Explore the vast range of titles available.

We documented the history of land-use change and migration in eastern Bolivia in five temporal periods: pre-1976, 1976–1986, 1986–1991, 1991–2001, and 2001–2004. We included all land-cover types located below the natural montane tree line (∼3000 m), including forest, savanna, scrubland, seasonal wetland, second-growth forest, pasture, and cropland. The rate of land-use change has increased from approximately 4.7 × 10⁴ ha/yr in the 1960s to > 2.9 × 10⁵ ha/yr in the most recent period. Land-use change was quantified for 10 groups within which cultural traditions and production systems are shared, including three nonmechanized indigenous groups, four mechanized farming groups, two cattle ranching groups, and the forest products sector. Mechanized Cruceño farmers and Andean indigenous colonists were responsible for most land-use change in the 1960s and 1970s; deforestation by the latter group increased to twice that by all other groups during 1986–1991, declined in the 1990s, and then increased again in the most recent period. In the last 15 years, land-use change by agro-industrialists specializing in soybean has become important, and cattle ranching based on cultivated pastures has surpassed land use by all other groups. When the rates of change increased for the three indigenous nonmechanized groups, they tended to decrease for the four nonindigenous mechanized groups, and vice versa.

This article analyses water, food, and energy security in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries using the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus approach. The innovative focus is on identifying past and future development-based drivers of water-energy-food integration in the region. The study presents a critical review of WEF nexus in the Gulf region and identifies links to sustainable development in this area. It concludes that integrating water, energy, and food resources within the nexus is crucial for GCC nations to accomplish resource security and sustainable development.

This article explores access to primary health care (PHC) services and associated factors in Pakistan. Data were collected from 302 respondents. The findings revealed that women accessed PHC services more than men due to their greater health needs. However, a large proportion of both genders did not access any PHC services. Besides general weaknesses, gender-related barriers were found in basic health unit locations, distance, transport, staff availability, income, service hours, and service organisation, confirming gender issues in access to PHC services. Policymakers are recommended to take measures to improve access to PHC services through the formulation of gender-responsive policies and strategies.

This article examines field results that show the potential for mobile health (mHealth) technologies to support community health workers (CHWs) in delivering basic maternal and new-born services in Rwanda. The fit of RapidSMS, a UNICEF/Ministry of Health (MOH) mHealth technology is examined through focus groups with CHWs. The results highlight the need for more training in the use of RapidSMS, continued upgrading of mobile phones, devising innovative ways of charging mobile phones, and ensuring the availability of ambulances. We suggest that CHW supervision be a two-way process built into RapidSMS utilising real-time communication to enhance effectiveness.

This article explores dimensions of ethical research practice, decision making and the importance of taking a reflexive approach during development studies doctoral research. The researcher is a non-indigenous midwife, from a developed country, while the research was based in Papua New Guinea, a developing country in the Pacific region. The key point of inquiry is to better understand the nature and practice of reflexivity using the personal experiences of the author, who grappled with a variety of tensions. Reflexivity is argued to play a crucial role in the validation of qualitative research and is a vital component of practicing cultural safety.

This article offers a qualitative investigation of how human rights education sessions, embedded in a multi-faceted intervention, helped members of a rural community in West Africa challenge inequitable gender norms that hindered women's political participation. Results show a change in women's political participation and community members' descriptions of women's potential. Three features of the intervention contributed to this change: (1) its pedagogical approach; (2) its substantive content; and (3) the engagement of men and women together. The article calls for interventions that facilitate sustained dialogue between men and women to achieve greater gender equity.

Although resources are invested in maintaining the professional standards, knowledge, and skills of community development practitioners (CDPs), research has not established if they have benefited adequately from the provisions of an appropriate professional development programme. The Stufflebeam's CIPP model was used to evaluate this, which is the first exercise of its kind in South Africa. This qualitative study reports on the circumstances associated with its planning. Lack of alignment between the professionals' needs and learning activities was uncovered, which resulted from the absence of learning activities which meet the needs of CDPs and poor planning. A planning framework is proposed to mitigate the obstacles and challenges.

In sub-Saharan Africa many individuals rely on non-state health providers, and engagement between state and non-state providers is increasingly common. Little analytic work has been done on the varied models of engagement, resulting in a lack of clarity about the promises and challenges of public-private engagement (PPE) for health. Despite their prevalence, PPEs often fail. Faith-based health providers (FBHPs) form a significant proportion of the non-state health sector in sub-Saharan Africa, and the number of partnerships with FBHPs is increasing. Building on a prior systematic review project that developed a typology of organisational models for PPE for health, this article reports on a secondary analysis, highlighting PPE initiatives with FBHPs.

This article documents the level of access to infrastructure and assesses its perceived impacts on human well-being in rural Nepal. The study found a more varied level of well-being in less remote communities and determined that the perceived impacts of access to infrastructure on human well-being is higher in more remote areas. Notably, access to roads received the highest priority among respondents, followed by drinking water and irrigation. The methodology and findings of this study have practical implications for rural development in hills and mountains where human settlements are highly dispersed and access is key to human well-being.

It is important to think critically about how we develop leaders, particularly in highly unpredictable countries like South Sudan. This article gives an account of a yearlong reflective and experiential programme in Juba which sought to straddle the paradox of outside and inside: it took seriously the critical insight that leadership development needs to take greater account of endogenous experience. However, to do so we drew on methods developed elsewhere, but which prioritise local experience. The programme focused on the everyday interdependencies of group life, rather than an abstract and often idealised understanding of leadership favoured in many business schools.