This study addresses the impact of the tourism sector on poverty, poverty depth, and poverty severity in Indonesia, focusing on the micro-level dynamics in the province. Despite numerous tourism destinations, their strategic contribution to regional progress remains underexplored. The motivation stems from the need to comprehend the nuanced relationship between tourism and poverty at both the national and local levels, with specific attention to the untapped potential at the province level in Indonesia. We hypothesize that a higher tourism sector GRDP will be inversely correlated with poverty levels, and the inclusion of a Covid-19 variable will reveal a structural impact on poverty dynamics. Employing a Panel Regression Model, secondary data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) spanning 2011–2020 is utilized. A panel data regression equation model, including CEM, FEM, and REM, is employed to analyze the intricate relationship between tourism and poverty. The findings demonstrate a negative correlation between higher tourism sector GRDP and the number of poor people. The Covid-19 variable, considered a structural break, reveals a significant association between increased cases and elevated poverty and severity across Indonesian provinces. This study contributes a micro-level analysis of tourism’s role, emphasizing its impact at the provincial level. The findings underscore the need for strategic initiatives to harness the untapped potential of tourism in alleviating poverty and promoting regional progress.

The livelihood of ethnic minority households in Vietnam is mainly in the fields of agriculture and forestry. The percentage of ethnic minorities who have jobs in industry, construction, and services is still limited. Moreover, due to harsh climate conditions, limited resources, poor market access, low education level, lack of investment capital for production, and inadequate policies, job opportunities in the off-farm and non-farm activities are very limited among ethnic minority areas. This paper assessed the contribution of livelihood diversification activities to poverty reduction of ethnic minority households in Son La Province of Vietnam. The analysis was based on the data using three stages sampling procedure of 240 ethnic minority households in Son La Province. The finding showed that the livelihood diversification activities had positively significant contribution to poverty reduction of ethnic minority households in Son La Province. In addition, the factors positively affecting the livelihood choices of ethnic minority households in Son La Province of Vietnam are education level, labor size, access to credit, membership of associations, support policies, vocational training, and district. Thus, improving ethnic minority householder’s knowledge through formal educational and training, expanding availability of accessible infrastructure, and enhancing participation of social/political associations were recommended as possible policy interventions to diversify livelihood activities so as to mitigate the level of poverty in the study area.

The young Muslim generation’s embracing digital platforms for Zakat payments represents a dynamic fusion of enduring religious values with the modern digital landscape, heralding a new era in Islamic charitable practices. This trend illustrates a profound transformation within the Islamic world, where the pillars of faith are being reimagined and revitalized through the lens of technological advancement. The present study delved into the factors influencing the young Muslim generation’s preference for digital platforms in Zakat transactions across Indonesia and Malaysia. We examined variables such as Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Influence, Trust, Zakat Literacy, and Digital Infrastructure, aiming to discern their impact on the propensity for digital Zakat contributions with the extension of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. The research encompassed a diverse sample of 382 participants and utilized advanced methodologies, specifically Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and PLS Multi Group Analysis (PLS-MGA), for rigorous data analysis. The results indicated that Effort Expectancy, Social Influence, Digital Infrastructure, and Zakat Literacy notably influenced the use of digital platforms for Zakat. Furthermore, PLS-MGA uncovered significant cross-country differences where Digital Infrastructure showed a more pronounced positive impact in Malaysian context, whereas Social Influence had a greater effect in Indonesia. These findings offer critical insights into the young Muslim community’s digital engagement for religious financial obligations, underscoring the need for tailored digital Zakat solutions that cater to the unique preferences of this demographic. This research not only enriches the understanding of digital adoption in religious practices but also challenges the notion of a universal approach, advocating for context-specific strategies in the realm of digital religious financial services. Future researchers are suggested to consider longitudinal investigations as well as examining cross-regional contexts in this realm of research.

Compared with their fellow citizens in the city, rural residents are more likely to be affected by ecological restoration programs and policies. Yet no one has conducted a large-scale study of how ecological conservation impacts rural livelihoods and the economic status of rural households, especially in China. To fill that knowledge gap, I collected and analyzed relevant data from 2007 to 2018 for western and eastern China. I found that the relationship between western China’s green coverage rate and rural income followed an inverted U curve whereas that between its green coverage rate and urban-rural income gap was instead U-shaped, suggesting that ecological restoration has come to eventually negatively impact the economic welfare of rural residents in western China; however, the complete opposite was found in eastern China. Greater urbanization, financial support, and infrastructure such as education, medical, and Internet services would help to improve the current situation in western China. This suggests the government should take actions—such as improving the quality of farmer training to the rural residents and improving infrastructure construction—to help farmers acquire a new source of income and narrow the urban-rural income gap in parallel to implementing ecological restoration projects.

Poverty is a key challenge to socioeconomic development globally. However, the degree to which distance from a market contributes to poverty remains unclear. To provide insights into this relationship, we quantified the relationships between distance from markets and the per capita income of rural and urban people in China based on data from 29 provinces and 2651 counties. Our results illustrate the existence of a “geographical curse”; that is, a large separation between producers and consumers can exacerbate poverty for less-affluent rural residents, who pay a larger proportion of their income to send their products to market and to purchase goods from those markets. Programs to alleviate poverty should therefore consider seeking solutions associated with reducing the impact of that distance, such as subsidizing the transport of goods, improving the transportation infrastructure, supporting innovative business practices, and balancing the locations of producers and their markets.