1985: Volume 16
Volume 16 Number 4 October 1985
Edited by: Robin Luckham
Recession has coincided with a marked acceleration in the global arms race. After a period of decline (both in constant price values and relative to GNP) the military spending of the major Western powers, especially the United States, has increased sharply (Table 1). Trends in the socialist bloc are less easy to discern because of' the absence of reliable official figures, though most sources are in agreement that steady increases have occurred in the Soviet Union [SIPRI 1985: 2511 contrasting with the more cyclical behaviour of the United States. The deployment in Europe of Soviet SS2O and American Cruise and Pershing missiles has gone ahead. Having broken down altogether at the end of 1983, negotiations concerning nuclear weapons have (since January 1985) resumed; though for the present they remain little more than 'talks about talks', being stalled over the United States' Strategic Defence Initiative for defence against ballistic missiles ('Star Wars'). Meanwhile there has been no sign of a resumption of the talks between the two superpowers concerning the limitation of conventional arms transfers to developing countries or of those about military restraints in the Indian Ocean, broken off in the late 1970s.
1986: Volume 17
Volume 17 Number 1 January 1986
Edited by: Theo Mars and Gordon White
This Bulletin issue is based on the premise that policy discussions about the current 'crisis' in African agriculture will not prove useful unless they take into account the political and organisational factors which shape the capacity of states to define and deliver policies. We wish to investigate the hypothesis that many of Africa's economic failures have political foundations, and that the economic crisis is fed by and feeds a political crisis in the developmental role of African states. We focus on agriculture because the human problems it poses are the most urgent and since it lies at the roots of both crises.
Volume 17 Number 2 May 1986
Edited by: Michael Lipton
Despite their diverse origins - and despite the deliberate inclusion of one outspokenly sceptical view of aid - these eleven papers imply clear conclusions about aid-effectiveness. 1. Most aid raises growth and/or reduces poverty (Section II). 2. A disturbingly large, possibly rising, proportion does neither. 3. Partly, this is because much aid serves mostly donor interests. 4. Partly, it is because of inappropriate recipient policies (Section III). 5. Donors' interests impede their, and recipients', efforts to improve recipients' policies. 6. Each donor to, and each ministry in, a recipient country is imprisoned in a dilemma. By pursuing self-interested policies, it often harms aid-effectiveness in that country (for a//donors and ministries). By avoiding them, it may lose out to less scrupulous donors and ministries. 'Coordination' is not a magic solution (Section IV). 7. Macroeconomic conditions - unlike sector dialogues - seldom work, but may be implicit in a shift from project to programme aid. 8. That shift, and the associated aid shift to Africa, require better institutional and manpower aid, to maintain adequate effectiveness of other aid (Section V). 9. Many factors - the limitations of conditionality; the record of antipoverty aid; the record of inefficiency, inequality, and arguably near-scandal, in aid allocation among recipients - suggest that major country reallocations are the key to increased aid-effectiveness
Volume 17 Number 3 July 1986
Edited by: Richard Longhurst
Rural poverty in developing tropical countries has a seasonal dimension. There is a simultaneous prevalence of sickness, malnutrition, indebtedness, hard work, discomfort and poor food availability at certain times of the year, usually during the rains.
This period before harvest - 'the hungry season' - is one of considerable stress for rural people, exacerbating their poverty. Poor people are less able to cope with this regular period of stress than rich people, who can usually exploit it to their benefit. The difficulties and stress experienced on a seasonal basis are, of course,anticipated by poor rural people: they are a regular event to be navigated each year.
There are different ways of coping - of moving resources around - in ways that relate to productive activities and social and demographic mechanisms. Some of these mechanisms are described in this Bulletin. In calling this issue 'Seasonality and Poverty', the focus is on how seasonality affects poor people, how they respond to it and how development can assist them in the face of these stresses.
1987: Volume 18
Volume 18 Number 1 January 1987
Edited by: Martin Greeley
Energy studies have been an expanding component or sub-category of Development Studies for well over a decade now; this Bulletin explores their treatment of the interactions between energy and poverty. Any description of 'energy studies' would have to grapple with the extreme heterogeneity of the material so defined and, in large part, this is because there are two quite distinct sets of literature - responses to two types of energy crises. These are, of course, the oil price crisis and the biomass crisis. The literature on the first emphasises international trade and balance of payments issues and the linkages to domestic sectors; it is macroeconomic in its policy focus and on the technological front is concerned with conservation of fossil fuels. In stark contrast, the biomass crisis is principally associated with rural domestic woodfuel use; it is typically concerned with analysis at the level of the household and, very often, specifically with the impact of the woodfuel crisis upon poor rural women. Its policy concern is informed by consideration of rural political economy, and its technological front is concerned with the conservation of biomass.
