'Even though people are supposedly earning most of their income through agriculture, many in fact are away for part of the year in different occupations.'

'Playing a word association game with ‘rural India' typically generates images of ‘tradition', ‘poverty', ‘caste hierarchy' and ‘stagnation'. Such associations remain partly valid, but things are changing.'

• Growth in agriculture is essential, and growth in the rural non-farm economy is especially important.
• Job prospects improve as education, skills, health and early nutrition levels rise.
• Rural-urban migration (whether temporary or permanent) opens new opportunities and also helps tighten rural labour markets.
• With rising productivity and wages, it becomes easier to push for better labour standards, to end to child labour and correct gender inequalities.

Internal migration could contribute significantly to the reduction of poverty in Asia. However, new policies must be implemented to secure the status of the migrant workers and ensure benefits are distributed evenly.

Discusses the far-reaching policy implications of the increasing mobility of people.

Population mobility within poor countries has increased worldwide as better roads and communication networks offer people employment opportunities in distant locations..... Yet official statistics continue to overlook this phenomenon and governments remain reluctant to support people on the move.

This paper reflects on the interface between local government and local people in two Indian States: Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Madhya Pradesh (MP). Drawing upon 12 months of primary research, it argues that although the Government of AP has not devolved power to the extent that proponents of decentralisation would have liked, its populist approach to certain forms of poverty reduction has empowered the poor in ways that the more ambitious decentralisation agenda in MP has not.

This paper reflects on the shortcomings of the Food for Work (FFW) programme in Andhra Pradesh to provide employment to drought-affected poor people. It shows how design faults, administrative mismanagement and local politics created conditions that were conducive to the large-scale misappropriation of resources meant for the poor.

Migrant and diaspora remittances flowed generously immediately after the tsunami once again demonstrating the counter cyclical nature of remittances.... But the damage to infrastructure as well as the loss of documents meant that many affected families could not access remittances sent through that route.

Provides an assessment of migration and remittance patterns in six districts of Bihar covered under the World Bank funded Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project and the IFAD funded Women's Empowerment and Livelihoods Project in the mid-Gangetic Plain with a view to identifying practical steps that can be taken by the two projects to maximise the benefits and minimise the negative impacts of migration.

Book being published by the International Water Management Institute, Colombo. This paper synthesises the available evidence to show that the relationship between migration and Watershed Development (WSD) programmes is complex and depends on a variety of factors ranging from rural-urban wage differences, personal aspirations and education levels. It argues that more empirical research is urgently needed in this area. The paper concludes that policy makers should be prepared to face increasing migration levels and embrace accumulative migration as a valid livelihood strategy that can be combined with WSD efforts to create win-win situations for the poor and overall economic development.

Report looking at the new drivers of internal migration.

Assisting planning for the next phase of the Madhya Pradesh project (from 2007-2013).

Study looking at migration rates among the rich and the poor and the importance of remittances from temporary migrants.

Project tracking changes in migration patterns within rapidly changing contexts.