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

持续的贫困和日益加剧的不平等是撒哈拉以南非洲地区的紧迫问题。随着非洲国家继续使其经济自由化并采取以出口为基础的增长战略，主要侧重于农业出口，国际贸易与不平等之间的关系受到越来越多的审查。然而，尽管经济迅速自由化，许多非洲国家仍无法通过农业部门摆脱贫困。各国政府正越来越多地将旅游出口视为经济增长的一个来源。然而，关于自然旅游（野生动物和自然观赏、狩猎和捕鱼）如何影响农村发展的实证证据很少。这个CAREER项目将研究自然旅游如何影响纳米比亚和莫桑比克的地区、社区和家庭层面的贫困和不平等，同时也考虑到国家之间和国家内部的多样性。纳米比亚被认为是将以社区为基础的自然旅游作为农村发展战略的先驱，而莫桑比克最近开始推动自然旅游和社区保护计划。研究人员将以多种方式调查这些发展策略。定量研究将用于检查以自然为基础的旅游与附近当地居民生活质量之间的关系。例如，调查人员将研究家庭收入与其与公园的距离之间是否存在关系。定性研究将以此为基础，调查经济变化对人们生活的详细影响。调查人员将对自然旅游点附近的10个社区的居民进行调查和访谈，以了解旅游业如何影响当地的生计和社区的社会结构。本项目希望有助于对新兴经济体将促进自然旅游作为一种发展战略所带来的利益和风险有新的认识。拟议的研究(1)调查了贸易的经济理论如何很好地解释了旅游业对农村地区贫困和不平等的影响；(2)评估自然旅游对贫困和不平等的影响，同时考虑到南部非洲的环境、经济和文化多样性；(3)明确研究农村发展战略的经验如何受到社区组织和赋权的影响；(4)采用一种迭代的混合方法——整合定性和定量研究技术——探索出口导向型农村发展战略在国家、区域和地方层面的影响。这项研究涉及与纳米比亚大学（UNAM）和莫桑比克师范大学（UP）密切合作。两所大学的学生将获得宝贵的社会科学研究机会，而北方邦师范学院的学生将能够将这一研究纳入K-12课程。这项研究的结果将提供给UNAM和UP，供其培训单元和课堂教学使用。此外，分析结果将被整合到研究者自己未来关于非洲经济发展的课堂教学中。

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.