CAREER: The Effects of Nature Tourism as a Development Strategy on Poverty and Inequality: The Cases of Namibia and Mozambique

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Persistent poverty and rising inequality are pressing concerns within Sub-Saharan Africa. The relationship between international trade and inequality has come under increased scrutiny as African countries continue to liberalize their economies and adopt export-based growth strategies, mainly focusing on agricultural exports. Despite rapid economic liberalization, however, many African countries have been unable to export themselves out of poverty via the agricultural sector. Governments are looking increasingly to tourism exports as a source of growth. Yet there is little empirical evidence on how nature tourism (wildlife and nature viewing, safari hunting, and fishing) impacts rural development. This CAREER project will examine how nature tourism affects poverty and inequality in Namibia and Mozambique at the regional, community, and household levels, while also accounting for diversity between and within countries. Namibia is considered a pioneer of using community-based nature tourism as a rural development strategy, while Mozambique has more recently embarked on the promotion of nature tourism and community conservancy programs. The researcher will investigate these development strategies in a variety of ways. Quantitative research will be used to examine relationships between nature-based tourism and the quality of life of nearby local populations. For example, the investigator will study whether there is a relationship between households' incomes and their distance from parks. Qualitative research will build on this, and investigate the detailed effects of economic changes on people's lives. The investigator will conduct surveys and interviews with residents in ten communities located near sites of nature tourism, to see how tourism is affecting local livelihoods and the social structures of communities. This project expects to contribute to new knowledge of the benefits and risks associated with the promotion of nature tourism as a development strategy in emerging economies.The proposed study (1) investigates how well economic theories of trade explain the effects of tourism on poverty and inequality in rural regions; (2) assesses the effects of nature tourism on poverty and inequality, while accounting for environmental, economic, and cultural diversity within southern Africa; (3) explicitly investigates how experiences of rural development strategies are influenced by community organization and empowerment; and (4) uses an iterative, mixed methodology--integrating qualitative and quantitative research techniques--to explore the impacts of export-led rural development strategies at the national, regional, and local scales. The study involves close collaboration with the University of Namibia (UNAM) and the Pedagogical University of Mozambique (UP). Students from both universities will gain valuable exposure to social science research, and those from UP--a teachers college--will be able to incorporate this research into K-12 curricula. The results of the study will be made available to UNAM and UP for use in their training modules and classroom instruction. In addition, the results of the analysis will be integrated into the investigator's own future classroom teaching on African economic development.