Foreign aid and remittances augment the income of economies. The present study examines the relationship between economic growth, poverty, inequality, remittances, and foreign aid in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries using panel data methods from 1991 to 2019. The study focuses on the MENA region due to the rise in labor immigration and significant foreign aid. The empirical findings reveal that remittances, foreign aid, and economic growth play a significant role in bringing down the MENA region’s poverty levels. Besides, a rise in income share accruing to the lowest quintile is observed despite the negative income growth, which indicates that on average, the income increased more rapidly of the poor in comparison to the non-poor households. Thus, the study finds evidence supporting the hypothesis that remittances and foreign aid augment per capita income and income share in the MENA member countries.

This article examines the relationship between caste, land ownership and agricultural productivity in India, utilising data from a large-scale survey of farm households. Access to resources like information, technology, inputs, markets, and support institutions are important for sustainable and inclusive growth of agriculture. The results indicate that socially disadvantaged households (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) have lower access to land and also other resources, but they produce more output per unit of land because they are more diversified towards high-value crops that generate more returns and are labour intensive. This calls for policy emphasis on crop diversification in the agricultural sector.

Persistent gender gaps in labor-force participation remain a major barrier to inclusive and sustainable development in low- and middle-income countries. While rising education and declining fertility have expanded women’s economic opportunities, progress has been uneven and often stalled. This paper examines whether the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure can help narrow these disparities. Using an unbalanced panel of 120 countries from 2000 to 2023, we estimate two-way fixed effects models with lagged measures of internet use and mobile subscriptions. The findings show that internet penetration is consistently associated with smaller gender gaps in labor-force participation, driven primarily by increases in female participation, whereas mobile subscriptions, though nearly universal, exhibit no comparable relationship. The association between internet access and gender equality appears broadly linear across adoption levels but is conditional on enabling environments: the gains are strongest in countries with higher female education, while electricity access shows a weaker role at the aggregate level. These results underscore both the promise and limits of digitalization as a pathway toward gender equality. Digital infrastructure alone cannot close gender gaps, but when combined with investments in education and complementary social policies, it can act as a powerful catalyst for women’s economic empowerment and more inclusive labor markets. The study contributes to ongoing debates on sustainable development by identifying digital connectivity as a policy-relevant lever for achieving the sustainable development goals on gender equality, decent work, and reduced inequalities.