This bi-annual addition of id21 Natural Resources Highlights looks specifically at rural livelihoods. It contains the following three articles:

New thinking needed to tackle the rural employment crisis

A further 106 million people will have joined the rural labour force in the developing world by 2015. This article asks whether enough jobs can be created in rural areas to meet this demand, or whether further urban migration is the only answer.

How can small-scale producers compete globally?

This paper examines the experiences of implementation of land reform policies in the Eastern Cape through a series of case studies.It looks at how attempts at redistribution, restitution and land tenure reform have resulted in a variety of models and approaches.

This document summarises the proceedings from a conference organised by International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) , Natural Resource insitute (NRI) and the Royal African Society in November 2004.The conference brought together a wide range of interest groups including, African policy makers, academics and civil society representatives, as well as representatives of the private sector and international agencies, to debate the way ahead for land rights and land reforms in Africa.

The main objective of the paper is to explore possible institutional arrangements among the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), Philippines, implementing agencies in a post-2008 transition scenario for CARP. There were three reasons cited for the implementation of the agrarian reform program, namely: (i) to increase productivity, (ii) to reduce inequality particularly in the countryside, and (iii) to address one of the main causes of the persistent Communist insurgency in the country.

Why does viewing a household as a single unit have serious downfalls for gender analysis' The unitary view overlooks the crucial fact that gender relations between family members play a large role in intra-household decisions about decision-making, time allocation, and expenditure. A collective model on the other hand allows household analysis to consider gender relations, with attention to women's and men's respective access to, control over, or ownership of resources.

Does poverty in Egypt have a woman's face? Is female poverty linked to their conditions in the labour market or levels of education? Are women particularly at risk in poor households? This report addresses the gender dimensions of poverty using the recent Household Expenditure, Income and Consumption Survey of 1999/2000 for Egypt. Poverty measures of males and females were found to be significantly different, in both urban and rural areas, where higher levels are observed among females than males.

Citizenship is an abstract concept and therefore great care must be taken in explaining what it means in practice and what can effectively be done in the context of development interventions and policy. Development projects which enhance the ability of marginalised groups to access and influence decision-making bodies are implicitly if not explicitly working with concepts of citizenship. Citizenship is about concrete institutions, policy and structures and the ways in which people can shape them using ideas of rights and participation.

How can women be integrated in processes of democratisation? The participation of women in political and economic processes is essential for democratic governance. The PROWID grants system supported activities such as lobbying and advocacy, skills development and developing institutions to further women's social and economic rights. This report looks at women's participation in political culture, civil society and government institutions. Importantly, it puts participation in the context of shifting gender (and other) roles and identities.

This shadow report, led by The Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights -Peru (CLADEM-Peru), contributes to the United Nations Committee that monitors the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It is an opportunity for women's groups to monitor their government and to raise concerns about the official submission of the government to the CEDAW committee.

The renovation process in Vietnam in the past decade has enabled significant economic growth as well as and greater rights and more important economic roles of farming households. However, much of this reform has focussed on men as head of households, meaning men have benefited more from economic reform, both economically and in terms of their power within the household. Inequalities continue in access to and control of key resources such as land, water, credit and rest time, as well as in access to public services.

In a globalising world where the role of the local, the national and the global is shifting, the meanings of citizenship are also changing. This article presents some new theoretical discussions on gender and citizenship. It argues that, rather than something which sees everyone as "the same", citizenship should be understood as multi-tiered and formed through many different positions according to gender, ethnicity and urban/rural location.

How would environmentally sustainable development look if it was gender-sensitive? This report argues that much mainstream literature on environmentally sustainable development has ignored the gender dimensions. Where women have been the target of programmes, they have been seen as natural managers of environmental resources. A gender analysis is important because gender relations affect the ways in which poor men and women manage natural resources.