Links between rural poverty and the environment in developing countries: asset categories and investment poverty
Reardon, T.; Vosti, S.A.
World Development Oxford 23(9): 1495-1506
1995
DOI: 10.1016/0305-750x(95)00061-gDocument Number: 199157
The paper presents a framework for analysing the links between poverty and the environment in rural areas of developing countries. The discussion is limited to rural areas, and focuses on resource degradation because it is the major environmental problem in most poor countries. It introduces the concept of 'investment poverty' and relates it to other measures of poverty in analysis of these links. The notion of poverty is examined in the context of categories of assets and categories of environmental change, with particular focus on farm household income generation and investment strategies as determinants of the links. The strength and direction of the poverty-environment links are shown to differ (even invert) depending on the composition of the assets held by the rural poor and the types of environmental problems they face. It is concluded that the level of poverty conditions the poverty-environment links; the type of poverty affects those links; the distribution of poverty across households within a community affects the links; the type of environmental problem conditions the links; and the income, investment, and land use strategies of the rural household and community determine the links. Policy strategies need to focus on conditioning variables that affect market development, community wealth, infrastructure, household asset distribution, and the affordability and appropriateness of natural resource conservation technologies.