Development non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are under immense pressure to adhere to the programs and methods put forth by external donors, particularly if the NGOs rely on the funding to sustain their own organizations. Those external donors that represent neoliberal ideologies and enforce neoliberal practices, particularly in the area of microfinance, maintain a power that most recipient NGOs cannot evade. This becomes a difficult position for the NGOs to navigate as they try to accomplish good work in their communities. This research project is a study into the experience of one NGO, the Egyptian Development Organization (EDO), as it implemented microfinance programs in rural Egypt. The study revealed that EDO maintained an overall, structural orientation towards foreign donors and audiences, and employed discourses that appealed to neoliberal ideologies and practices. For the NGO, this orientation went beyond an accommodating lip-service and resulted in the institutionalization of demand-driven microfinance. Additionally, through decentralization EDO transferred risks and responsibilities to a more local level, and required the infusion of neoliberal ideologies into the practices and actions of microfinance borrowers even before their loans were disbursed. This thesis argues that a point of disjuncture occurs as the context of neoliberalism, specifically the aims of material accumulation through the mechanism of microfinance, meets the program participants practices of the development and preservation of social and human capital. This study found that microfinance program participants are both accepting and reproducing the rhetoric, often in ways that defy their own experiences within it. Their high rates of participation in microfinance, as evidenced by repeated and multiple loans, are pronounced considering that few have achieved the increased economic and financial gains promised by neoliberalism and microfinance. By conceptually conflating financial and non-financial capital gains, loan recipients were able to go beyond tolerating rhetoric that does not come to fruition, and justify continuous participation in the program. By perceiving investments into non-financial gains as valuable, the participants altered their livelihood strategies new ways that may or may not secure against vulnerabilities in the long run.

This dissertation uses a livelihood analysis approach to examine the potential role of tourism as a strategy for poverty reduction. While many studies have examined the role of tourism in economic and local area development in developing countries, this research focuses on understanding the impact of tourism upon the livelihoods of poor people, in this case Narok in Kenya. The thesis first reviews the theoretical explanations and definitions of poverty within the discourse of development studies. The key argument of the thesis is that the continued macro economic focus for tourism development in developing countries is inappropriate for targeting poverty. The macro economic discourse assumes that the benefits of economic growth from tourism will trickle down through a series of economic multiplier processes to 'poorer' sections of the population. Yet, this research shows that poor people have different definitions of poverty from those that are conventionally used in macroeconomics. Poor people's definitions are based upon their own local circumstances of making a livelihood. It is argued that it is therefore necessary to understand the term 'poverty' as defined by the 'poor' in order to produce tourism strategies that are 'pro poor'. Using multiple methods and narratives of poverty experiences in the Narok District of Kenya, the study investigates the local perceptions of poverty amongst poor people that participate in tourism livelihood activities. Using a livelihood analysis, the study examines the economic, social and political factors that affect how poor are able to access and use tourism in their livelihoods. Subsequently, recommendations are made on the institutional structures that would enhance the livelihood opportunities for poor people in Narok. The research concludes that for tourism to maximize its contribution to poverty reduction, various policy and institutional adjustments are necessary in order to shift the economic benefits of tourism towards poor people. Such changes would not only secure the livelihoods of those already involved in tourism, but also expand the potential for poor people who are currently excluded from economic participation in tourism.

Vast progress has been made in detecting rates of tropical deforestation, yet the relationship between visible patterns of forest change, multi-scalar human processes and the underlying drivers associated with them is poorly understood. Building on satellite imagery, a household livelihood survey and semi-structured interviews, this research scrutinised changes of forest cover from the mid-1990s to 2015 in a municipality located in southeastern Mexico and investigated the proximate causes and underlying drivers of change at the household and community levels. Emerging evidence indicated that, contrary to the persistent narrative of deforestation for the region, forest cover change is highly dynamic including periods of deforestation and forest recovery. Moreover, a close examination of 24 communities showed forest cover gained terrain, while the agricultural frontier retracted. Drawing on a comparison between the household survey and previous analyses, it could be inferred that forest resurgence was produced by the decrease in the farming area and the increase in the abandonment of farming activities by some communities. Associated with the adaptation of households was the development of formal and informal institutions at the community level in response to macro-global forces linked to the implementation of forest conservation strategies, environmental degradation, market liberalization and increased urbanization. Overall, this research adds not only to our understanding of the complexity of land-use and cover change in emerging globalized economies but also exemplifies the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of tropical forest systems, which challenges partial models of deforestation and policies designed to reduce it. The research may be focused on a narrow region of the globe, nevertheless, the insights and recommendation provided may be useful to further forest conservation schemes in other tropical regions.

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