Suchergebnisse

This article looks at the evolution of international competitiveness in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s, focusing on the microeconomic and sectoral aspects. It evaluates the competitive performance of the region's countries, contrasting it with that of their main competitors in the developing world; it analyses the corporate actors involved, including the subsidiaries of transnational enterprises and large locally owned firms; and it sets forth some political considerations. (CEPAL Rev/DÜI)

In the 1970s and 1980s, a fierce debate took place concerning the vulnerability and adaptive practices of farmers and herders in the West African Sahel, and the utility of concepts including 'adaptation' to drought. The region has had the most primary research conducted on drought vulnerability and response, and it is referred to as an archetype, notably in work on human security and famine. Some (eg Michael Watt's 'Silent Violence' 1983) painted a gloomy picture of rural life, with farmers beset by brutal commodity markets and extractive governance stretching back over 100 years. Food shortage and famine was, for Watts, created by colonial policies and unequal access to resources. However others, for example Michael Mortimore (author of 'Adapting to Drought' 1989) found regardless of these threats households responded (adapted) to drought in innovative and largely successful ways: diversifying into livestock from farming, moving into labouring and small business activity, and finally considering some temporary outmigration to less affected or more affluent regions to provide remittances. Reversible adaptations occurred before less reversible ones. In this chapter we argue that adaptation is socially mediated, not always successful, and is linked into broader political and economic forces. Its utility as a concept is constrained if wedded to Darwinian uses.'Productive Bricolage' characterizes livelihoods, with different responses pursued at the same time, and for different lengths of time. Development projects can assist community resilience and individual response to food crises, but in unexpected ways. Our findings from fieldwork in Niger, Burkina and Nigeria are discussed and linked to the new preoccupation of the millennium; 'climate adaptation'. New research on adaptation in semi arid regions urgently needs to learn from this vast reservoir of contextual knowledge in the African drylands, some of it dating back over 40 years.

Metadata only record ; The thesis of the book is that, based on the evidence presented (gathered over a period from 1992-97), the 'Sahelian crisis' of degradation can be contained, and that in doing so, the resources of rural communities themselves will play a much larger part than is usually assumed. Pre-eminent among these resources is the labour provided by a growing population which, in drawing on a wealth of indigenous technical experience and the best of introduced practices, can create, through an incremental and 'indigenous' intensification of agriculture, more sustainable production systems. Gradualist rather than transformational expectations should therefore underpin the policies of governments and donors, policies which need to be founded both on improved understanding of the diversity and the dynamics of primary production systems, and on a recognition of the need for unimpeded economic integration between the Sahel and West Africa as a whole. Ten chapters examine: introduction; diversity, flexibility and adaptability; four communities, four systems; negotiating the rain; working nature; making the land work harder; when farmers are not farming; women, children and the house; understanding inequality; and managing the managers. Case studies are presented from four villages in north-east Nigeria (Tumbau, Dagaceri, Kaska, and Futchmiram). (CAB Abstract)