Rural Development

The study was conducted in Fogera district, South Gondar zone, Amhar National Regional State. Three Kebeles among the 15 Kebeles of upland rice growers of the district were selected purposively and a total of 60 selected households were interviewed to generate primary data. Preference ranking technique was employed to identify farmers' improved upland rice varieties evaluation criteria. The result of the preference ranking shows that market demand, grain yield, taste, drought resistance, and early maturity are the five most important traits required to adopt improved upland rice variety in the study area. Therefore, attempts to promote transformation in agriculture through improved upland rice variety could be successful if these evaluation criteria are taken in consideration.

The study was conducted in Fogera district, South Gondar zone, Amhara National Regional State (ANRS). Three Peasant Associations (PAs) among the fifteen PAs of upland growers of the district were selected purposively and a total of adopters and non-adopters of 120 selected households were interviewed to generate primary data. Descriptive statistics were used for analyzing quantitative data. Econometric model (binary logit) was employed to determine factors that influence the adoption behavior of farmers respectively. A sum of fifteen explanatory variables for the binary logit model were used, out of which nine variables were found to significantly affect the adoption of improved upland rice variety. These are: sex of the household head, agricultural organization membership, household heads' participation in field days related to improved upland rice, household head contact with extension agents, participation in social organizations, achievement motivation, attitude towards improved upland rice variety, distance to input and output market from residence of the household and active labor force of the household with 15 to 64 age group. Any effort in promoting improved upland rice variety, however, should consider the social, economic, institutional and psychological characteristics for better adoption of the technology. Therefore, attempts to promote transformation in agriculture through improved upland rice variety could be successful if these evaluation criteria and determinants are taken into consideration.

Background: Agriculture is the most susceptible sector to climate change related hazards. Unusual temperature and rainfall occurrence in terms of amount and distribution usually lead to poor harvest and/or complete crop failure and shortage of pasture and animal feed in Ethiopia. Such extreme conditions ultimately result in drought with a resultant depletion of assets, societal vulnerability, mass migration and loss of life. This research work has been conducted to fill such knowledge gaps of the target population in Lake Tana Sub-Basin. The objectives of the research were to assess the perception of the rural people about climate change and adaptation models. To attain this research objective, both primary and secondary data from different sources were collected. The collected data statistical analyses were done by STATA version 11 computer program. Results: Results of Heckman probit and multinomial logistic regression models revealed that age, educational level, wealth status, agricultural extension services, and distance to the nearest health center are found to be significant for determining climate change adaptation. The farmers 'perceptions to climate change found to be statistically significant related to those factors such as: marital status, farm size, climate change information access and the level of income generations. The majority of the respondents argued that the strategies and programs of climate change adaptations need further enforcement to implement it fully up to the level of expectations. Conclusion: It is therefore recommended that the legislative bodies and development planners should design strategies and plans by taking into account impacts of declining summer rainfall and increasing temperature on rural livelihoods. Moreover, adverse impacts of climate change and adaptation strategies should be a crosscutting issue.

Common Pool Resources (CPRs) use, management and governance typically deal with conflicting interests of various stakeholders since they use the same resources for different purposes. It is therefore important to understand the different perspectives of the actors involved. In order to better understand multiple users' strategies and interaction in CPRs settings, stakeholder analysis is used to analyze and describe actions of stakeholders, their interest in and influence over the CPRs particularly, fish & wetlands management and governance system. Data for this study was drawn mainly from a stakeholder Identification and analysis workshop held on February 27-28, 2011, in which multi-disciplinary experts representing different institutions and/or organizations were the participants. In addition, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods such as, in-depth key informant interview, series of focus group discussion with community members selected from more than 9 districts and 35 Peasant Associations (PAs) and a documentary analysis were employed. In this paper we analyzed the mandate/interest value and the power/influence level of multiple stakeholders that have a direct or indirect impact on the use, management and governance of common Pool Resource with a particular emphasis on fish and wetlands resources in Lake Tana Watershed.

Migration in support of two social policy objectives of NE-PAD -gender equality and human development. The paper concludes that since migration is by nature international, there is urgent need to build the capacity of RECs to address migration issues at sub-regional and regional levels. This requires building up of databases on migration, harmonization of migration policies and building capacity to integrate migration into development policy frameworks, including the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs).

In Ethiopia, land is the main economic, political, social and cultural asset. It is the crucial source of generating livelihood income for society. It remains an asset that farmers have to accumulate wealth and transfer the same to future generation. Rural farmers and pastoralists are guaranteed a plot of land free of charge while urban residents can secure the same through ground lease arrangements. Thus, this paper aimed to review the state of land expropriation and compensation payment in Ethiopia. Expropriation occurs when a public agency (for example, the provincial government and its agencies, regional districts, municipalities, school boards and utilities) takes property for a purpose deemed to be in the public interest, even though the owner of the property may not be willing to sell it. Thus, land expropriation to the periphery is aggravated by development projects such as industry, infrastructure, communication and road networks. Displacement due to land expropriation is more significant issue in developing countries than developed countries because, the majority of the people in developing countries live highly concentrated in the periphery depending on agriculture with fragmented land holdings. This is common in countries like Ethiopia where land remains government's property and amount of compensation paid depends on government's decision. The urban land lease policy is not very friendly to rural households land in general and the poor land holders in particular. The policy implementation process has not taken in to account the life of rural peasants living in vicinity of cities. As a result, the implementation of the policy has been marginalizing the rural settled peasant communities. The non-farm based economic sector was not able to absorb those displaced farmers, as most of them are unskilled labour. Thus, Land expropriation and compensation issues takes more policy and implementation emphasis.

The issue of land and women's land rights in rural Africa is at the heart of scholarly literature written by African and non-African scholars in recent years. This appears to be a common practice especially in rural parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Women play a critical role in agricultural production in developing countries, where they usually make up the majority of the agricultural workforce. Thus, secure access to productive land is critical to the millions of poor people living in rural areas and depending on agriculture, livestock or forests for their livelihood. Women's access to land, in particular, is widely recognized as important both for ensuring equality of basic rights and for reducing poverty and ensuring household food security. This would makes it more critical to review a literature on women's land use right and household food security to look at whether women enjoy equal rights to land, property and natural resources in practice, rather than only under statutory law, to achieve food security at household level. Women's insecure land tenure and property rights in Africa can be linked to a mix of economic and social pressures that have profoundly transformed social structures and land tenure systems. When deprived of access to, ownership and use of land, women are left without the means to create stable and sustainable livelihoods in the aftermath of the war. As a result many of the women may be compelled to seek alternative livelihoods outside agriculture wherein they are prone to exploitation such as working as maids, waitresses or sex workers. In order for land to play a key role in socioeconomic growth and poverty alleviation, a functioning land administration system must support secure, easily transferable land rights and be capable of maintaining comprehensive aspects; the land reforms must consider the social as well as legal legitimacy of the change they seek; meaningful representation and participation of women, and training of community members and organizations are an important step towards helping women gain access to established rights. Therefore, improving women's access to and control over land is crucial to socioeconomic development of Africa in general, and Ethiopia in particular.

The objective of the study was to analyze the extent of agricultural extension services delivery with the existing gender differences in Bure Woreda, North Western Ethiopia. The survey was conducted in three purposively selected PKAs which having the maximum number of FHHs by selecting 160 sample households through multistage random sampling technique. Pre-tested structured interview schedule and other secondary sources were used to collect primary and secondary data respectively. Key informant interviews and focus group discussions mainly helped to generate the necessary qualitative data. Frequency, means, standard deviation, t-test and x 2-test was used for analysis. The core survey result showed that, on average 73.75% FHHs and only 18.02% MHHs never utilized extension services delivered via extension programs, extension contacts and media. So the analysis component depicted gender differences related to FHHs illiteracy, less ownership of productive resources plus less utilization of extension services. Therefore adult education, efficient extension service systems, intervention to improve livestock sector via livestock credit, creating strong linkage with extension contacts, and giving reasonable place for women's in farmer's organizations were strongly recommended to boost agricultural development in the study area.

The objective of the study was to review food insecurity status, cause of food insecurity, food insecurity extent and coping mechanisms practiced to tackle food insecurity problems in Ethiopia. The assessment was based on intensive reading of both published and unpublished documents. Finally, the data were presented in tabular and narration form. The review indicates that Ethiopia is chronically and seasonally food insecure country. Nearly 33 million people are suffering from chronic undernourishment and food insecurity. Different studies indicated that the status, depth and severity of food insecurity in Ethiopia are dynamic. The problem is compounded by back ward agriculture, land degradation, drought, population pressure, poor infrastructure facility and low level of off-farm/non-farm activities. In response to the problem, households vulnerable to food insecurity have developed sale of livestock, agricultural and non-agricultural employment, livelihood adjustment, reducing size and frequency of meal, consumption of wild plants, borrowing grains from relatives, migration and livelihood diversification as a coping mechanisms. To ensure food security in Ethiopia, the development workers should create awareness for the community about family planning, soil conservation practice, personal and environmental hygiene, technology adoption and rainwater harvesting to reduce the problem caused by drought and erratic rain fall. Agricultural and non-agricultural employment, livelihood adjustment and livelihood diversification should be enhanced.

Agricultural and rural development extension systems have enjoyed increasing government support over years, though not to be in the level expected. The gender division of labour in agriculture and rural development means that female and male farmers usually have different extension needs. However, extension services worldwide remain dominated by men. Also rural women play an important role in agriculture and rural development but this role often goes unrecognized due to perception bias. Hence, developing effective and sustainable extension service for women farmers within the context of broader agricultural and rural development strategies becomes a crucial challenge. Thus this paper tries to assess the conditions and justifications for addressing gender in agriculture and rural development issues. To address the aforementioned objectives, intensive literature review of published and unpublished materials like books, research articles and other materials like package manuals, etc were used. As a result, gender concepts question the understanding of the people in the world and make aware of relationships, causes and consequences that might have overlooked; even it is essential variable for analyzing the roles, responsibilities, constraints, opportunities, incentives, costs and benefits in agricultural extension services delivery. Many authors argue that cultural ideology about men's and women's role is a critical factor in determining the way gender relations of production are ordered in a given society. Thus the differentiation 2 | P a g e www.rierc.org of tasks, i.e., the differences between women and men could best be explained by their social and cultural setting rather than by their biological differences. Gender disparity analysis seeks systematic attempt to identify key issues contributing to gender inequalities n agriculture and rural development so that they can be properly addressed. The women orientation of the agricultural and rural development programs was quite inadequate. The rationale for considering gender in agricultural research relates to agricultural productivity, food security, nutrition, poverty reduction, and empowerment. Generally promoting gender-responsive agricultural technologies in agricultural research and extension system can result in greater sustainability of agricultural and rural development projects and the environment.

Cooperative is a special group of people with mutual interest to solve their individual problems through common efforts and ultimately attaining economic and social empowerment to the group members and the community. The Derg regime established an extensive network of socialist agricultural cooperatives throughout Ethiopia by organizing the peasants, but it was virtually no member participation Instead, party agents and political activists largely ran these cooperative systems. The existing government of Ethiopia abolished the command economy and introduced economic and political liberalization, including steps to promote the development of democratically governed, market oriented, member owned cooperatives; and professionalism in the management of cooperatives. Hence, this paper tried to assess the development of agricultural cooperatives sector in Ethiopia. The weak performance of the agricultural cooperatives in conducting of marketing (both inputs and outputs markets) in Ethiopia has been portrayed in various studies as a major impediment to growth in the agricultural sector and the overall economy. Although cooperatives are considered as an appropriate tool of rural development they are facing critical challenges, which retain them from their positive role. Some of the challenges of cooperatives are: low institutional capacity, inadequate qualified personnel, low entrepreneurship skill, lack of financial resources, lack of market information, poor members' participation in the different activities such as financing the

A Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study Global Burden of Disease Cancer Collaboration IMPORTANCE The increasing burden due to cancer and other noncommunicable diseases poses a threat to human development, which has resulted in global political commitments reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Action Plan on Non-Communicable Diseases. To determine if these commitments have resulted in improved cancer control, quantitative assessments of the cancer burden are required. OBJECTIVE To assess the burden for 29 cancer groups over time to provide a framework for policy discussion, resource allocation, and research focus. EVIDENCE REVIEW Cancer incidence, mortality, years lived with disability, years of life lost, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) were evaluated for 195 countries and territories by age and sex using the Global Burden of Disease study estimation methods. Levels and trends were analyzed over time, as well as by the Sociodemographic Index (SDI). Changes in incident cases were categorized by changes due to epidemiological vs demographic transition. FINDINGS In 2016, there were 17.2 million cancer cases worldwide and 8.9 million deaths. Cancer cases increased by 28% between 2006 and 2016. The smallest increase was seen in high SDI countries. Globally, population aging contributed 17%; population growth, 12%; and changes in age-specific rates, −1% to this change. The most common incident cancer globally for men was prostate cancer (1.4 million cases). The leading cause of cancer deaths and DALYs was tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer (1.2 million deaths and 25.4 million DALYs). For women, the most common incident cancer and the leading cause of cancer deaths and DALYs was breast cancer (1.7 million incident cases, 535 000 deaths, and 14.9 million DALYs). In 2016, cancer caused 213.2 million DALYs globally for both sexes combined. Between 2006 and 2016, the average annual age-standardized incidence rates for all cancers combined increased in 130 of 195 countries or territories, and the average annual age-standardized death rates decreased within that timeframe in 143 of 195 countries or territories. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Large disparities exist between countries in cancer incidence, deaths, and associated disability. Scaling up cancer prevention and ensuring universal access to cancer care are required for health equity and to fulfill the global commitments for noncommunicable disease and cancer control.