Transformation Of Rural Areas Research Articles

Impact of Microfinance on Women Empowerment : A Study of Rural Gujarat

Microfinance is considered as an important financial service in many countries. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of microfinance on women empowerment. The paper aimed to judge the societal transformation through strategic interventions of microfinance in rural areas. A total of 384 women staying in rural areas of Mehsana and Navsari district were surveyed. Paired t - test was performed to analyze the situation before and after women joined SHGs for women empowerment on three contexts, that is, political, social, and economic on 12 variables. Paired t - test revealed a significant difference in women empowerment indicators before and after joining SHGs. The results of binary logistic regression revealed that with the increase in duration of membership by 1 year, the probability of empowering women on grounds of economic, social, and political empowerment increased by 9%, 14%, and 11%, respectively. The study can be used to empower women on the grounds of political, social, and economic conditions. The successful implementation of microfinance could lead to societal transformation in rural areas, especially for a country like India. It was suggested that the government and non-government organizations (NGOs) can work on microfinance services to empower women.

An evidence-based approach to ending rural hunger

Abstract Progress toward food and nutrition security (FNS) needs to be sharply accelerated in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal for ending hunger and malnutrition, especially in rural areas. The G20 should target interventions and investment opportunities to maximize impact on people and transformation of rural areas. Currently, few G20 countries map investments, technical assistance, capacity building and policy improvement in a data-driven way. Such tracking of needs, policies, and resources could include G20 countries’ domestic efforts alongside countries they support with development assistance. The G20 could develop such a methodology to identify countries and interventions where additional resources could have a lasting impact. They could then systematically track and streamline FNS actions taken across international organizations and initiatives to help ensure the SDG is achieved.

Demographic and labor market transformations in rural areas of Chile

Based on the information provided by the Encuesta de Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional (CASEN) (National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey) of 1990 and 2013, the reconfigurations of the Chilean countryside are analyzed in terms of their demographic trends and labor market restructuring. An ongoing process of depopulation and aging of the rural population is found. Agricultural activities of the rural labor market become less relevant both in terms of jobs and income, showing a strong process of deagrarianisation, salaried workers and feminization of the labor market.

The effects of ageing and urbanisation on China’s future rural and urban populations

ABSTRACTThis paper estimates China’s future population and labour force by developing a novel forecasting model for population. It combines information about age-specific parameters on fertility and mortality for both rural and urban areas using information about rural–urban migration and the transformation of rural areas into urban ones. This model takes into account the effects of urbanisation on changes in the age structure of the Chinese population; and provides separate projections on the rural and urban populations. Our findings show that (i) the shares of people aged 65 and over, in China’s rural and urban populations, will double between 2010 and 2030; this implies that the ageing problem in rural areas will continue to be more serious than in urban areas; (ii) the rural labour force will shrink by 45 per cent, between 2010 and 2030, while the urban labour force will grow by 34 per cent; and (iii) China’s urbanisation rate will increase to 71 per cent by 2030.

Južna Europa u ostvarenju koncepta organske poljoprivrede

More and more intensive degradation and soil contamination by conventional agriculturein the 1970s, encouraged the development of organic, eco-agriculture as one of the methods ofhealthy food production.Organic agriculture widens its influence from the form of foodproduction to one of the ways of socio-economic structure transformation of rural areas. Morethen 3 million hectares of cultivable soil in Europe is under organic production. South-European countries, esp. Italy and Spain, have the greatest portion of areas under organiccultivation.

Smallholders’ land access in Sub-Saharan Africa: A new landscape?

While scholars long recognized the importance of land markets as a key driver of rural non-farm development and transformation in rural areas, evidence on the extent of their operation and the nature of participants remains limited. We use household data from 6 countries to show that there is great potential for such markets to increase productivity and equalize factor ratios. While rental markets transfer land to land-poor and labor-rich producers, their operation and thus impact may be constrained by policy restrictions. Their functioning may also be constrained by ill-defined or insecure rights that may arise from failure to fully compensate existing rights in cases of expropriation, a failure to implement more broadly land policies or to do so in a gender sensitive manner. Methodological and substantive conclusions are derived.

Thematisation of space as a local development factor. Case study of Sierakowo Sławieńskie and Masłomęcz

From the perspective of cultural transformations in rural areas within the last 30 years, the core process is the empowerment of local communities and thus reinforcement of social and territorial identity. The aim of the article is to identify good practices applied in the process of positive changes in selected villages as a result of mobilisation and coordination of own resources and energy, creativity and hard work of people, supported by various external incentives. Adjustment to the “place” in the process of thematisation of space results from cooperation of the local community with its nearest environment, which consists in analysing and interpreting the existing conditions with regard to the planned changes. Then, the specific assets of the environment were identified to develop further local stories, related to the original motif. Those original concepts constitute an extraordinary act of creation of the place and its adjustment to the needs of the local community and visitors. In both cases, the identification and use of specific resources was of key importance, combined with important external incentives in the form of first process creators (experts) and then possibilities of financing the entire initiative (e.g. EU funds).

Innovative practices in education to empower rural communities

Purpose – This paper aims to explore innovative education approaches in a rural area of Thailand and the socioeconomic transformation fostered in that area through community-based tourism. Design/methodology/approach – This study examined the elements in a case study that successfully linked “non-formal education” (NFE) channels to community development. More than half the population of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) still lives in rural areas, where poverty is widespread. Numerous programmes have been initiated to address the socioeconomic imbalances of the region, and tourism is now considered a driver for rural economic development. However, the development of human resources in rural areas remains low. Education is considered both an important tool for development and a channel for innovative practices to effect the socioeconomic transformation of rural areas. The data for this case study were sourced from secondary documents such as institutional communication, statistics, iconogr...

Spatiotemporal Evolution of Specialized Villages and Rural Development: A Case Study of Henan Province, China

Regional economic development is inherently uneven as determined by the local conditions and available resources. Specialized villages (SVs) in China played a very important role in the development and economic transformation in rural areas. By integrating regional spatial structure theory, multilevel network theory, and spatial interface theory, this article examines the spatial and temporal evolution of SVs in Henan Province, China. Results from the analyses show that the development of SVs over time progressed in four stages, each corresponding to important adjustments in national agricultural policy. SVs were distributed unevenly in space and the distribution seemed to be scale-dependent. At a macrolevel, SVs displayed a dispersed pattern over a large area. SVs showed localized clusters at a microlevel, however, also exhibiting a core–periphery structure. Rural economic development in China showed that SVs formed a multilevel network hierarchy. We also observed that SVs were often in transitional areas including urban–rural and plain–mountain interfaces and administrative marginal zones. Finally, spatiotemporal clusters of SVs helped to identify the locations and time periods when SVs grew significantly for analysis of impacts by national policies on rural development.

A Virtual Geography of the Scottish Islands

Communications technologies, and in particular the Internet, support the formation of vast and distributed social networks and are fuelling changes in sociability. For residents of remote rural regions, they offer the promise of overcoming geographical barriers and enabling isolated and dispersed individuals to link to each other and to the rest of the world. However, speculation concerning such social transformations in rural areas has been largely unsupported by empirical evidence. This paper presents a case study of 350 bloggers from across the Scottish islands. By examining the connections they form (using social network analysis) and their discursive interactions (through a thematic analysis), it aims to show how the islanders make use of their digital connectivity. The social network analysis reveals a high degree of interaction between bloggers and commenters: within each island; between the islands; and with the outside world, as they reach beyond the limitations of their physical place. However, an analysis of the bloggers' discourse shows that it is new associations with other islanders, based on a common islander identity, that they seek to explore through their digital connectivity. The physical and metaphorical boundaries of island social life are not so much crossed and broken as flexed and stretched by the possibilities of the digital world.

Culture and Rural Development: Voices from Poland

Abstract The paper is focused on the issue of culture and its connections to rural developments. It was based on the assumption that the culture has various impacts on rural communities` life, as well as, it has been present in various ways in functioning and changes that might be observed in rural areas. In our opinion, such a perspective should be presented in a more detailed way in order to stress the multiple and various impact of cultural issues on economic and social transformations in rural areas. Therefore, we divided our paper into three consecutive parts. In the first one, we discussed the multi-dimensional image of culture, and its role in human development. In the second one, we discussed some changes in the mechanisms of rural development, perceived as moving from the traditional to the contemporary one. We wanted to stress that culture seems to be an important part of the latter one. The last part of our considerations brought some empirical evidence from Poland focused on the role of culture in rural developments showing, at the same type, some examples of this new mechanism of rural development.

English

  The rise in gross incomes and the decline in poverty in rural areas are considered evidence of economic restructuring and technological development efforts in last three decades in the United States. However, these positive effects of transformations in rural areas still do not match the rate of economic growth enjoyed by urban areas. This paper examined income convergence in 875 counties of the 10-state southeastern region using Census data for 1980 and 2000. Logarithmic difference of average per capita income between those years was regressed on socioeconomic variables using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) model. The study found important roles of human capital development and employment growth in income convergence and variations in income growth in places that differ in demographic attributes, job opportunities, geography, and resource concentrations. The study provided important insights to rural policy makers to formulate place-based economic development strategies which are practical and realistic to address economic development in the most impoverished rural places in the southeastern United States.   Key words: Agglomeration, census, clusters, convergence, industries, employment, income, southeastern.

Land access: A deciding factor or a simple indicator of change in farming systems?

The scope of private investments and large-scale land acquisitions in southern countries has reignited debate on land access and rural development. Does land access play a new role in the transformation of rural areas? Is land access a deciding factor or a simple indicator of change in agrarian structures? This introductory article synthesizes this special issue of Cahiers Agricultures through an analysis of the relationships between land access, investments and farming systems. It analyses how the States, the investors and the local communities manage and control land access to ensure agricultural production and to orientate rural development. It underlines that neither land control nor a change in property land rights are systematically required to make investments productive in the rural sector. The heart of the matter is articulating the diverse farming systems and the different types of investments while respecting the rights of local populations and, above all, ensuring the recognition of their power over land access..

Problems implementing the "National Program for Expanding of Forest Cover" following Poland's accession to the European Union

Problemy realizacji "Krajowego programu zwiększania lesistości" po wstąpieniu Polski do Unii Europejskiej

Traditional institutions and the rural development challenges in Africa: Gender and agricultural transformation perspectives

The tension between the conception of traditional leadership systems as mere cultural institutions and the lack of interest and/or ability to use them as practical development tools in Africa has prompted their critical reappraisal in this article. The article is based on the need for African countries to endeavour to achieve a dialectical mediation between traditional leadership institutions on the one hand and concrete rural development projects on the other, for the purpose of promoting sustainable development. It is argued that there is much that traditional institutions can do to influence activities in rural areas. Any lack of such involvement on the part of traditional leadership systems can only lead to little transformation in rural areas. The article discusses this position with reference to two rural activity systems related to gender-based issues and agricultural development. The article is structured in four parts. The first section is devoted to the introduction, the second and third sections examine the roles traditional leaders could play in the areas of gender and agricultural development, while the final section comprises the conclusion.

Thailand. Border landscapes: The politics of Akha land use in China and Thailand. By Janet C. Sturgeon. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005; and Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2007. Pp. 255. Maps, Figures, Appendices, Notes, Glossary, Bibliography, Index.

Thailand. Border landscapes: The politics of Akha land use in China and Thailand. By Janet C. Sturgeon. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005; and Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2007. Pp. 255. Maps, Figures, Appendices, Notes, Glossary, Bibliography, Index. - Volume 43 Issue 2

Rural electrification in an imperfect world: A case study from Mozambique

Electricity is universally recognized as a necessary, although not sufficient, requirement for social and economic development. However, increasing access to electricity in developing countries has proven to be difficult and expensive, particularly in rural areas. In this article, we analyze the dynamics of the relationship between electricity and socio-economic development by means of a cost–benefit analysis of a typical rural electrification project in Mozambique, assessing the impact of electricity on households, education, agro-business, commerce, and the public sector. We show that rural electrification can be commercially viable and cause structural transformation in rural areas within a short period of time. Finally, illustrated by the actual policy practice in Mozambique, we argue that low institutional quality is a key barrier to promote increased access to electricity for the poor.

The ‘leisuring’ of rural landscapes in Barbados: New spatialities and the implications for sustainability in small island states

The transformation of rural areas into up-scale leisure amenity landscapes has become a global phenomenon. Small islands, especially in tropical and subtropical regions, are particularly attractive magnets for this kind of development. Yet it involves land use changes that challenge the sustainability of small island development as set out in the United Nations program for Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SDIDS). Through a case study of Barbados this paper critically examines the ‘leisuring’ of rural landscapes on small islands. It ties together Lefebvrian concepts of the production of space with the perspective of political ecology to argue that the agendas of global capital impose new spatialities involving social constructions of space and socio-environmental transformations by an offshore elite who are insensitive to local interests as well as the smallness of small islands. This creates conflict between space and place – between the spaces produced by the global leisure economy and the places that have purpose and meaning for local people. It challenges the possibility of local, community-based development solutions and imposes serious constraints on the implementation of the SDIDS agenda. More research into the nature of the new leisure spaces and how they are perceived and experienced by local populations is needed.

Preobrazba podeželja ob slovensko-hrvaški meji

Podeželje na območju ob slovensko hrvaški meji se preobraža. Na preobrazbo vplivala vrsta dejavnikov, med katerimi je gotovo igral najpomembnejšo vlogo policentrično zasnovan koncept socialno-ekonomskega in z njim povezanega prostorskega razvoja. V prostoru ob slovensko hrvaški meji so se razmere še posebej spremenile po določitvi nove državne meje s Hrvaško, ko je bil razvoj teh območij postavljen v novo razvojno perspektivo, ki je zaradi hitrih sprememb, na katere vplivajo tudi upravno-politične, zakonodajne in ostale razmere tako v naši državi Sloveniji, kot tudi na Hrvaškem in v Evropi nasploh, pravzaprav v stalni preobrazbi in spreminjanju ter dopolnjevanju.

Production, consumption and imagination in rural Thailand

The transformation of rural areas from zones of production to arenas of consumption is well established in the literature focusing on the developed world. Less so the developing world. The paper opens by providing a critique of the construction of the rural idyll in Thailand, tracing this back to what is sometimes suggested to be the first piece of Thai literature, an inscription dated to 1292. The discussion then turns to show how this construction of a (imagined) rural past infuses ideas about the present and the policies promoted by local NGOs and others. The consumption of rural Thailand by new classes, tacitly embodying this imagined past, is exemplified by reference to two case studies; a hotel with a ‘working’ rice farm and an elite school. The infiltration of new groups into rural Thailand, with new agendas has, in some instances, created tensions while also providing new opportunities for traditional rural classes. The paper concludes by considering, using Thailand as an exemplar, whether understandings of trajectories of rural change based largely on work undertaken in the North can be applied to countries of the South.