Articles authored by Dixon, John

While rural poverty is endemic in the Andean region, structural adjustment programmes have led to a dismemberment of agricultural research and extension services so that they are unable to serve the needs of smallholder farmers. The NGO Practical Action has been working in the Andes to address farmers' veterinary and agriculture needs. The work has included the training of farmer-to-farmer extension agents, known locally as Kamayoq.

Participatory research approaches are increasingly popular with scientists working for poverty alleviation, sustainable rural development, and social change. This introduction offers an overview of the special issue of Development in Practice journal on the theme of 'operationalising participatory research and gender analysis'. The purpose of the special issue is to add value to the discussion of methodological, practical, philosophical, political, and institutional issues involved in using gender-sensitive participatory methods.

This article reports on an ex-ante impact study in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia. The study, guided by a livelihoods approach, developed a spatial-mapping methodology based on secondary data for 18 variables which served as indicators of the five livelihood classes of assets (natural, physical, financial, social, and human). The overall livelihood-asset index showed a significant and strong negative correlation (R = –0.65, P = 0.00) with the national poverty line, with poverty peaking in districts where the assets base was lowest, and vice versa.