Access to Productive Assets and Impact on Household Welfare in Rural Uganda

Improvements in household wealth and welfare play vital roles in sustainable development. Sustainable development occurs when households are able to secure a level of well-being that enables them to cope with and recover from shocks, and does not decline over time. The recent recommendations from the World Bank emphasize the importance of natural and human resources as key instruments to guide policies for sustainable development. And whilst sustainable development is expected to enhance basic aspirations of social progress, economic development and ecological integrity, the prevailing empirical evidence about the impact of access to the natural and human resources on household welfare in developing countries is to a large extent equivocal and mixed. Equitable growth in household access to and investment of savings in natural and human resources can be imperative for sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction.