Les ONG, cheval de Troie du néolibéralisme ?

L’article qui suit offre un regard résolument global et critique, décryptant à travers l’exemple de la protection sociale – pourtant a priori peu suspecte de menées libérales – des logiques systémiques auxquelles les ONG prêteraient, malgré elles, leur concours. Ce faisant, l’auteure pourrait bien nous aider à comprendre, par un détour par les politiques de développement, ce qui se joue dans la « libéralisation de l’humanitaire »

Les ONG, cheval de Troie du néolibéralisme ?

L’article qui suit offre un regard résolument global et critique, décryptant à travers l’exemple de la protection sociale – pourtant a priori peu suspecte de menées libérales – des logiques systémiques auxquelles les ONG prêteraient, malgré elles, leur concours. Ce faisant, l’auteure pourrait bien nous aider à comprendre, par un détour par les politiques de développement, ce qui se joue dans la « libéralisation de l’humanitaire »

Measuring agroecology:Introducing a methodological framework and a community of practice approach

Over the last few years, a small but increasing number of researchers and organizations has been involved in tracking funding flows to agroecology, analyzing development assistance, climate finance, and research funds for their contribution to an agroecological transformation of food systems, including as part of the efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This has led to the emergence of a community of practice (CoP) meeting and exchanging in a number of different forums—Financing Agroecology Civil Society CoP, the Agroecology Donor Group, and the Working Group on Financing and Investments of the Coalition for Food Systems Transformation Through Agroecology (Agroecology Coalition). In this article, we report on a process of collaboratively developing a methodological framework, using the High Level Panel of Experts of the Committee on World Food Security 13 principles of agroecology as foundation. This framework overcomes some limitations of previous methodologies for evaluating degrees of agroecological integration (including those using Gliessman’s 5 levels of food system change) and facilitates a robust qualitative assessment of projects, programs, and project portfolios with respect to their “agroecologicalness.” The framework conceives of agroecology as paradigm-shifting rather than as incremental improvements to existing food systems. It enables global comparability as well as local contextualization of each principle. While the need for this framework arose from the desire to monitor—and increase—financial support for an urgently needed transformation toward agroecology, the framework can equally contribute to the design of projects and programs, which aim to radically transform food and farming systems. It also has value as an educational tool, in specifying through statements of value and concrete examples, what agroecological work aims at. This article introduces our framework and argues for an expanded CoP approach to use it widely and share the results through the digital platform that will be developed for that purpose

Alpha dose rate and alpha decay dose impacts on the residual alteration rate regime of HLW nuclear glasses

International audienceThe long-term behavior of high-level nuclear glass subjected to alpha radiation by long-life minor actinides must be investigated with respect to geological disposal. This study focuses on the effects of alpha radiation on the chemical reactivity of R7T7-type glasses with pure water, mainly on the residual alteration rate regime, by considering separately the alpha dose rate and the alpha decay dose. Old SON68 glasses doped with $^(238/239)$PuO2 or $^(244)$CmO2 were studied in order to simulate high alpha dose rates corresponding to an early water ingress and also high level of alpha decay doses corresponding to long-term disposal conditions. A part of the $^(238/239)$Pu-doped glass block was annealed to fully recover the irradiation induced damage accumulated since the glass fabrication and to dissociate the effect of the alpha dose rate from the one of alpha decay dose. The glasses were then leached under static conditions in argon atmosphere at 90°C for several years. The results showed that the residual alteration rate is not impacted by the alpha dose rate parameter on a wide range of the dose rate values expected under disposal conditions, even in the eventuality of an early water ingress. It means that a SON68-type glass remained poorly sensitive to the alpha particle energy deposition at the glass-water interface. However, the residual alteration rate of the damaged $^(238/239)$Pu-doped glass was enhanced compared to the one of the annealed glass. This result is in agreement with the one obtained on the $^(244)$Cm-doped glass, and also with the literature about simplified glasses externally irradiated, indicating that the ballistic effects of the recoil nuclei are thus responsible for this increase of the residual alteration rate. A link between the glass structure and its leaching behavior is evidenced on these radioactive glasses and the role of the reactive interface is highly suspected

Studtite formation assessed by Raman spectroscopy and 18^{18}O isotopic labeling during the oxidative dissolution of a MOX fuel

The authors thank the technicians from DHA-Atalante facility who strongly participated to this experiment: Loïck Chauvin,Nathalie Vaissières, Manuel Delaville and Maxime Fagard.International audienceThe formation of studtite has been studied during the oxidative dissolution of a MIMAS MOX fuel disc in aerated water enriched in $^{18}$O under a gamma radiation source, coupling Raman spectroscopy and solution analyzes. The use of isotopic labeling allowed following the reactions responsible for the precipitation of studtite. At the beginning of the experiment, different $^{18}$O enrichments in the uranyl and peroxide bonds of the studtite were observed. While the uranyl bond was primarily enriched in $^{18}$O, the peroxide bond contained large amounts of $^{16}$O. This result suggests an oxygen contribution coming from different radiolytic species for each bond: H$_2$O$_2$ and radicals. The comparison with a UO$_2$ sample leached in similar conditions ruled out a role of the Pu alpha self-irradiation in this different behavior. Yet, the influence of the MOX MIMAS heterogeneous microstructure and chemistry is observed with the preferential dissolution of the UO$_2$ grains, the Pu-rich areas being much more stable with regard to the dissolution. In addition, the studtite first precipitates preferentially on the Pu-poor areas of the sample before covering the entire surface, including the plutonium-enriched aggregates, at the end of the experiment

MOX Fuel corrosion processes under waste disposal conditions

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