Rural livelihoods sustainability in South Asia and Africa: a systematic review with bibliometric analysis

The study explored rural livelihood sustainability in South Asia and Africa through a bibliometric analysis and systematic review approach. The purpose of the study was to identify the trend of scholarly discourse, the dominant themes that have attracted scholarly interest over the past decade, and to shed light on the emerging opportunities for enhancing rural livelihood sustainability. The study carefully selected 139 articles sourced from Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and other institutional websites. Our findings revealed noticeable growth in scholarly output over the past decade and identified some scholars with noteworthy contributions. Notably, it was found that the impact of climate change, drought, poverty, and food security on rural livelihoods has largely dominated the scholarly investigations over the period. However, the potentials of pyrolis, biochar, and dryland forestry for rural livelihood sustainability were found to be underexplored. In light of these insights, we recommend the scholarly community develop much interest in less explored areas that equally hold great potential for enhancing rural livelihoods. We also recommend that rural livelihood programming by policymakers must seek the integration of indigenous knowledge and be tailored to strengthen the resilience of rural households against the perils of climate change and weather variability.