As the first output from the gender and governance in rural services project, this report presents descriptive findings and qualitative analysis of accountability mechanisms in agricultural extension ...and rural water supply in India, Ghana, and Ethiopia, paying specific attention to gender responsiveness. The gender and governance in rural services project seeks to generate policy-relevant knowledge on strategies to improve agricultural and rural service delivery, with a focus on providing more equitable access to these services, especially for women. The project focuses on agricultural extension, as an example of an agricultural service, and drinking water, as an example of rural service that is not directly related to agriculture but is of high relevance for rural women. A main goal of this project was to generate empirical micro level evidence about the ways various accountability mechanisms for agricultural and rural service provision work in practice and to identify factors that influence the suitability of different governance reform strategies that aim to make service provision more gender responsive. Three out of four poor people in the developing world live in rural areas, and most of them depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. Providing economic services, such as agricultural extension, is essential to using agriculture for development. At the same time, the rural poor need a range of basic services, such as drinking water, education, and health services. Such services are difficult to provide in rural areas because they are subject to the "triple challenge" of market, state, and community failure. As a result of market failure, the private sector does not provide these services to the rural poor to the extent that is desirable from society's point of view. The state is not very effective in providing these services either, because these services have to be provided every day throughout the country, even in remote areas, and because they require discretion and cannot easily be standardized, especially if they are demand driven. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and communities themselves are interesting alternative providers of these services, but they too can fail, because of capacity constraints and local elite capture. This triple challenge of market, state, and community failure results in the poor provision of agricultural and rural services, a major obstacle to agricultural and rural development.
The Differentiated Countryside Lowe, Philip; Marsden and, Terry; Murdoch, Jonathan ...
2003, 20050708, 2003-01-09, 2005-07-08, 20010101
eBook
In the wake of BSE, the threat to ban fox hunting and Foot and Mouth disease, the English countryside appears to be in turmoil. Long-standing uses of rural space are in crisis and, unsurprisingly, ...political processes in rural areas are marked by conflicts between groups, such as farmers, environmentalists, developers and local residents. Using an innovative theoretical approach based on 'networks of conventions', this book investigates the 'regionalisation' of the English countryside through a series of case-studies. These studies are based on a set of 'ideal types': 'the preserved' countryside, where environmental pressures are strongly expressed; the 'contested' countryside, where development processes are shaped by disputes between agrarian and environmental interests; and the 'paternalistic' countryside, where large landowners continue to oversee patterns of land development. It looks in detail at landowners, residents, politicians, planners, farmers, and environmentalists and shows how these groups compete. The Differentiated Countryside argues that the countryside is increasingly governed by regional policies. It becomes hard to discern a single English countryside; we see the emergence of multiple countrysides, places where diverse modes of identity are expressed and differing forms of development take place. Such diversity, it is argued, now lies at the heart of rural England.
Introduction 1. A Differentiated Countryside? 2. Regionalising the Rural 3. Theorising Differentiation 4. The 'Preserved' Countryside 5. The 'Contested' Countryside 6. The 'Paternalistic' Countryside 7. The Differentiated Polity 8. The Dynamics of Differentiation
Jonathan Murdoch is Professor of Environmental Planning in the Department of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University. Philip Lowe is the Duke of Northumberland Professor of Rural Economy in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Food Marketing at the University of Newcastle. Neil Ward is Professor of Rural Policy in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds. Terry Marsden is Professor and Head of Department in the Department of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University.
'A useful reference book for researchers in related fields.' - Geography
Mobilizing for Development tackles the question of how countries achieve rural development and offers a new way of thinking about East Asia's political economy that challenges the developmental state ...paradigm. Through a comparison of Taiwan (1950s–1970s), South Korea (1950s–1970s), and China (1980s–2000s), Kristen E. Looney shows that different types of development outcomes—improvements in agricultural production, rural living standards, and the village environment—were realized to different degrees, at different times, and in different ways. She argues that rural modernization campaigns, defined as policies demanding high levels of mobilization to effect dramatic change, played a central role in the region and that divergent development outcomes can be attributed to the interplay between campaigns and institutions. The analysis departs from common portrayals of the developmental state as wholly technocratic and demonstrates that rural development was not just a byproduct of industrialization. Looney's research is based on several years of fieldwork in Asia and makes a unique contribution by systematically comparing China's development experience with other countries. Relevant to political science, economic history, rural sociology, and Asian Studies, the book enriches our understanding of state-led development and agrarian change.
This report discusses and analyzes labor
market dynamics and outcomes (including unemployment, worker
shortages, and urban-rural imbalances of categories of
health workers) from a labor economics ...perspective. It then
uses insights from this perspective as a basis for
elaborating policy options that incorporate the underlying
labor market forces. The goal of the study is to address
undesirable outcomes (including urban-rural HRH imbalances)
more effectively. The study draws on an extensive inventory
of policy options relevant to urban-rural labor force
imbalance in Sub-Saharan Africa and the experiences with
these imbalances to date. Given the limited documentation
available on this topic through formal channels, the review
relies heavily on 'gray literature' from
policymakers in Sub-Saharan Africa and their development
partners, especially the World Bank and the World Health
Organization (WHO). The report is divided into five main
sections. The first section focuses on economic policies
related to Human Resources for Health (HRH) objectives. It
argues that policymaking has ignored health labor market
dynamics. The second section provides data showing the
extent of urban-rural imbalances and describes how these
imbalances affect health system outcomes. The third section
uses a health labor market framework to explain these
imbalances. The fourth section outlines policy options
relevant to Sub-Saharan Africa for addressing market
distortions and affecting labor market outcomes. It also
reviews evidence on the policies, strategies, and programs
designed to address geographic imbalances in Sub-Saharan
Africa, highlighting what has been done, what has worked,
and what has not. The last section provides a roadmap for policymakers.
Village Housing explores the housing challenge faced by England’s amenity villages, rooted in post-war counter-urbanisation and a rising tide of investment demand for rural homes. It tracks solutions ...to date and considers what further actions might be taken to increase the equity of housing outcomes and thereby support rural economies and alternate rural futures. Examining past, current and future intervention, the book’s authors look firstly at the interwar reliance on landowners to provide tied housing and post-war diversification of responses to rising housing access difficulties, including from the public and third sectors; secondly, at recent responses that are community-led or rely on flexibilities in the planning system; and thirdly, at actions that disrupt established production processes: self-build, low impact development and a re-emergence of council provision. These responses to the village housing challenge are set against a broader backcloth of structural constraint – rooted in a planning-land-tax-finance nexus – and opportunities, through reform, to reduce that constraint. Village Housing makes the case for planning, land and tax reforms that can broader the social inclusivity and diversity of villages, supporting their economic function and allowing them to play their part in post-carbon rural futures. It aims to contribute greater understanding of the village housing problem – framed by the wider cost crisis afflicting advanced economies – and offer glimpses of alternative relationships with planning and land.
The first systematic treatment of the spatial dimensions of the colonization of the prairie west,Improved Earthis a unique and thorough study certain to provoke new debates about the way space and ...time are imagined.
This is the first full-length history of Russian peasant women in the 20th century in English. Filling a significant gap in the literature on rural studies and gender studies of the twentieth century ...Russia, it is the first to take the story into the twenty-first century. It offers a comprehensive overview of regulations concerning rural women: their employment patterns; marriages, divorces and family life; issues with health and raising children. Rural lives in the Soviet Union were often dramatically different from the common narrative of the Soviet history, and even during the Khrushchev "Thaw" in the late 1950s and early 1960s, rural women were excluded from its reforms and liberating policies.
The author, Luibov Denisova - a leading expert in the field of rural gender history in Russia - includes material from previously unavailable or unpublished collections and archives; interviews; sociological research and oral traditions. Overall, the book is a history of all rural women, from ordinary farm girls to agrarian professionals to prostitutes and paints a unique picture of rural women’s life in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia.
PART I. Employment patterns among rural women 1. Unskilled labor in the countryside 2. Female mechanics and machines operators 3. Women at the animal wards 4. Women as collective farm leaders and agricultural specialists 5. Rural intelligentsia 6. Migration to cities and the position of newcomers PART II. Private Life 7. The politics of private life: the evolution and transformation of the Soviet Family Code 8. Marriages 9. Conflicts and divorces 10. Domostroi 11. Alcoholism in the countryside 12. The female face of the criminal world 13. Women of the oldest profession 14. Religion 15. Triple-burden lifestyle 16. Household chores 17. The special environment of the village life 18. Protection of childhood and motherhood in the countryside 19. Abortions
Liubov Denisova is Professor of History at the Russian State University of Oil and Gas. Her books include the bestselling Zhenshchiny russkikh selenii (Women of Russian Villages) and Sud’ba russkoi krestianki (The Fate of Russian Peasant Women).
Irina Mukhina is Assistant Professor of History at Assumption College, Massachusetts, USA. She is author of The Germans of the Soviet Union (also published by Routledge).
Aging in rural places Hash, Kristina Michelle; Jurkowski, Elaine Theresa; Krout, John A
2014., 2014-09-08
eBook
Research documents that rural elders are poorer, live in less adequate housing, and have far fewer health and service options available to them than their urban counterparts, yet there is a critical ...lack of current and detailed information on the problems facing rural elders and on the professional practices that serve this population. This text fills this gap by introducing readers to rural areas and their residents and discussing the issues, programs, and policies designed to meet their needs. Through a multidisciplinary lens, it examines and defines specific competencies required for successful work with older adults and their families in these communities.
The text presents a research-driven, competency-based approach for the health and human service professionals who work with older rural residents. It discusses both the problems facing older adults and their families and evidence-based solutions regarding policy and best practices. Key issues examined include health and wellness, transportation, housing, long-term care, income, employment, and retirement, along with the needs of special populations (ethnic minorities, immigrants, and the LGBT population). Case examples reinforce an interdisciplinary model that addresses practice with rural elders that encompasses professional competencies, values and ethics, and the roles of a spectrum of health and human service professionals. The text also examines current policies affecting health and social services to rural elders and recommendations for policy change to build an effective health and human service workforce in rural communities. Links to Podcast interviews with scholars and respected professionals working in the field and ""Spotlight"" excerpts from the text reinforce information. In addition, the text provides discussion questions, PowerPoint slides, a test question bank, and suggested activities and exercises.
Key Features:
Fills a vacuum regarding information on health and social services for rural elders
Provides current and comprehensive knowledge about issues besetting this population and programs and policies designed to meet their needs
Examines and defines specific competencies required for effective health and social services
Based on a research-driven, competency-based, interdisciplinary approach to policy and best practice
Includes links to Podcast interviews with scholars and respected professionals in the field
