The role of governance in agricultural expansion and intensification: a global study of arable agriculture

In this research we studied empirical relationships between agricultural production dynamics and six quantitative World Bank governance indicators for 173 countries between 1975 and 2007. It is hypothesized that in countries with lower quality of governance, agricultural production increases are more likely to be achieved by area expansions than by increases in yields. We distinguished four groups of countries: those with both area and yield increases; those with increasing yields but decreasing area; those with decreasing yields but a growing area; and those with both declines in yields and area. We analyzed differences between these four groups, and also analyzed governance-production relationships within these groups. On average, quality of governance is low in countries with both area and yield increases and high in countries with increasing yields but decreasing area. Countries with declining yields were too few in number to allow for quantitative analyses. The analysis of governance-production relationships within the four groups suggests that countries with a lower quality of governance are more inclined to achieve production increases by expanding agricultural area rather than increasing yields. Additional explanatory value of governance indicators to agricultural production dynamics is generally small, but nevertheless significant in most cases. Our results suggest that, in order for agricultural production to increase without excessive expansions of agricultural area, governance issues should be resolve

'Transformations towards sustainability':Emerging approaches, critical reflections, and a research agenda

Over the last two decades researchers have come to understand much about the global challenges confronting human society (e.g. climate change; biodiversity loss; water, energy and food insecurity; poverty and widening social inequality). However, the extent to which research and policy efforts are succeeding in steering human societies towards more sustainable and just futures is unclear. Attention is increasingly turning towards better understanding how to navigate processes of social and institutional transformation to bring about more desirable trajectories of change in various sectors of human society. A major knowledge gap concerns understanding how transformations towards sustainability are conceptualised, understood and analysed. Limited existing scholarship on this topic is fragmented, sometimes overly deterministic, and weak in its capacity to critically analyse transformation processes which are inherently political and contested. This paper aims to advance understanding of transformations towards sustainability, recognising it as both a normative and an analytical concept. We firstly review existing concepts of transformation in global environmental change literature, and the role of governance in relation to it. We then propose a framework for understanding and critically analysing transformations towards sustainability based on the existing ‘Earth System Governance’ framework (Biermann et al., 2009). We then outline a research agenda, and argue that transdisciplinary research approaches and a key role for early career researchers are vital for pursuing this agenda. Finally, we argue that critical reflexivity among global environmental change scholars, both individually and collectively, will be important for developing innovative research on transformations towards sustainability to meaningfully contribute to policy and action over time

From participation to governance : a critical review of the concepts of governance, co-management and participation, and their implementation in small-scale inland fisheries in developing countries

This report reviews the role, nature and mechanisms of governance in inland fisheries. We do so by reviewing first the wider issues of governance, participation and co-management in natural resource management, and then focus on small-scale fisheries, and, in particular, small-scale (artisanal) activities operated within inland (river and adjacent floodplains) areas in developing countries.Fisheries, Developing countries, Fishery management

SDG16: peace, justice and strong institutions - a political ecology perspective

This chapter assesses the implications of UN SDG 16: ‘Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions’ for both forests and people. Particular focus is placed on three thematic areas: 1) peace and the reduction of armed conflict, 2) the rule of law, accountability, transparency, and access to justice and 3) inclusiveness and participation. Conflict is widely variable in its effects, and may either prevent agricultural expansion or drive illicit crop production, and foster migration in or out of forested areas; while peace is often accompanied by state-supported mining and expansion of commercial crops. Regarding rule of law, forest policy in many countries favours political elite, large-scale industry actors and international trade. Hence, if SDG implementation strengthens state institutions, the ‘rule of law’ and transparency linked with international trade, it is likely to reinforce existing inequalities, unless it is counter-balanced with legal reforms that strengthen local rights to land and resources. While there has been much recent progress in promoting ‘participatory’ forest management, this is often tightly controlled by the state, contributing to local administrative burdens without redistributing power and benefits. In sum, the impacts of SDG 16 on forests and people depend on how it shapes power and resource distribution

Approaches and frameworks for management and research in small-scale fisheries in the developing world

Commonly adopted approaches to managing small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in developing countries do not ensure sustainability. Progress is impeded by a gap between innovative SSF research and slower-moving SSF management. The paper aims to bridge the gap by showing that the three primary bases of SSF management--ecosystem, stakeholders’ rights and resilience--are mutually consistent and complementary. It nominates the ecosystem approach as an appropriate starting point because it is established in national and international law and policy. Within this approach, the emerging resilience perspective and associated concepts of adaptive management and institutional learning can move management beyond traditional control and resource-use optimization, which largely ignore the different expectations of stakeholders; the complexity of ecosystem dynamics; and how ecological, social, political and economic subsystems are linked. Integrating a rights-based perspective helps balance the ecological bias of ecosystem-based and resilience approaches. The paper introduces three management implementation frameworks that can lend structure and order to research and management regardless of the management approach chosen. Finally, it outlines possible research approaches to overcome the heretofore limited capacity of fishery research to integrate across ecological, social and economic dimensions and so better serve the management objective of avoiding fishery failure by nurturing and preserving the ecological, social and institutional attributes that enable it to renew and reorganize itself. (PDF contains 29 pages

Geography, Institutions and Human Development: A Cross-Country Investigation Using Bayesian Model Averaging

This paper examines the role of long standing institutions – identified through geography, disease ecology, colonial legacy, and some direct measures of political and economic governance – on human development and its non income components across countries. The study employs a novel econometric technique called the Bayesian Model Averaging that allows us to select the relevant predictors by experimenting with a host of competing sets of variables. It constructs estimates as weighted average of OLS estimates for every possible combination of included variables. This is particularly useful in situations when there is model uncertainty and theory provides only a weak guidance on the selection of appropriate predictors. Of the 25 variables that we tried, three stand out in terms of their degree of importance and their robustness across various specifications. These include malaria ecology, KKZ index of good governance and fertility rate. Our finding on the dominant and robust role of malaria ecology in explaining differences in human development across countries, even in the presence of variables that directly and indirectly measure the quality of institutions, is extremely fascinating. It shows that malaria ecology has a direct negative impact on human development and this effect appears to be over and above its effect via institutions. Some of the other measures of climate and geography as well as those of colonial legacy are important as long as we do not control for some direct measures of the performance of political and economic institutions such as the KKZ index of good governance and democracy score. Once we control for these and other conditioning variables such as public spending on health and education; fertility rates; and measures of health infrastructure, the importance of geography and colonial legacy disappears.Human development; geography; institutions; Bayesian Model Averaging

Diagnosis and the management constituency of small-scale fisheries

Diagnosis and adaptive management can help improve the ability of small-scale fisheries (SSF) in the developing world to better cope with and adapt to both external drivers and internal sources of uncertainty. This paper presents a framework for diagnosis and adaptive management and discusses ways of implementing the first two phases of learning: diagnosis and mobilising an appropriate management constituency. The discussion addresses key issues and suggests suitable approaches and tools as well as numerous sources of further information. Diagnosis of a SSF defines the system to be managed, outlines the scope of the management problem in terms of threats and opportunities, and aims to construct realistic and desired future projections for the fishery. These steps can clarify objectives and lead to development of indicators necessary for adaptive management. Before management, however, it is important to mobilize a management constituency to enact change. Ways of identifying stakeholders and understanding both enabling and obstructive interactions and management structures are outlined. These preliminary learning phases for adaptive SSF management are expected to work best if legitimised by collaborative discussion among fishery stakeholders drawing on multiple knowledge systems and participatory approaches to assessment. (PDF contains 33 pages

Soil Governance: Accessing Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives

Soil provides the foundation for agricultural and environmental systems, and are subject to a complex governance regime of property rights and secondary impacts from industry and domestic land use. Complex natural resource management issues require approaches to governance that acknowledge uncertainty and complexity. Theories of next generation environmental governance assume that inclusion of diverse perspectives will improve reform directions and encourage behaviour change. This paper reports on a qualitative survey of an international workshop that brought together cross-disciplinary perspectives to address the challenges of soil governance. Results reveal the challenges of communicating effectively across disciplines. The findings suggest that strategies for improved soils governance must focus on increasing communications with community stakeholders and engaging land managers in designing shared governance regimes. The need for more conscious articulation of the challenges of cross-disciplinary environments is discussed and strategies for increasing research collaboration in soils governance are suggested. The identified need for more systematic approaches to cross-disciplinary learning, including reporting back of cross-disciplinary initiatives to help practitioners learn from past experience, forms part of the rationale for this paper

A State of the Art of Governance Literature on adaptation to climate change. Towards a research agenda

This report provides a state-of-the-art overview of governance literature on adaptation strategies. What has recent research taught us on adaptation from the perspective of governance and to what research agenda does this lead? This report is structured as followed. Firstly, it will be argued why adaptation is a matter of governance. Secondly, the research methods for the literature study will be outlined. Thirdly, the results of the literature study will portray the findings in terms of the themes and foci with, respectively, environmental studies, spatial planning and development studies, and public administration studies. Finally, a comparative analysis of these findings will lead to a research agenda for future research on governance of adaptatio

Benchmarking for Fisheries Governance

The paper develops a benchmarking framework to improve fisheries governance and promote resilient ecosystems and profitable fisheries. The benchmarking includes five key components: accountability; transparency; incentives; risk assessment and management; and adaptability. Collectively, these factors provide a framework to benchmark and improve fisheries governance. Initial findings from benchmarking in two of Australia's Commonwealth fisheries indicate that the framework provides an important tool to help overcome the underlying causes of unsustainability in capture fisheries - poor and/or ineffective fisheries governance.fisheries, governance, sustainability