drinking, province, time, age, cultural activities, years of education, and sports activities; (2) the effect of marital status is negligible; (3) province is a critical factor, with the highest spatial effect appearing in two types of provinces: economically developed provinces, and economically backward provinces; and (4) time also has considerable effects. Based on these findings, the government should further strengthen its investment in rural areas and economically backward provinces as a cost-effective intervention, and should educate the population on the harmful effects of smoking and drinking alcohol on health.

«Smart settlements»: the development concept in a new socio-economic and informatiologic conditions

Strengthen the ties between rural and urban areas is very important for sustainable development: because «Smart Villages» cannot develop in isolation, they should be included in development strategy of regions and territories. In accordance with «Smart Settlement» concept, the existing rural settlements should be not only a place of living: settlements require the improvement of social, pipeline and utility infrastructure, creation vacancies and new business models needed to the integration with the city. The rural settlements potential is not only in social decisions (climate change, food security, etc.), but also in providing employment and investment in rural areas (culture and tourism). The purpose of research is determining the principles of functional-planning settlements organization in compliance with «Smart City» concept. The paper defines the «Smart settlement» idea as a new concept of developing urban/rural settlements and surroundings. The main components of «Smart Settlement» were selected, such as Smart Economy, Smart People, Smart Mobility, Smart Environment, Smart Government and Smart Living. It is important to consider the need of multi-methodology and cooperation between the different policies for enhancing the complementarity and coherence in the new socio-economic and informatiologic conditions.

Public Health Expenditure and Labour Productivity: A Tentative Interpretation Based on the Science of Brain Cognition

Based on the panel data of China's prefecture-level cities in 2007-2013, this paper empirically studies the relationship between public health expenditure and labour productivity from the perspective of brain cognition, and distinguishes non-agricultural labour productivity and agricultural labour productivity. Results show that public health expenditure is conducive to improving labour productivity and plays a significant role in promoting non-agricultural labour productivity and agricultural labour productivity through improving people’s cognitive abilities. Further analysis shows that public health expenditure has a greater impact on areas with lower economic development, which may be due to differences in brain cognition. Besides public health expenditure in the eastern region is negatively correlated with agricultural labour productivity, which may indicate that excessive health investment in rural areas in the eastern region squeezes out physical capital investment; in addition, this paper finds that the lack of infrastructure may make public health expenditure cannot function properly via brain cognition.

An overview of rural-urban migration in South Africa: its causes and implications

The failure of the government to prioritise rural development threatens to negatively impact the development of growth of rural areas. Rural-urban migration in South Africa has negatively affected socio-economic development in rural areas. By strictly analysing relevant literature related to rural-urban migration in South Africa, it became evident that rural provinces have been witnessing a huge outflow of people destined for urban areas, predominately to Gauteng and the Western Cape province, this has robbed rural areas of skills and innovation, which has prolonged the cycle of underdevelopment. The influx of people to urban areas has also strained government resources, increased population-growth and increased housing infrastructure challenges. The government has been slow react in addressing the problem and as a result, numerous skilled professionals have left rural areas, crippling service delivery. Frequent cooperation with local leaders and more investment in rural areas are needs to fight rural-urban migration.

Urbanising the Rural: Reflections on India's National Rurban Mission

AbstractIndia's development trajectory is marked by growing economic prosperity but high inequality, which often exacerbates the existing rural–urban divide. One of the current policy instruments to address this divide is the National Rurban Mission, which aims to improve infrastructure and service provision, facilitate regional development and attract investment in rural areas. Against the backdrop of growing rural unrest on one hand and emerging evidence of unsustainable development in the urban on the other, we examine the National Rural Mission and its discursive underpinnings. We find that while the mission and its stated aims are a promising step to improve regional development, its focus on ‘smart villages’ and seeing urbanisation as the only development model, undermines the strengths and challenges in rural India. We highlight ways in which the mission can avoid some past pitfalls of development interventions in India while strengthening its mandate of facilitating inclusive regional development.

A study of fatal pedestrian crashes at rural low-volume road intersections in southwest China

ABSTRACTObjective: Although intersections correspond to a small proportion of the entire roadway system, they account for a disproportionally high number of fatal pedestrian crashes, especially on rural roads situated in low- and middle-income countries. This article examines pedestrian safety at rural intersections and suggests applicable accident prevention treatments by providing an in-depth analysis of 28 fatal pedestrian crashes from 8 low-volume roads in southwest China.Methods: The driving reliability and error analysis method (DREAM) is a method to support a systematic classification of accident causation information and to facilitate aggregation of that information into patterns of contributing factors. This is the first time that DREAM was used to analyze pedestrian–vehicle crashes and provide suggestions for road improvements in China.Results: The key issues adversely affecting pedestrian safety can be organized in 4 distinctive thematic categories, namely, deficient intersection safety infrastructure, lack of pedestrian safety education, inadequate driver training, and insufficient traffic law enforcement. Given that resources for traffic safety investments in rural areas are limited, it is determined that the potential countermeasures should focus on low-cost, easily implementable, and long-lasting measures increasing the visibility and predictability of pedestrian movement and reducing speeding and irresponsible driving among drivers and risk-taking behaviors among pedestrians.Conclusions: Accident prevention treatments are suggested based on their suitability for rural areas in southwest China. These countermeasures include introducing better access management and traffic calming treatments, providing more opportunities for pedestrian education, and enhancing the quality of driver training and traffic law enforcement.

Long-term differential effects of transport infrastructure investment in rural areas

European and national transport policies identify territorial cohesion as their main goal. However, the lack of attention to intra-regional relationships has complicated the understanding of the diverse repercussions of these policies on the economic and social equity of rural areas over time. Long-term assessments of transport effects in these less studied areas, which cover more than two thirds of the European territory, are essential to identify common problems associated with transport investments and to detect potential strategies to confront their future challenges. This paper, analyses the effects of transport policy development in the Spanish Northwest Area over the last 20 years, where about 95% of municipalities are considered rural. The assessment focuses on the spatial effects of transport development, using a Geographical Information System (GIS), and inequality and correlation analyses of accessibility, demographic and economic indicators. Results show that while the accessibility gap between urban and rural areas was reinforced by the construction of high-capacity infrastructures during the first half of the study period, the completion of the network during the second decade balanced this situation, enabling a more equitable access to basic services, goods and opportunities. However, these improvements have not been enough to reverse the initial lagging inertia of the rural areas and to reduce their socioeconomic disadvantages against urban ones.

Evaluation of the Responsiveness Index of the Family Health Strategy in rural areas.

Objective To evaluate the responsiveness of Family Health Strategy units in the rural area of the Federal District registered in the National Program for Improvement of Access and Quality of Basic Care. Method Descriptive study, which used a questionnaire to evaluate the following dimensions: a) respect for people: dignity, confidentiality of information, autonomy, communication; b) customer orientation: facilities, choice of the professional, agile service and social support. Results The users' assessment of responsiveness was 0.755. The dimensions related to respect for people received an index of 0.814 and customer orientation was 0.599. Conclusion Care is given that shows respect for human dignity, but progress needs to be made in building confidentiality and the autonomy of users. Infrastructure is poor and care is not agile, highlighting the need for greater investments in rural areas.

Social Representations and Rural Sociability Among Farmers of a Rural Community

Abstract Guided by the Social Representation Theory, this study aims at investigating rural social representations among farmers in State of Espírito Santo Brazil by analyzing the semantic field associated to the representational object “rural person”; the organizational principles of individual attitude in face of shared content; and the anchoring processes. Two hundred (200) residents, aged between 7 and 81, belonging to four generations of a rural community participated in individual interviews in this study. The results analyzed using software SPAD-T showed that rural sociability is represented from the positive association to the agricultural and community spheres, as well as from the negative comparison between country and city life, which causes feeling of depreciation and critical evaluation about the poor investments in rural areas. It also identified that personal and community values strengthen the positive image of rural identity, showing strategies to maintain the country way of life among different generations in this community.

Government Expenditure on Rural Development and Economic Growth in Cameroon

This paper examines the impact of government investment in rural development on economic growth in Cameroon during the period 2000-2015. After computing the government investment in rural areas using the annual total amount invested in the ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development added to the budget allocated to the ministry of farming, animal and husbandry, we run a regression model with the ordinary least squares method to find that despite the measures taken by the government to improve the socio-economic life of rural people, there is no significant impact of the Rural Investment on the Economic Growth in Cameroon, implying that the government should implement some strategic policies that will enable the rural people to produce more and have a consistent impact on the overall national production growth.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE COHESION POLICY IN RURAL AREAS OF DOLNOŚLĄSKIE REGION

The aim of this paper is to present the implementation of cohesion policy in rural areas on the example of Dolnośląskie voivodeship, based on an assessment of the direction and scale of funding for rural areas under two operational programs, the Rural Development Programme for 2007-2013 and the Regional Operational Programme of Lower Silesia Voivodeship 2007-2013. In the present study, expert-based, documentary, and k-means clustering methods were used. Studies indicate that in 2007-2013 the majority of investments from the RDP were related to improving the quality of life of rural residents. The amount of support, both in total and per capita, varied widely. Most municipalities received this support at the lowest level available on the scale of the whole province. Support for investments in rural areas of the ROP of Dolnośląskie voivodeship 2007-2013 was primarily related to the improvement of transport conditions and environmental protection projects.

Analyzing the Impacts of Investment on the Empowerment and Welfare of Rural Households (Case Study: Malavi Dehestan of Poldokhtar County)

Analyzing the Impacts of Investment on the Empowerment and Welfare of Rural Households (Case Study: Malavi Dehestan of Poldokhtar County)

The Process, Ground Work and Expected Investment on the Necessary Infrastructures and Places for Rural Tourism Development by Involved Groups in Tehran Province

The Process, Ground Work and Expected Investment on the Necessary Infrastructures and Places for Rural Tourism Development by Involved Groups in Tehran Province

Research on the Performance Evaluation of Public Investment in Rural Areas Based on DEA Network Model

With the accelerated process of industrialization and urbanization, traditional agriculture begins to transform to modern agricultural mode. In order to develop modern agriculture, it is not only to reform the existing economic system, but also to increase public investment in rural areas, to create a good economic environment for agricultural development. In this paper, the author analyzes the performance of public investment in rural areas by using DEA network model, the data was selected from 25 provinces. Based on the empirical analysis, the result shows that the efficiency of rural public investment is low, and the difference between regions is obvious. By constructing the SFA model, we find that the technical efficiency and scale efficiency has been significantly improved after adjust initial input amount. Therefore, the government should increase the rural public investment, and pay attention to the efficiency of the funds use.

Maximising Bandwdith Efficency of Statistical Multiplexer Architecture using Frame Droping Methods

<span>It is generally considered that remote and rural telephone users generate less traffic as compared<span> to urban area users. This lowers the attraction of investment in rural areas by the<span> telecommunications companies and service providers. The financial implications of wiring a<span> vast area for low telephone traffic causes most telephone service providers to ignore those<span> regions. Still, it is known that telecommunications are essential to the economic development of<span> a region and that traffic increases rapidly as soon as the service is available. A satellite–based<span> telephone network can provide efficient long distance telephone service to remote rural<span> communities at a lower cost than land-based wired networks in most cases. Mobile satellite<span> systems already provide this service, but are limited in capacity and charge high per-minute fees<span> for the satellite link. Small earth stations and GEO satellites can provide this service more<span> efficiently and at lower cost. On top of that, bandwidth efficient multiplexing with compressed<span> speech, Voice Activity Detection (VAD) and Packet discarding methods can even further reduce <span>the cost of service for the users in rural areas. In this paper, Statistical Time Division Multiplexer<span> (STDM) architecture was simulated. Two packet discarding methods, random packet discarding<span> and cyclic packet discarding are used to maximize bandwidth utilization along with VAD.<span> Results indicate that considering monologue speech source, with 80%, activity for each 6.4 kbps<span> sources, on a channel of 64 kbps, 12 users can be allowed to be multiplexed instead of 9,<span> therefore a Digital Speech Interpolation (DSI) advantage of 1.33 is achieved with 3% packet<span> loss. Furthermore, it is observed that cyclic packet discarding technique perform better than<span> random packet discarding in terms of subjective quality<br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>

OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN CAPITAL IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION IN RURAL AREAS IN POLAND UNDER THE MULTIANNUAL FINANCIAL FRAMEWORK 2014-2020

Investment in human capital is a key determinant of socio-economic development in the twenty-fi rst century. These investments in rural areas require well-planned interventions in the fi eld of education. The necessary funds for this purpose will be available under the multiannual fi nancial framework EU 2014-2020. Interventions in this area in Poland are planned mainly under the Operational Programme Knowledge Education Development POWER) and the Regional Operational Programmes (RPO). It should therefore be valuable to preliminarily assess the opportunities and threats connected with the development of human capital in rural areas in Poland in the fi eld of education in 2014-2020. The aim of this article is, thus, an attempt to make such an assessment, taking into account the following aspects: scope of the EU support; procedures for obtaining fi nancial support; available funds and financial instruments. The article verifi es the following hypothesis: based on program POWER establishments and RPO 2014-2020 in the section on education potential chances of the HRD in rural areas mainly result from wide range scope of this suport; while the main threats stem from a very limited scale of prioritization in the procedure of obtaining fi nancial support and the use of non-repayable fi nancial instruments (grants). The article draws upon the analysis of regulations of the European Commission and national legislative sources, as well as literature on development of human capital in rural areas and the absorption of EU funds for social projects.

ICT Infrastructure Sharing Framework for Developing Countries: Case of Mobile Operators in Kenya

(The lack of infrastructure in Africa especially south of the Sahara is widely recognized as one of the continent’s greatest impediments to sustainable development )[ (1)]. Even with this challenge, ICT operators in Kenya prefer to invest in own infrastructure despite the availability of underutilized ICT resources from other operators and players. This has led to wastage of scarce resources, high cost of services, poor quality services, environmental degradation and low investment in rural areas among others. The research sought to propose an adoption framework for ICT infrastructure sharing for mobile operators in Kenya after establishing the levels, drivers and challenges of infrastructure sharing. Data was collected from ICT staff of the four mobile operators Safaricom, Airtel, Essar and Telkom Kenya Orange across the country using a questionnaire. To supplement and increase reliability, data was also collected from other ICT stakeholders such CAK, ICTA, submarine operators, ICT vendors, KBC and non ICT related firms Equity, Barclays and Kenya Power Company. The research found out that the level of ICT infrastructure sharing among mobile operators was low at 20.4%. The five key drivers were identified as new market entrants, cost optimization, environmental conservation, operators focus on core business and network deployment to underserved and un served areas. The five main challenges were lack of regulatory framework, high capital, complexity of the sharing process, high charges by infrastructure owners and operators unwillingness to share. The TOE framework can be adopted for ICT infrastructure sharing with organizational factors having a greater influence than technology and external factors. Operator controlled infrastructure rollout had worked previously but due to changes in local and global market, there was need to change the way ICT resources were utilized. To achieve quick wins, operators had to partner with competitors by leasing and undertaking joint ventures. Infrastructure sharing was beneficial hence strategies to promote the same by use of incentives license fee and tax concessions, having a legal framework, government investment in backbone infrastructure and attracting independent firms will ensure competitiveness and a knowledge economy status