37 pages., Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic is the most recent example that global development problems can occur anywhere, rebutting the assumption of a world divided into developed and developing countries. Recent scholarship has coined the term “global development” to capture this changing geography of development problems.
Purpose
Our article contributes to these debates by proposing a novel empirical approach to localize global development problems in country contexts worldwide.
Methods and approach
Our approach rests on a universal understanding of “development.” We identify countries that are particularly relevant for global problem-solving and consider not only the problem dimension but also countries’ capacities to address these problems.
Findings
Our results show that countries with the most severe combinations of problems are as diverse as Afghanistan, Nigeria and the United States. Two thirds of countries with above-average contributions to global problems are authoritarian regimes. We also find that middle-income countries have hardly anything in common apart from their income level.
Policy implications
Our analysis shows that traditional development concepts of a binary world order and of foreign aid as financial transfer to remedy imbalances are not enough to address constellations of global problems and capacity that have long evolved beyond rich and poor.
20 pages., Agricultural extension and advisory services in information and technology dissemination and delivery are critical in a
developing country’s food security and sustainability. Without extension service provision, the productivity and
production smallholder farmers are experiencing would have been much lower, and current global hunger and
malnutrition worse. This paper assesses the effects of COVID-19 on the sustainability of agricultural extension
models/approaches for smallholder farmers in developing countries. Over 60 papers were reviewed covering 2019-2021,
commencing with the disease outbreak in China. Based on characteristics and usage, the findings indicate most reviewed
extension models were disrupted. No single model was entirely disbanded as the impact of COVID-19 was being felt.
However, each model incorporated a digital means of communication to keep farmers and service providers in touch.
There is considerable criticism around the inadequacy of these extension techniques in advancing the agenda for
smallholder farming’s long-term viability that needs to be addressed