Water has become increasingly central to addressing multiple development and environmental objectives in the course of climate change. Exploring the multiple dimensions of water governance, policy and management in a holistic way is thus imperative for financial innovations to take place in the water sector. This book constitutes, first of all, a reference document allowing African managers and policymakers to broaden their knowledge of financing strategies and tactics in order to raise funds for water services provision and water resources development. Additionally, the book reviews the agenda on water and sanitation services in order to ensure water resources development has a place in funding structures. The book presents and discusses contemporary instruments of financing water services and water resources development in Africa. In this regard, three major thematic areas are recognized as key:  Coverage of the legal and institutional contexts pertaining to water financing innovations; an assessment of economic mechanisms and principles subtending financial innovations in the water sector; and applications of innovative water financing mechanisms based on scale formation and adoption practices. This book highlights the principles of economic profitability and financial sustainability to enable creditworthiness and a snowball effect of borrowing, and will be of interest to researchers, policymakers, and academics, as well as development agencies and financiers of sustainable development and environmental (Blue and Green) economies.

For thousands of years, Ethiopia has depended on its smallholding farmers to provide the bulk of its food needs. But now, such farmers find themselves under threat from environmental degradation, climate change and declining productivity. As a result, smallholder agriculture has increasingly become subsistence-oriented, with many of these farmers trapped in a cycle of poverty. Smallholders have long been marginalised by mainstream development policies, and only more recently has their crucial importance been recognised for addressing rural poverty through agricultural reform. This collection, written by leading Ethiopian scholars, explores the scope and impact of Ethiopia's policy reforms over the past two decades on the smallholder sector. Focusing on the Lake Tana basin in northwestern Ethiopia, an area with untapped potential for growth, the contributors argue that any effective policy will need to go beyond agriculture to consider the role of health, nutrition and local food customs, as well as including increased safeguards for smallholder's land rights. They in turn show that smallholders represent a vitally overlooked component of development strategy, not only in Ethiopia but across the global South.

In this study, three interrelated aspects have empirically emerged as determinant in the state of land degradation and its management practices: livelihood, dwelling and land tenure. The livelihood system encompasses concepts of the agricultural use value of the land and how land use itself is situated in broader social relationships. Institutionalized practices, such as sharecropping, explain how management aspects of the land enter productive relationships among villagers. The dwelling aspect, being a broader part of the relations and commitments of the villagers to their landscape, explains land users' perception and values of the land. The land tenure systems have secured local people's user rights to land. Nonetheless, the tenure systems are poor in promoting farm integrity, long-term security and transfers of land resources to more competitive and productive farmers. Future approaches that aim to promote good land and agricultural management practices should consider these broader issues simultaneously.

Energy crises and climate change have generated global demands for alternative non-fossil fuel sources. This has led to a rapid increase of investments in production of liquid biofuels based on agricultural feed stocks such as sugar cane. Most African governments see biofuels as a potential for increasing agricultural productivity and export incomes and thus strengthening their national economies, improving energy balances and rural employment. At the same time climate change may be addressed through reduction of green house gas emissions. There are, however, a number of uncertainties mounting that challenge this scenario. Using in-depth African case studies -- with Brazil as a comparative reference -- this book addresses this knowledge gap by examining the impacts of large-scale biofuel production on African agriculture, particularly with regard to vital land outsourcing and food security issues. The surge for African biofuels has also opened space for private investors -- both domestic and external -- to multiply and network "independently" of the state. The biofuel expansion thus generates new economic alliances and production relations, resulting in new forms of inclusions and exclusions within the rural population. This is an essential book for anyone wishing to understand the startling impact of biofuels on Africa.

Energy crises and climate change have generated global demands for alternative non-fossil fuel sources. This has led to a rapid increase of investments in production of liquid biofuels based on agricultural feed stocks such as sugar cane. Most African governments see biofuels as a potential for increasing agricultural productivity and export incomes and thus strengthening their national economies, improving energy balances and rural employment. At the same time climate change may be addressed through reduction of green house gas emissions. There are, however, a number of uncertainties mounting that challenge this scenario. Using in-depth African case studies -- with Brazil as a comparative reference -- this book addresses this knowledge gap by examining the impacts of large-scale biofuel production on African agriculture, particularly with regard to vital land outsourcing and food security issues. The surge for African biofuels has also opened space for private investors -- both domestic and external -- to multiply and network "independently" of the state. The biofuel expansion thus generates new economic alliances and production relations, resulting in new forms of inclusions and exclusions within the rural population. This is an essential book for anyone wishing to understand the startling impact of biofuels on Africa.