Livestock grazing, along with agriculture, are key drivers of deforestation and land degradation that subsequently affect ecosystem service provision in the tropics. Although environmental and agricultural policies may curtail these negative effects, information is needed on how specific programs and instruments could be used to incentivize ranchers into adopting rangeland practices to achieve land conservation. We examine what encourages livestock ranchers to adopt more sustainable rangeland practices with various technical and conservation attributes in Colombia’s Orinoco region.

The voice and role of communities, particularly their capacity to organise and resist, has been understudied in the specialised literature on illicit crops and largely ignored in policy debates. Based on ongoing research in Colombia, this policy paper explores the capacity of communities to organise and resist – as a manifestation of cultural and social capital – in the context of illicit economies.

Managing natural-resource allocation and environmental externalities is a challenge. Institutional designs are central when improving water quality for downstream users, for instance, and when reallocating water quantities including for climate adaptation. Views differ on which institutions are best: states; markets; or informal institutions. For transfers of ecosystem services, we compare informal trust-based institutions to enforced contracts, both being institutional types we observe commonly in the field.

Small-scale gold mining is important to rural livelihoods in the developing world but also a source of environmental externalities. Incentives for individual producers are the classic policy response for a socially efficient balance between livelihoods and the environment. Yet monitoring individual miners is ineffective, or it is very costly, especially on frontiers with scattered small-scale miners. We ask whether monitoring at a group level effectively incentivizes cleaner artisanal mining by combining lower-cost external monitoring with local collective action.

Rationing car use based on license plate number has become a popular policy in several cities around the world to address traffic congestion and air pollution. This paper studies the effects of the moderate and drastic driving restrictions imposed as part of the Pico y Placa program on car use and air pollution in Bogotá. Using data on ambient carbon monoxide, gasoline consumption, and vehicle sales and registrations, no evidence of an improvement in air quality or a reduction in car use is found in either phase of the program.

English Abstract: This document presents the qualitative analysis of complementarities and synergies between the social protection programs Estrategia Unidos and Familias en Acción, and the productive inclusion program, Familias en Su Tierra, all of them designed and implemented in Colombia by Prosperidad Social. This study is part of the “Improving articulation between rural development and social protection programs” project, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Rural poverty, a widespread problem for the Paraguayan government over the last decade – as well as for other economies in the region – , led to the implementation, in 2016 and 2017, of the “Sembrando Oportunidades Familia por Familia” pilot program, an initiative based on the graduation approach to reduce the incidence of extreme poverty in rural areas. Evaluating the intervention results is essential to understand the effectiveness of this approach in reducing poverty in the Paraguayan context, where the government is in charge of its implementation.

El objetivo del presente artículo es proponer una reflexión que contribuya a una mejor y más precisa comprensión de lo que implica la formación en competencias ciudadanas según lo evaluado en las Pruebas Saber. En la primera sección se reflexionará en torno a la función primordial en el orden axiológico político que tienen los valores y los principios constitucionales en la Carta política colombiana. En la segunda, se expondrán los diversos valores y principios constitucionales que deben servir de piso conceptual para el ejercicio pleno de la ciudadanía democrática.

Este artículo estudia cómo la desigualdad afecta la participación de los individuos en organizaciones cívicas, si este efecto persiste con el tiempo y qué mecanismos pueden moldear esta relación. Los resultados muestran que la desigualdad en Colombia está asociada con aumentos en la participación individual en organizaciones políticas, incluido un aumento en la afiliación, asistencia a reuniones y en asumir roles de liderazgo.

English Abstract: This paper studies the legacies of wartime institutions, measured as rebelocracy, on the ability of households to cope with negative income shocks. Rebelocracy is the social order established by non-state armed actors (NSAAs) in the communities they control (Arjona, 2016). By providing public goods and a predictable framework within which to operate, rebelocracy may generate incentives for households to expand production and accumulate wealth, placing them in a higher income trajectory than households living in war zones amid violence and chaos.