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Rural resilience and the role of social capital among farmers in Kirundo province, Northern Burundi
121-125Views:138In Burundi, more than 90% of the active population is engaged in family agriculture, which plays a vital role in food production and constitutes more than 50% of the GDP. Before the civil war of 1993, Kirundo was deemed the “breadbasket of the country”, as the region fed many parts of Burundi through growing particular foods such as legumes and cereals. Family farming was market-oriented. Kirundo alone includes 8 lakes which offer opportunities for field irrigation. Today, this region is the first province in Burundi which shows a high rate of malnutrition, as poverty has increased and a sharp 53.9 % decline in agricultural production has been witnessed between 1996 and 2009. The aim of this article is to analyse the role of social capital through the local association network in improving family agriculture and the resilience to climate change and conflict crisis. In this study, 73 farmers were surveyed in Kirundo province through means of a questionnaire, and the study was completed by collecting secondary data. Analysis of the data reveals that, despite recurrent droughts in that region which caused deaths due to famines and displacement of people to neighbouring countries such as Rwanda and Tanzania, 44% of the farmers who were surveyed were shown to have resilience to climate change. The analysis of data shows that these farmers were members of well organised local associations, and had learned about specific topics such as financial management, processing and storage of agricultural products and livestock. The social capital network positively influences their income and their resilience to climate change and conflict crisis.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE CORPORATE SECTOR
Views:77Humanity has made huge progress over the past millennia. We are working with technologies, robots that not only help us to work accurately, efficiently and quickly, but they work in a similar way to the human brain: they perceive, think, learn and solve problems.
In my research, I will focus on artificial intelligence, which is becoming more and more popular nowadays, looking at its past, present and future, its main trends in the corporate sector, and how it threatens people's job opportunities.
At the same time, one of my research objectives is to investigate how much the development of a country is related to the uptake of AI in the European Union, which I will test with correlation analysis, taking into account indicators of artificial intelligence penetration in the corporate sector from one side and the various AI indicators such as digital penetration, internet usage, computer culture, and economic indicators as GDP per capita from the other side.
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The role of education, knowledge and human resources for the agricultural development in the perspective of new cap: an hypothesis of change in Basilicata
123-129Views:132The role of education, knowledge and human resources in the agribusiness becomes of primary importance for the development of agricultural sector and, more generally, of the territory. The main objective of the present paper is to verify the role of investment in human resources and, consequently, in services for the agricultural development for the dynamics of rural development, trade and international cooperation of agribusiness.After a literature review, the paper firstly analyses the characteristics of the Italian Region of Basilicata, selected for our empirical application, and secondly develops an econometric model to explain the relationship between the rural GDP and a set of economic variables and of network-education-social (NES) dummy variable. These NES is representative of social, educational and, network factors, describing the degree of openness of the region firm. As expected, the results show that farmers may act as engines for economic development when they are trained on the basis of the needs and requirements related to innovation and research, and they are assisted through new models of organization of agricultural services.
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Using DEA to evaluate efficiency of higher education
79-82Views:534The aim of the higher education reform process both in Hungary and in the European countries is establishing a competitive, qualitative higher education with efficiently operating institutions. The question of efficiency needs increased attention not only because of the decline of the state support but also the rapid raise of the student mass. In the educationsystemit’snot easy to measurethe output of the services.The situation is more complicated if an organisation or a sector has multiple inputs and outputs. In this case a possible method of determining efficiency is Data Envelopment Analysis. In my paper I’d like to introduce this method and use it to compare the efficiency of higher education systems. urthermore I am examining whether their efficiency is influenced by the extent of the contribution of the state and the private sector or socio-economic factors like GDP per capita and education level of parents.
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Recent trends in the Croatian agricultural business sector
109-113Views:114The purpose of this paper is to explore recent trends in the Croatian agriculture and forestry business sector and compare it with the Croatian economy as a whole. This topic is considered interesting because recent business years have been heavily influenced by the global financial crisis. Many authors would say that agriculture, as a specific branch of the economy, does not follow general trends, but is affected rather by other factors, especially such as environmental ones. The global financial crisis had the most negative impact on the Croatian economy in the 2008/2009 period, when the GDP growth rate tumbled from 2.4% to -5.8%. Although some positive movements have been recorded since 2009, a recession is still going on. Based on information from the National Financial Agency (FINA) database we found that during the period 2007-2011, agricultural firms experienced the same trends as the whole economy, except in terms of average monthly salaries and employment. However, due to the impact of / on? agricultural products prices and yields, in two year period from 2008 to 2010, agricultural firms recorded an almost linear fall in revenues, while the national business sector on the whole experienced a sharp fall in revenues in 2009 and then only a modest fall in 2010.
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How economic recession effect the corporate philanthropy? Evidence from Pakistani corporate sector
89-95Views:160Corporate philanthropy is a significant indicator of firm’s socially responsible behavior. Researchers and managers acknowledge the immense potential of corporate philanthropy for optimizing social and economic benefits. Aligned with this view corporate sector in Pakistan is engaged in philanthropic initiatives in some form or another. This paper aims to present the response of the Pakistani corporate sector to the corporate philanthropy at the time of global economic recession 2008-2009 by analyzing the sample of Public Listed Companies (PLCs). The analysis revealed that during the global financial crisis, the economic condition of Pakistan was worsened that was already in distress, but it hasn’t strongly effected the corporate philanthropy as the data shows a slight decrease in the overall volume of corporate donations in 2007 and a slight decrease in the number of companies engaged in philanthropy during 2008. The finding of the study suggests that during the global economic downturn the PLCs in Pakistan continued to show commitment towards community through corporate donations.
JEL code: B22
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New rural economy: Challenges and diversity in Eastern Croatia
51-54Views:135Eastern part of Croatia is agricultural region according to natural resource (fertile soil, first of all), as well as human potential (long experience in traditional agriculture). Besides agriculture as traditional activity, a characteristic of rurality is also added to this region. Rural area is dominant in Eastern Croatia and it effects on relatively small urban areas. This paper represents new possibilities of rural economic activities on family farms in Eastern Croatia. Role and significant of rural economic activities is analyzed through indicators overview (land structure, GDP, population, population density, TEA index, unemployment ect.). Challenges through diversification of rural economic activities in this paper includes added economic activities realized on family farms through tourism, crafts, handy work, processing, renewable energyetc. Added economic activities on family farms in Eastern Croatia participate with only 3.9%. Suggestions and possibilities measures of rural economic activities diversification are reflected through two main streams. First stream is diversification of activities through added value of agricultural products as vertical connection (organic food, autochthony products, functional food, renewable energy sources etc.). Other one economic activity diversification indicates distribution function of final products through different services on the family farm (direct sale, specialized shops, rural tourism and many other services).
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