Local perceptions of climate change impacts and migration patterns in Malé, Maldives

For the last few decades, Maldives has been seen as being at the forefront of addressing climate change impacts. The low elevation of the islands makes them vulnerable to slow-onset hazards, such as coastal erosion, sea-level rise, salinity intrusion, and change in monsoon patterns and hence rainfall. Consequently, migration has long been discussed as an adaptation strategy for the population. This study covers outcomes from our field research conducted among islanders in Malé, the capital of Maldives, in 2013. It contributes empirical evidence toward understanding complex relations among environmental challenges, climate change, and migration. We set up two main research questions. The first question explored islanders' perceptions of impacts of climatic variability in recent years and possible impacts of future climate change. The second question probed whether out-migration from the islands might be considered to be an adaptation strategy and whether the islanders were willing to move outside Maldives due to projected climate change impacts. We conducted our field research in the capital Malé and nearby residential islands, using quantitative questionnaires with local respondents (N=347). Our results suggest that, besides a set of actually experienced environmental and climate challenges, slow-onset climate change impacts such as sea-level rise are perceived as being one of the key factors affecting Maldivian society and livelihoods. More than 50% of respondents perceive future sea-level rise to be a serious challenge at the national level and they accept that migration from islands to other countries might be a potential option. Conversely, from the individual perspective, sea-level rise is not perceived by the local population as being one of their own important challenges. The reason is that many other factors - cultural, religious, economic and social - play an important role in decisionmaking about migrating or not

Development interventions in Mozambique: human agency and the NGO-community interface

It is increasingly recognised that poor people in developing countries are continually devising new and innovative strategies for exercising agency in development arenas. The apparent failure of top-down instrumental and critical perspectives in capturing these strategies has led to recent exploration for new possibilities in neo-populist development theory and practice. This research seeks to determine the role of human agency in NGO-initiated community-driven development (CDD) in rural Mozambique. This aim is achieved through the application of interface analysis to two comparative case study resettlement communities that were constructed by an international and a national NGO following the floods of 2000. In both communities research investigates the implementation of food security projects from a range of different perspectives using a variety of qualitative-based Participatory Rural Appraisal techniques and conventional methods. The findings provide insight into the commonly-observed disparity between rhetoric and practice in CDD. In order to maximise their room-for-manoeuvre, the case study NGOs create representations of the development process that are far simpler than the realities of their operational activities on the ground. The findings do not sustain the instrumental perspectives upheld by the case study NGOs of how interventions proceed. Critical views of CDD account well for observed shortcomings in reaching marginalised community groups. Community members affected by intervention are found to exercise agency in the pursuit of diverse interests across the NGO-community interface. These include community leaders, who are able to significantly shape local institutions introduced by the NGOs, and less powerful groups, who manipulate project discourse in managing their own relationships with external actors. The study concludes that a deeper understanding by NGOs of the local situations in which they operate, combined with a more flexible approach to project implementation, would allow more locally-grounded alternatives to NGO-centred interpretations of development to be acted uponEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Perceptions of informal safety nets: A case study from a South African informal settlement

The relevance and importance of informal safety nets that buffer poor households from livelihood hardships have been given little attention in South Africa's development programmes to date. This article contributes to the understanding of informal safety nets by investigating local perceptions in a South African informal settlement. The main findings of the study are that families perform an important safety net function, but that these sources of assistance can be susceptible to social isolation. Immediate neighbours and friends also play an important safety net role, but these reciprocal-based sources of assistance may be difficult to secure. Community-wide threats can have a severe impact on people's ability to engage in safety net transfers. Many of these difficulties stem from South Africa's structural unemployment crisis. This factor is the greatest danger to the future of the informal safety net system in the informal settlement.

The Nexus between Artificial Intelligence and Economics

This book is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the notion of the Singularity, a stage in development in which technological progress and economic growth increase at a near-infinite rate. Section 3 describes what artificial intelligence is and how it has been applied. Section 4 considers artificial happiness and the likelihood that artificial intelligence might increase human happiness. Section 5 discusses some prominent related concepts and issues. Section 6 describes the use of artificial agents in economic modeling, and section 7 considers some ways in which economic analysis can offer some hints about what the advent of artificial intelligence might bring. Chapter 8 presents some thoughts about the current state of AI and its future prospects.