Environmental Economics in Developing Countries: Issues and Challenges

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of socio-economic systems globally and exposed the risks that natural capital degradation imposes on human health, economy, and society. This book studies the environmental challenges faced by developing economies in a post-COVID-19 world.

Exploring diverse case studies from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the volume discusses the impact that economic development and, recently, COVID-19 has had on the environment, ecology, and economy of these regions. It analyses nature conservation policies aimed at minimizing ecological damage arising from economic development and discusses the policy objectives of sustainable development. It also highlights the significant role that environmental economics networks have played in capacity building, framing of policies using ecological economics tools, and developing a local leadership trained in addressing local sustainability issues.

An important contribution to the study of environmental economics of the Global South, the book will be of interest to students and researchers of economics, environment, development studies, development economics, environmental policies, and South Asia studies. It will also be useful for policymakers and NGOs working in this field.

Achiransu Acharyya is Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Visva-Bharati (A Central University) situated in Santiniketan, West Bengal, India. Previously he has taught at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad and St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata. His areas of teaching and research are mainly in Natural resource and Environmental Economics, Agricultural Economics and Economics of Water Resources. For the past several years, he has been working on areas involving property rights and ownership of land and water, the economics of groundwater resources in agriculture, the use of energy for agriculture and sustainable development. He has got several national and international publications in journals and books to his credit. He has done several national and international research projects related to agriculture, the environment, and sustainable development. He visited the University of Oregon, USA, on a Teaching cum Research Fellowship. He has also visited the University of Nijmegen in The Netherlands as a Visiting Scholar. He has received various awards for his research, including the Third Prize in the James D. Wolfensohn Essay Competition sponsored by The World Bank, Washington D.C., and the Dr. N.A. Mujumdar Prize awarded by the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics. He is the Chief Editor of a water related journal titled Indian Groundwater. He is also an Associate Editor of a reputed Bengali social science journal titled Anustup.