Current Challenges and Opportunities in Preparing Rural High School Students for Success in College and Careers

Outlines challenges for rural high schools such as funding inequities and advantages such as parental support. Recommends best practices and policies for improving standards, accountability, student options, teachers, community support, and resources

Broadband: a solution to rural e-learning?

Rural and remote learners are disadvantaged even with online provision due to poor connections. Broadband offers a potential solution. This paper looks at the initial results of a project to install broadband services in the Western Isles of Scotland. It focuses on the educational potential of broadband and the design implications for online courses. It also considers more informal kinds of learning that broadband facilitates in rural areas

Positioning for the Possible: Investing in Education Reform in New Mexico

At the beginning of 2010, the New Mexico Association of Grantmakers (NMAG ) asked Chris Sturgis of MetisNet to explore ways in which philanthropic investments could be structured to lead to improved student achievement and to produce a more effective public education system. This paper is designed to provoke discussion among funders and educational leadership to discover ways to maximize the benefits of philanthropic investments in New Mexico

Measures and methods: four tenets for rural economic development in the new economy

Rural communities working to find strategies for success in today\u27s economy need to rethink the tools they are using. Brown-Graham is the executive director of the Institute for Emerging Issues and a policy fellow at the Carsey Institute. William Lambe is the associate director at the Community and Economic Development Program at the School of Government, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

A community electrification project: combination of microgrids and household systems fed by wind, PV or micro-hydro energies according to micro-scale resource evaluation and social constraints

When electrifying isolated rural communities, usually standardized solutions have been implemented using the same technology at all the points. However these solutions are not always appropriate to the community and its population. This article aims to describe the technical design of the electrification system of the community of Alto Peru (in the region of Cajamarca, Peru), where the adequate technology was used at each area according to micro-scale resource evaluation and the socioeconomic requirements of the population. Specifically four technologies were implemented: wind microgrids in highlands, a micro-hydro power plant in the presence of a waterfall, a PV microgrid in a group of points sheltered from the wind and individual PV systems in scattered points with low wind potential. This project brought electricity to 58 households, a health center, a school, a church, two restaurants and two shops.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

The Economics of Agricultural Development: What Have We Learned?

The history of thought in the field of Economic Development and corresponding development programs have gone through a series of identifiable phases. Phases of theory and praxis in Agricultural Development are likewise compared. In both cases, there is an apparent lost opportunity to learn the lessons of past failures and successes before moving to the next fad. After reviewing several policy and program areas, a few lessons are synthesized, a forward-looking research framework suggested, and the appropriate role of foreign aid discussed. A particular theme of interest is the balance in thinking and programs between social engineering and facilitation of economic cooperation.International Development,

The Economics of Agricultural Development: What Have We Learned? Processes

Agricultural development thinking has gone through several stages of fad and fancy, often without an understanding of previous fallacies. Its current doldrums are unfortunate given the unrivaled importance of agricultural development for poverty reduction in most development countries. After reviewing several policy and program areas, lessons are synthesized, and a forwardlooking research framework suggested, especially regarding role of specialization in the evolution of economic organization. The corresponding role of government is seen to be the facilitation of economic cooperation, rather than social engineering.

Gender Equality as an Entitlement: An Assessement of the UN Woemn\u27s Report on Gender Equality and Sustainable Development 2014

Concerns about gender equality and women’s empowerment are re-emerging as part of the post-2015 global development agenda,and addressing them is one of the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs).Every five years, the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women(known since 2010 as UN Women),publishes a ‘World Survey onthe Role of Women in Development’. These Surveys are presented to the Second Committee of the General Assembly and focus on specific development themes.The 2014Survey focuses on gender equality and sustainable development and was commissionedto inform the SDG process.Itmakes a case for linking gender equality andsustainable development on the grounds that ‘causes and underlying drivers of unsustainability and of gender inequality are deeply interlocked’(p.11). Furthermore, itnotes that: ‘women’s knowledge, agency and collective action are central to finding, demonstrating and building more economically, socially and environmentally sustainable pathways to manage locallandscapes; adapt to climate change; produce and access food; and secure sustainable water, sanitation and water services’(p.13)