How Africa Works

Deborah Bryceson

Occupational change is generally assumed to accompany ‘development’ and to be a necessary part of achieving improved standards of living. But occupational change goes beyond individuals’ economic activities and income-earning to redefine their social identity and contribute fundamentally to the reco...

Seeds and Synergies

Yiching Song, Ronnie Vernooy

Farmers and researchers too often live and work in different realities. Researchers breed plant hybrids in the laboratory that are successful only under ideal conditions, requiring just the right inputs of water, fertilizer, and pesticides. For resource-poor farmers, however, such conditions simply...

Capacity Development for Scaling up Decentralized Energy Access

Elisabeth Clemens, Kamal Rijal, Minoru Takada

Micro hydro power is ideally suited to meeting the energy needs of remote communities.A national micro hydro programme has been operating for more than a decade in Nepal. Similarly a fuel-wood-conserving cooking stoves programme has been operating in Nepal for decades. Capacity development for scali...

Construction and Maintenance of the Solar Fish Drier

This fact sheet details materials, equipment, and basic construction techniques needed for the solar fish drier.

Agricultural Value Chain Finance

Calvin Miller, Linda Jones

Agriculture remains an important means of alleviating poverty, but shortage of finance can constrain its development. At the same time, agriculture is evolving towards a global system requiring high-quality, competitive products, and is organized in value chains which often exclude smallholders. Val...

Building Back Better

Michal Lyons

Theo Schilderman

The devastating impact of disasters on the world’s population is on the increase, influenced by climate change, urbanization, and persistent high levels of poverty, among other factors. There is a growing demand for reconstruction at scale. This book asks whether large-scale reconstruction can be pa...

Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis Toolkit

Mike Albu

Markets are a crucial component of how people survive. Understanding how markets are disrupted in emergencies is critical to any analysis of hunger, and to food and livelihood security. The Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis Toolkit (EMMA) is a guidance manual to assist front-line staff to make r...

Tomato Production

Tomato production guidelines would be very beneficial to the aspiring tomato farmers who want to start their farming practices or the farmers who are already involved in tomato farming in Zimbabwe. One can also use it as a farming resource if the case applies to any other similar regions. The techni...

The Hidden Energy Crisis

Teodoro Sanchez

Billions of people worldwide are without access to clean, modern energy, which leads to drudgery, ill health and sometimes death. Although a lack of adequate energy affects people's health and well-being, as well as their productive and educational capacities, addressing this deficit is a low priori...

Lightening the Load

Marilyn Carr

Maria Hartl

Women are central to overcoming rural poverty. They play a critical role in poverty reduction and food security because they are responsible for both production and reproduction. Rural women in developing countries have longer working days than men because of their triple roles as farmers, caretaker...