Drivers of Sustainable Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Central America

Drivers of Sustainable Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Central America
Author: Weltbank
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

This regional study encompasses three Central American countries: Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras. The focus of this report is Nicaragua. The objective of the study is to understand how broad-based economic growth can be stimulated, and sustained in rural Central America. The study identifies "drivers" of sustainable rural growth and poverty reduction, where drivers are defined as the assets and combinations of assets needed by different types of households in different geographical areas to take advantage of economic opportunities, and improve their well-being over time. The study examines the relative contributions of these assets, and identifies the combinations of productive, social, and location-specific assets that matter most to raise incomes, and take advantage of prospects for poverty-reducing growth. The study's focus on assets is appropriate given historically stark inequalities in the distribution of productive assets among households in the region. Such inequalities are likely to constrain how the poor share in the benefits of growth, even under appropriate policy regimes. In Nicaragua, economic potential has a strong spatial pattern, with high potential areas close to the main cities. But to generate substantial gains in poverty reduction and broad-based growth, complementarities between productive, social, and location-specific assets must be addressed. The report thus recommends the move from geographically untargeted investments in single assets, to a more integrated and geographically based approach of asset enhancement with proper complementarities. And, if the development objective is to reach the largest number of poor, invest in a variety of social and productive household assets, in higher potential areas with the highest rural poverty densities. However, remote areas such as the Atlantic, need specialized analyses and differentiated strategies and investments. The report highlights the need for more strategic convergence in linking the investment, and impacts of sectoral projects backed by the Bank, and other donors in the diverse geographical regions of the country.

Using an Asset-based Approach to Identify Drivers of Sustainable Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Central America

Using an Asset-based Approach to Identify Drivers of Sustainable Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Central America
Author: Paul Siegel
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 33
Release: 2005
Genre: Assets (Accounting)
ISBN:

"The asset-based approach considers links between households' productive, social, and locational assets; the policy, institutional, and risk context; household behavior as expressed in livelihood strategies; and well-being outcomes. For sustainable poverty reducing growth, it is critical to examine household asset portfolios and understand how assets interact with the context to influence the selection of livelihood strategies, which in turn determine well-being. Policy reforms can change the context and income-generating potential of assets. Investments can add new assets or increase the efficiency of existing household assets, and also improve households' risk management capacity to protect assets. After all is said and done, a household's asset portfolio will determine whether growth and poverty reduction can be achieved and sustained over time. The asset-based framework is amendable to different analytical techniques. Siegel suggests combining quantitative and qualitative spatial and household level analyses (and linked spatial and household level analyses) to deepen understanding of the complex relationships between assets, context, livelihood strategies, and well-being outcomes. This paper--a joint product of the Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Vice Presidency and the Rural Development Family, Latin America and the Caribbean Region--is part of a larger effort in the Bank to strengthen analyses and strategies for rural development, and address policy issues and investment priorities"--World Bank web site.

Drivers of Sustainable Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Central America

Drivers of Sustainable Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Central America
Author: Weltbank
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

This regional study encompasses three Central American countries: Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras. The focus of this report is Nicaragua. The objective of the study is to understand how broad-based economic growth can be stimulated, and sustained in rural Central America. The study identifies "drivers" of sustainable rural growth and poverty reduction, where drivers are defined as the assets and combinations of assets needed by different types of households in different geographical areas to take advantage of economic opportunities, and improve their well-being over time. The study examines the relative contributions of these assets, and identifies the combinations of productive, social, and location-specific assets that matter most to raise incomes, and take advantage of prospects for poverty-reducing growth. The study's focus on assets is appropriate given historically stark inequalities in the distribution of productive assets among households in the region. Such inequalities are likely to constrain how the poor share in the benefits of growth, even under appropriate policy regimes. In Nicaragua, economic potential has a strong spatial pattern, with high potential areas close to the main cities. But to generate substantial gains in poverty reduction and broad-based growth, complementarities between productive, social, and location-specific assets must be addressed. The report thus recommends the move from geographically untargeted investments in single assets, to a more integrated and geographically based approach of asset enhancement with proper complementarities. And, if the development objective is to reach the largest number of poor, invest in a variety of social and productive household assets, in higher potential areas with the highest rural poverty densities. However, remote areas such as the Atlantic, need specialized analyses and differentiated strategies and investments. The report highlights the need for more strategic convergence in linking the investment, and impacts of sectoral projects backed by the Bank, and other donors in the diverse geographical regions of the country.

Using an Asset-Based Approach to Identify Drivers of Sustainable Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Central America

Using an Asset-Based Approach to Identify Drivers of Sustainable Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction in Central America
Author: Paul B. Siegel
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

The asset-based approach considers links between households' productive, social, and locational assets; the policy, institutional, and risk context; household behavior as expressed in livelihood strategies; and well-being outcomes. For sustainable poverty reducing growth, it is critical to examine household asset portfolios and understand how assets interact with the context to influence the selection of livelihood strategies, which in turn determine well-being. Policy reforms can change the context and income-generating potential of assets. Investments can add new assets or increase the efficiency of existing household assets, and also improve households' risk management capacity to protect assets. After all is said and done, a household's asset portfolio will determine whether growth and poverty reduction can be achieved and sustained over time. The asset-based framework is amendable to different analytical techniques. Siegel suggests combining quantitative and qualitative spatial and household level analyses (and linked spatial and household level analyses) to deepen understanding of the complex relationships between assets, context, livelihood strategies, and well-being outcomes.

Nicaragua

Nicaragua
Author: International Monetary Fund
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 149
Release: 2010-05-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 145520367X

This poverty reduction strategy paper on Nicaragua shows that the main obstacles to poverty reduction are related to culture, historical, and structural factors, as well as weak public policy. The lack of proper physical infrastructure, the weaknesses in the energy matrix, the flaws in the health, education, and potable water systems, and the precarious presence of state institutions in the territory have all contributed to the lack of success in poverty reduction. The country’s potential in agriculture and natural resources are the main areas of opportunity regarding economic growth and poverty reduction.

Nicaragua

Nicaragua
Author: International Monetary Fund
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2011-11-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1463924593

This paper reports on progress made on Nicaragua’s National Human Development Plan as of 2010. The operational goal for Nicaragua’s National Human Development Plan is economic growth with increased employment and reduced inequality and poverty. The results for 2007–10 highlight a significant reduction in inequality among Nicaraguans based on better distribution of income and consumption. This has been possible owing to redistributive government policies with positive results, economic recovery, and positive economic growth in the midst of a world financial and economic crisis.

Grassroots Struggles for Sustainability in Central America

Grassroots Struggles for Sustainability in Central America
Author: Lynn Horton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2007
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

In recent years, sustainable development has emerged as a central goal of the World Bank and grassroots activists alike. In Grassroots Struggles for Sustainability in Central America, Lynn R. Horton explores the implications of this new, often contested discourse and related policies for Central America's rural and indigenous poor. Drawing on the testimony of leaders and residents of three communities in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, Horton explores grassroots assumptions, values, and practices of sustainable development and, in particular, the ways in which they overlap with or challenge international financial institutions' discourse of sustainability. With a comparative, empirical approach, Horton also analyzes dominant practices linked to sustainable development - neoliberal reforms, project interventions, and environmental protection. She reveals how these practices support or undermine economic, cultural, and political opportunities for the rural and indigenous poor and impact these communities' advancement of their own visions of sustainability. Finally, the author explores processes of empowerment that enable communities to articulate and put into practice local visions of sustainability, which contribute toward broader social and structural transformations. Grassroots Struggles for Sustainability in Central America will interest sociologists, anthropologists, and others who study the theory and practice of sustainable development.

World Development Report 2008

World Development Report 2008
Author: World Bank
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2007-10-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0821368095

The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. 'World Development Report 2008' seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture changed in developing countries in the past 20 years? What are the important new challenges and opportunities for agriculture? Which new sources of agricultural growth can be captured cost effectively in particular in poor countries with large agricultural sectors as in Africa? How can agricultural growth be made more effective for poverty reduction? How can governments facilitate the transition of large populations out of agriculture, without simply transferring the burden of rural poverty to urban areas? How can the natural resource endowment for agriculture be protected? How can agriculture's negative environmental effects be contained? This year's report marks the 30th year the World Bank has been publishing the 'World Development Report'.

Transforming Rural Water Governance

Transforming Rural Water Governance
Author: Sarah T Romano
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2019-11-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0816538077

The most acute water crises occur in everyday contexts in impoverished rural and urban areas across the Global South. While they rarely make headlines, these crises, characterized by inequitable access to sufficient and clean water, affect over one billion people globally. What is less known, though, is that millions of these same global citizens are at the forefront of responding to the challenges of water privatization, climate change, deforestation, mega-hydraulic projects, and other threats to accessing water as a critical resource. In Transforming Rural Water Governance Sarah T. Romano explains the bottom-up development and political impact of community-based water and sanitation committees (CAPS) in Nicaragua. Romano traces the evolution of CAPS from rural resource management associations into a national political force through grassroots organizing and strategic alliances. Resource management and service provision is inherently political: charging residents fees for service, determining rules for household water shutoffs and reconnections, and negotiating access to water sources with local property owners constitute just a few of the highly political endeavors resource management associations like CAPS undertake as part of their day-to-day work in their communities. Yet, for decades in Nicaragua, this local work did not reflect political activism. In the mid-2000s CAPS’ collective push for social change propelled them onto a national stage and into new roles as they demanded recognition from the government. Romano argues that the transformation of Nicaragua’s CAPS into political actors is a promising example of the pursuit of sustainable and equitable water governance, particularly in Latin America. Transforming Rural Water Governance demonstrates that when activism informs public policy processes, the outcome is more inclusive governance and the potential for greater social and environmental justice.