Orientation: There is growing interest in how international climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes play out at the local level. Research purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the link between land restoration and carbon sequestration projects in the Eastern Cape, using Portulacaria afra (Spekboom), and market-based approaches to address global climate change. Motivation for the study: The Eastern Cape is one of the poorest areas of the country, and there is great emphasis on the establishment of economically and environmentally sustainable, as well as socially just, local economic development (LED) initiatives. However, LED projects are often not sustainable in the long run. Research design, approach and method: A mixed methods design, using data on international carbon markets, and key stakeholder interviews with those involved in LED land restoration programmes, was used. Qualitative results were analysed using Connelly’s (2007) framework for sustainable development, which included indicators for environmental protection, economic growth and social justice. Main findings: Stakeholders perceive the long-term financial sustainability of such projects as resting on their ability to earn carbon credits, despite the current very low international carbon prices. Practical/managerial implications: The long-term success of carbon-based restoration projects may depend on the establishment of a local carbon market or continued public funding. Upfront costs of land restoration projects are high and return only starts years later. Contribution/value-add: The establishment of a South African carbon market that helps carbon sequestration LED projects to meet the technical and administrative requirements needed to sell carbon credits will be an important determinant of their sustainability.

The present paper argues that the capability approach of Amartya Sen provides a meaningful contribution in understanding, evaluating and improving the well-being effects of local development projects. It focuses on what people can actually achieve, instead of what they have; and places equal attention to the process and the outcomes of the development process. The paper develops an analytical framework to evaluate local development projects, which is fine-tuned for middle and high income settings and allows comparison between cases. The framework is applied to three local development projects in a middlesized city in Hungary. We found that the rich informational basis of the capability-based perspective helps to identify the places for intervention: the barriers, which prevent people from actually using the newly created means (the results of the development projects), and the valued options of citizens either unaddressed or neglected by the development projects.

The Pacific island countries (PICs) have benefited from the growth in Asia and the Pacific in the last 2 decades by integrating their economies within Asia and loosening ties with the Americas in some instances. Several bottlenecks however, still hamper sustainable economic growth in the region. For instance, Papua New Guinea (PNG) (with 7.6 million people), Fiji (with 850,000 people), and Solomon Islands (with 611,500 people) together account for about 90% of the population of all 15 PICs while 6 other PICs have populations of less than 20,000), discounting the economies of scale in the PICs as industrialization remains minimal. High transportation and raw material costs also make entrepreneurship difficult to sustain, leaving the islanders to survive at subsistence levels with family, clan, and community ties providing the social safety net. To foster sustainable economic growth therefore, the PICs need to invest in niche markets, upgrade their transport infrastructure, improve access to trade and invest in environmentally sustainable industries.

Economic growth among the Pacific island countries (PICs) has lagged most peer groups for more than a decade. This chapter provides an overview of the policy issues and challenges faced by these countries, and discusses the factors that have contributed to the low rates of economic growth in the region. It seeks to identify policies that could help raise growth performance in a way that is both inclusive and sustainable. The countries examined are Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. All are IMF members.

The picture that emerges is that the below-par growth performance of PICs can be partly explained by the region’s unique characteristics. But policies also matter.