No abstract

No abstract

The Corona Virus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with its lasting imprints on health, livelihoods and economies has plunged the world into complete disarray and staged an interregnum to the momentum of United Nations’ Decade of Action. With some discovered vaccines for the causative virus being administered in some regions, the profound uncertainties are now the virus, its trajectory and the possible post-pandemic scenarios thereof that the world or its individual countries will trickle into. It is unclear whether the pandemic provides an imitable opportunity for futuristic sustainable development or it is a prefatory incidence to an otherwise worse tomorrow. These two (most-pessimistic and worst-case) scenarios have a common thread which depicts uncertainty of the future of humanity. Yet, the most optimistic discourses have undermined the negative realities that global communities predict. This study tables an analysis of the possible global post-COVID-19 pandemic scenarios and trickles down to the same in the context of the East African Community (EAC), (Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi and South Sudan). At the very least, encountered reports indicate that global debates on the post-pandemic future are classifiable into (1) the most likely return to “business-as-usual”, (2) a managed transition, or (3) a discernible paradigm shift. For the East African Community, the post-COVID-19 scenarios are poised to be influenced by the new world order reconfiguration; the region’s trajectory to sustainable development in the post-pandemic era is hinged on a solution of a global nature that favors making long-term decisions. Otherwise, the region’s scenario is likely the ‘‘business-as-usual’’ one.

Sustainable development is one of the ubiquitous paradigms of this century. Poverty, biodiversity loss and climate change are some of the obstacles to achieving sustainable development. To mitigate these encumbrances, countries have painstakingly adopted various policies and interventions. Public work programs, one of the initiatives targeting the construction of strong social safety nets through redistribution of wealth and generation of meaningful employment are increasingly being launched in developing countries. This paper is an attempt to examine the effects of phased implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) on the rejuvenation and restoration of community forests in India. Searches performed in multidisciplinary electronic databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, PubMed, Emerald Insight, Google Scholar, Taylor and Francis Online, Wiley Online Library, and Springer Link) indicated that MGREGS is one of the largest labor guarantee schemes ever recorded in India and globally, and has holistically contributed to reforestation and afforestation through its land development themes to reduce vulnerability of rural communities to recurrent droughts, floods and improve soil moisture and fertility. It is evident that MGNREGS in synergy with the government forest development programs have the potential to promote social afforestation, reforestation and biodiversity conservation as witnessed in the Sundarbans. These have the potential to empower local people through creation of income generating activities and provision of local forest goods and services. However, the creation of forests as rural assets necessitates that emphasis should be laid on their maintenance so as to ensure that they are given their due importance for sustainable and long-term benefit of the poor rural households. This study highlights the need to perform a comprehensive assessment of forest assets that has been established through MNREGS across states in India.