Outcome Evaluation of the work of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) on soil and water management in Ethiopia

In 2019, the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) Leadership chose to evaluate WLE’s work in Ethiopia as one of its countries where it has had most success. The objectives of the evaluation are: To determine how and in what ways WLE contributed to the achievement of intended/unintended outcomes; Based on the findings of the evaluation, make recommendations of how WLE (and its partners) can become more effective in supporting soil and water management in Ethiopia; To serve as a participatory learning experience for WLE and its partners. This report describes the evaluation process, findings, conclusions and recommendations

Seeking togetherness: moving toward a comparative evaluation framework in an interdisciplinary DIY networking project

There is renewed interest in community networks as a mechanism for local neighbourhoods to find their voice and maintain local ownership of knowledge. In a post-Snowden, big data, age of austerity there is both widespread questioning of what happens to public generated data shared over ‘free’ services such as Facebook, and also a renewed focus on self-provisioning where there are gaps in digital service provision. In this paper we introduce an EU funded collaborative project (‘MAZI’) that is exploring how Do-It-Yourself approaches to building community networks might foster social cohesion, knowledge sharing and sustainable living through four pilots across Europe. A key challenge is to develop a shared evaluation approach that will allow us to make sense of what we are learning across highly diverse local situations and disciplinary approaches. In this paper we describe our initial approaches and the challenges we face

ALIGNING DESIGN AND THE SOCIAL INNOVATION APPROACH

Based upon the experience of research and applications in social innovation, this article seeks to present, relate, and discuss experiments carried out in conjunction with social entrepreneurs, traditional communities, and the mariculture sector in Santa Catarina, Brazil. This study was carried out at the Design Management Nucleus of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, integrated with the graduate program in Design. Based upon the phenomenological method, which concerns itself with direct descriptions of experiences, and support from the theoretical references within this theme, it was possible to better comprehend the contribution of design in social innovation through a qualitative approach, exemplified in the three cases described above. Complementary to this, the use of direct observation techniques, interviews, accompanying activities, as well as photographic and video registries permitted a detailed description of each situation considered, which was represented by an individual in the case of social entrepreneurs who presented the action of reutilizing vegetable oil as fuel for maritime vehicles, as soap, and organic fertilizer. The traditional communities were represented by the Taboa action, which reunites a group of women located in Guarda do Embaú, SC, Brazil. The mariculture sector was represented with an association of mariculturers from the south of “Santa Catarina Island” (Ilha de Santa Catarina) called Amprosul, composed of 27 members. Social innovation may be defined as changes in the manner in which individuals or a community act in order to resolve its problems or create new opportunities. In this sense, design presents itself with an important role with respect to sustainability with its ability to design alternative solutions to be applied to a sustainable future. This is fortified further with the consideration that one of the auxiliary principles of design is to improve the quality of life of people and to promote well-being. Others are to look at social innovation, identify promising cases, utilize sensibility, capacity, and the abilities of the designer in order to design various artifacts, and to indicate new directions in technical innovation. The results of this study permit us to visualize design’s contribution in social innovation, referring as much to social processes of innovation as social interest innovation

Approaches to the embedding of sustainability into the engineering curriculum - where are we now, and how do our graduates become global engineers?

This paper presents a resume of how the topic of sustainability can become fully-integrated into the engineering curriculum in the UK, and how this needs to evolve toward consideration of how graduates could be better developed as global engineers. The paper begins by providing a justification as to why sustainability is an important feature of the already overcrowded engineering curriculum, and briefly reports, through illustrative examples, on alternative approaches which currently embed sustainability into the engineering curriculum. The paper makes the case that it is timely now to re-address the learning outcomes in order to enhance the students’ experience beyond just the inclusion of new curriculum content It does this by consideration of the identified drivers that range from the accrediting bodies and from the aspirations of employers, through revised approaches to embed sustainability, to the consideration of students’ own perceptions of sustainability and ultimately to their becoming employed as global engineers. The paper therefore discusses both the current and planned work toward supporting the development of engineering graduates into global citizens, with a greater emphasis upon their responsibility to ensure a sustainable future world, moving beyond sustainability awareness towards informed application of sustainability thinking

METROPOLITAN AGRICULTURE, SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC DYNAMICS AND THE FOOD-CITY RELATIONSHIP IN SOUTHERN EUROPE

Peri-urban agriculture is a pivotal issue in the debate on sustainable management of land in metropolitan regions worldwide. Multiple socioeconomic and environmental solutions introduced by new models of peri-urban agriculture are playing an important role in planning and management of fringe land. The recent development of peri-urban agriculture in Southern European cities was supposed to reflect latent, crisis-driven processes of 'coming back to land': new land has been extensively cultivated, and new relations have been created between farmers, communities and territories within peri-urban areas. This study describes some relevant experiences of peri-urban farming in 6 metropolitan regions (Lisbon, Barcelona, Marseille, Rome, Athens, Istanbul) representative of different socioeconomic contexts in Southern Europe, outlining strengths and weaknesses in the use of fringe land for cropping, and evidencing relevant implications for urban sustainability

Evaluating social pedagogy training and development in Lincolnshire

This report presents the findings and recommendations from an evaluation of social pedagogy training and implementation in residential homes in Lincolnshire. The social pedagogy training delivered by Jacaranda training in Spring 2015 was completed by 45 members of staff from three care homes in LincolnshireLincolnshire County Counci