This paper explores the nature and role of non-farm employment, access to urban markets and migration in the livelihoods of the residents of two villages in Vietnam’s Red River delta. The case study province, Ha Nam, presents many of the challenges that the region and the nation will need to address in the near future. With growing population density and land scarcity, poverty reduction and local economic growth will increasingly depend on the development of non-farm employment in the micro-enterprise sector and on increased productivity and access to markets for agriculture. At the same time, migration (especially temporary movement) and remittances will continue to play a key role in the province’s economic, social and cultural transformations.

In this edition, articles include:City-wide upgrading in Thailand; Finance for low-income housing in Central America; The framework for slum upgrading in Mumbai, India; Housing and citizenship in Sao Paulo, Brazil; A Church’s contribution to land redistribution in South Africa; The growing problem of forced evictions worldwide; A twin-track approach to improving the lives of slum dwellers; State and civil society in a Havana barrio, Cuba; Environmental management in Chiang Mai, Thailand; Water and sanitation in Moreno, Buenos Aires; Pro-poor governance in Bangalore’s public water sector.

Many of the most intense pollution and resource pressures originate in urban centres, and have their major impacts on the surrounding regions. Peri-urban zones are often far more environmentally unstable than either urban or rural settings. Rural–urban burdens can be especially difficult to accommodate within existing administrative systems/boundaries, particularly in countries where public authorities face severe financial difficulties. This paper provides a policy-oriented review of those environmental burdens in low-and middle-income countries that cross rural–urban boundaries but are not national or global in scale.

The three publications and DVD Film on Women, Energy and Water in the Himalayas – Policy Guidelines, Project Learning, and Training of Trainers Manual – encapsulate the experiences and lessons learned from a recent UNEP/ICIMOD project on ‘Incorporating the Needs and Roles of Women in Water and Energy Management in Rural Areas in South Asia’ supported by SIDA and carried out by local partners in selected sites in Bhutan, India, and Nepal.

This paper presents the findings of a study of the impact of Guinean pastoral legislation carried out on behalf of IIED as part of its sub-regional “Making Decentralisation Work” programme. Experience in Guinea shows that grassroots ownership of the pastoral legislation is essential if it is to be applied effectively. In order to meet this challenge herders’ organisations need to be more aware of and engage with the issues involved in natural resource management and ongoing processes of decentralisation. The evaluation of the experience in Guinea indicates that formulating legislation or translating it into national languages is not enough to ensure its dissemination and appropriation by local communities.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) commit the international community to an expanded vision of poverty reduction and pro-poor growth, one that vigorously places human development at the centre of social and economic progress in all countries.

This paper traces the history of Scotland’s once extensive and diverse forms of common land. It provides an insight into why very littleof this common land is still in existence today. It shows how powerful landed interests were able to appropriate the bulk of these lands into their own substantial land holdings by the early nineteenth century. A description of surviving common lands is provided together with a brief insight into current management arrangements and a summary of the key lessons from the Scottish experience. In the concluding part of the paper, a brief overview is given of the new patterns of community ownership which are now emerging and the new legislative and financial instruments that are being developed to assist this process. A set of references and internet websites are provided for those wishing to further explore the topic.