Description
The poverty reduction and resource conservation approach favored by Reed (director, Macroeconomics Program Office, World Wildlife Fund-International) and his colleagues is based on the following premises: poverty-environment interventions require rigorous economic, ecological, and institutional analysis at the micro, meso, and macro levels of society; the starting point for such interventions involves removing obstacles at the local level that prevent the poor from competing economically, improving management of their natural resources, and participating in political processes; policies and institutional arrangements need to be aligned at the subnational (meso) and national (macro) levels; these policy and institutional changes can only be effected by building alliances between rural communities and a wide range of advocates, experts, and supporting institutions. After describing this approach in some more detail, he reports on experiences in trying to implement such interventions in China, Indonesia, El Salvador, South Africa, and Zambia. Distributed in the US by Stylus. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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Despite decades of macroeconomic reforms, poverty reduction plans and rural growth strategies, poverty is persistent and environmental degradation is accelerating in the developing world. Though traditional economic indicators have improved in some countries, little has worked to open enduring economic and ecological opportunities to the rural poor. This unacceptable outcome grows, in large part, from the failure to place the needs of the poor at the centre of national development strategies and to link local level changes to urgently needed changes in national development policies. This book is designed to change all of that by showing how change must begin at the local level and, from there, push upwards to change policies and institutions at higher levels to remove political, economic and institutional impediments that stifle opportunities for the rural poor and improved environmental management. This approach challenges the notion that poverty reduction and improved natural resource management can originate with design masters in international organizations or national capitals.Working with teams in China, Indonesia, El Salvador, South Africa and Zambia, WWF devised the revolutionary '3xM' - micro (local), meso (sub-national) and macro (national) - Approach to analysing and intervening to change the poverty dimensions in a country. This approach helps improve the local environment and community livelihoods, and promotes policy and institutional changes at state/provincial and national levels that are essential for the sustainable, equitable development. This book provides both the tools and successful case studies to show practitioners how to adopt the 3xM Approach in diverse developing country contexts.
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