L’heuristique de la littérature grise sur le développement participatif du Bassin congolais

La littérature grise en sciences sociales, lorsqu’elle est produite dans le contexte des projets, comporte des particularités cognitives spécifiques qui entravent une contribution opératoire aux politiques de coopération au développement. Dans ce cas, ce n’est pas la littérature en anthropologie du développement qui est mobilisée pour la constitution de la boîte à outils de la recherche appliquée. Il s’agit d’un autre cadre cognitif a-historique, sectoriel et non cumulatif dont les particularités heuristiques sont notamment l’incomparabilité et la non prédictibilité. Ceci mène à la récurrence d’un problème dans la pratique appliquée consistant à entretenir une confusion entre recommandations structurelles et conjoncturelles. Cette contribution est illustrée par des exemples tirés d’une étude pluridisciplinaire sur la gestion participative des forêts dans le Bassin congolaisThe grey litterature in social sciences, especially when it is produced in development projects, consists of specific cognitive particularities that prevent an operational contribution to development policies. In this case it is not the anthropology of development literature that is used to construct a toolbox for applied research. Instead it is an a-historical, sectorial and non-accumulative cognitive framework with its heuristic particularities, such as non-comparability and non-predictability. This leads to a recurrent problem in applied practice that sustains a confusion of structural and conjunctural recommendations. This article contributes with examples from a multidisciplinary study of participatory forest management in the Congo Bassin

Forest-Poverty Dynamics: Current State of Knowledge

This chapter reports on evidence about the role of forests and trees in alleviating poverty and supporting wider human well-being. It considers how, whether, where, when and for whom forests and trees are important in forest-poverty dynamics. We organise the evidence according to four possible relationships between forest products and ecosystem services and poverty: 1) helping households move out of poverty; 2) supporting well-being through subsistence, food security and cultural and spiritual values; 3) mitigating risks; and 4) decreasing well-being by generating negative externalities that could significantly contribute to trapping or moving households into poverty. The evidence shows that these relationships are strongly context-dependent, varying with geography and social, economic and political contexts. However, across contexts, we most commonly observe that forest and tree products and services help the poor to secure and stabilise their livelihoods, rather than either helping them exit poverty or driving them into poverty.Peer reviewe

Les concessions d'exploitation forestière menacent-elles les tourbières en République démocratique du Congo ?

peer reviewed[No abstract available

Women, weather, and woes: The triangular dynamics of female-headed households, economic vulnerability, and climate variability in South Africa

Existing gender inequality is believed to be heightened as a result of weather events and climate-related disasters that are likely to become more common in the future. We show that an already marginalized group—female-headed households in South Africa—is differentially affected by relatively modest levels of variation in rainfall, which households experience on a year-to-year basis. Data from three waves of the National Income Dynamics Survey in South Africa allow us to follow incomes of 4,162 households from 2006 to 2012. By observing how household income is affected by variation in rainfall relative to what is normally experienced during the rainy season in each district, our study employs a series of naturally occurring experiments that allow us to identify causal effects. We find that households where a single head can be identified based on residency or work status are more vulnerable to climate variability than households headed by two adults. Single male-headed households are more vulnerable because of lower initial earnings and, to a lesser extent, other household characteristics that contribute to economic disadvantages. However, this can only explain some of the differential vulnerability of female-headed households. This suggests that there are traits specific to female-headed households, such as limited access to protective social networks or other coping strategies, which makes this an important dimension of marginalization to consider for further research and policy in South Africa and other national contexts. Households headed by widows, never-married women, and women with a non-resident spouse (e.g., “left-behind” migrant households) are particularly vulnerable. We find vulnerable households only in districts where rainfall has a large effect on agricultural yields, and female-headed households remain vulnerable when accounting for dynamic impacts of rainfall on income

Principales tendencias que afectan a las familias en el África subsahariana

Naciones Unidas. Año Internacional de la Familia 2004. Families in the process of developmen