Climate-Smart Agriculture Investment Plan Development Guide: From Concept to Action

The Paris Agreement defined at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 21nd Conference of Parties (COP21, 2015) in France, unified the global community toward the common cause of adapting to climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fostering sustainable development. The climate challenge to agriculture in Africa was recognized the following year at COP22 (2016) in Marrakech, Morocco, where the Moroccan government launched the Adaptation of African Agriculture (AAA) Initiative. This initiative aimed to highlight the investment needs for helping African countries cope with climate change risks to agriculture and best position themselves for a future of higher temperatures, uncertain precipitation and increased frequency of extreme events. The AAA Initiative builds on the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), first launched in 2003 through the African Union, which promotes the development of national agricultural investment plans (NAIPs) for African countries. The development of climate-smart agriculture investment plans (CSAIPs) has been identified as important for identifying priority CSA projects and making the case for funding and financing

Violence as an obstacle to livelihood resilience in the context of climate change

Central America continues to be a violent region and is prone to increasing climatic shocks and environmental degradation. This paper explores the non-linear feedback loop between violence and climate shocks on livelihood resilience in El Salvador and Honduras, two countries experiencing high rates of violence. The nature of this complex feedback loop is examined by analysing case studies on the community scale, which include challenges in reconstructing community social capital post-Hurricane Mitch (1998) in Honduras and the importance of social capital in community resilience to Hurricane Ida (2009) in El Salvador. We conclude that social capital is central in communities facing violence in order to enhance livelihood resilience to climate change impacts in Central America

National Security Risks? Uncertainty, Austerity and Other Logics of Risk in the UK government’s National Security Strategy

Risk scholars within Security studies have argued that the concept of security has gone through a fundamental transformation away from a threat-based conceptualisation of defence, urgency and exceptionality to one of preparedness, precautions and prevention of future risks, some of which are calculable, others of which are not. This article explores whether and how the concept of security is changing due to this ‘rise of risk’, through a hermeneutically grounded conceptual and discourse analysis of the United Kingdom government’s national security strategy (NSS) from 1998 to 2011. We ask how risk-security language is employed in the NSS; what factors motivate such discursive shifts; and what, if any, consequences of these shifts can be discerned in UK national security practices. Our aim is twofold: to better understand shifts in the security understandings and policies of UK authorities; and to contribute to the conceptual debate on the significance of the rise of risk as a component of the concept of security

The influence of demographic characteristics, living conditions, and trauma exposure on the overall health of a conflict-affected population in Southern Sudan

BACKGROUND: There remains limited evidence on how armed conflict affects overall physical and mental well-being rather than specific physical or mental health conditions. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of demographic characteristics, living conditions, and violent and traumatic events on general physical and mental health in Southern Sudan which is emerging from 20 years of armed conflict. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey of 1228 adults was conducted in November 2007 in the town of Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan. Multivariate linear regression analysis was used to investigate the associations and relative influence of variables in three models of demographic characteristics, living conditions, and trauma exposure, on general physical and mental health status. These models were run separately and also as a combined model. Data quality and the internal consistency of the health status instrument (SF-8) were assessed. RESULTS: The variables in the multivariate analysis (combined model) with negative coefficients of association with general physical health and mental health (i.e. worse health), respectively, were being female (coef. -2.47; -2.63), higher age (coef.-0.16; -0.17), absence of soap in the household (physical health coef. -2.24), and experiencing within the past 12 months a lack of food and/or water (coef. -1.46; -2.27) and lack of medical care (coef.-3.51; -3.17). A number of trauma variables and cumulative exposure to trauma showed an association with physical and mental health (see main text for data). There was limited variance in results when each of the three models were run separately and when they were combined, suggesting the pervasive influence of these variables. The SF-8 showed good data quality and internal consistency. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence on the pervasive influence of demographic characteristics, living conditions, and violent and traumatic events on the general physical and mental health of a conflict-affected population in Southern Sudan, and highlights the importance of addressing all these influences on overall health

Soft power and soft disempowerment: Qatar, global sport and football’s 2022 World Cup finals

This paper examines the critical role of global sport within Qatar’s international strategy, most notably through the successful bid to stage the 2022 football World Cup. Our discussion draws particularly on interviews with key stakeholders in the Qatari sport system, as well as fieldwork in Qatar and the analysis of relevant documents and secondary materials. The paper is separated into five main parts. First, we set out our theoretical framework, which draws on the concepts of globalization and soft power; to assist in the analysis of Qatar’s engagement with global sport, we introduce the two further concepts of ‘glocal consciousness’ and ‘soft disempowerment’. Second, we provide the reader with background information on Qatar and Qatari sport. Third, we discuss three key themes that emerged mainly from our interviews on Qatar and global sport: exhibiting Qatar’s supremacies as a microstate; the pursuit of peace, security and integrity; and confronting national health crises. Fourth, we explore issues of soft disempowerment and reputational risk with regard to these three themes and, in particular, critical international comment surrounding Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup. Fifth, we conclude by arguing that Qatar’s soft disempowerment, although damaging in the short term, leaves the door open for the state to respond in a positive manner, regenerating its soft power capabilities in the process

Child-centered food systems: reorienting food systems towards healthy diets for children

Current food systems are failing to guide children towards healthy diets. This paper presents a tool to identify the actions needed to reorient food systems to become more child-centred from a nutrition perspective. To connect the dots between children's lives, their food environments and food supply systems, the tool takes a child-centred, food systems approach. Comprising six methodological steps, the tool starts by measuring and understanding children's realities and then working back up into the system to identify how food environments and supply systems could make relevant foods more or less available, affordable, appealing and aspirational in the contexts of children's lives. The paper spells out the mix of methods needed to make this assessment, gives examples of the data and studies already available and type of insights they provide, and discusses the methodological challenges and gaps. It presents a worked example that shows how following these steps in sequence enables the identification of a package of actions that can act coherently to reorient food systems in the way most likely to have impact on child malnutrition

A Nutrition-Sensitive Agroecology Intervention in Rural Tanzania Increases Children's Dietary Diversity and Household Food Security But Does Not Change Child Anthropometry: Results from a Cluster-Randomized Trial.

This research article published by Oxford University Press, 2021Background There are urgent calls for the transformation of agriculture and food systems to address human and planetary health issues. Nutrition-sensitive agriculture and agroecology promise interconnected solutions to these challenges, but evidence of their impact has been limited. Objectives In a cluster-randomized trial (NCT02761876), we examined whether a nutrition-sensitive agroecology intervention in rural Tanzania could improve children's dietary diversity. Secondary outcomes were food insecurity and child anthropometry. We also posited that such an intervention would improve sustainable agricultural practices (e.g., agrobiodiversity, intercropping), women's empowerment (e.g., participation in decision making, time use), and women's well-being (e.g., dietary diversity, depression). Methods Food-insecure smallholder farmers with children aged <1 y from 20 villages in Singida, Tanzania, were invited to participate. Villages were paired and publicly randomized; control villages received the intervention after 2 y. One man and 1 woman “mentor farmer” were elected from each intervention village to lead their peers in agroecological learning on topics including legume intensification, nutrition, and women's empowerment. Impact was estimated using longitudinal difference-in-differences fixed-effects regression analyses. Results A total of 591 households (intervention: n = 296; control: n = 295) were enrolled; 90.0% were retained to study end. After 2 growing seasons, the intervention improved children's dietary diversity score by 0.57 food groups (out of 7; P < 0.01), and the percentage of children achieving minimum dietary diversity (≥4 food groups) increased by 9.9 percentage points during the postharvest season. The intervention significantly reduced household food insecurity but had no significant impact on child anthropometry. The intervention also improved a range of sustainable agriculture, women's empowerment, and women's well-being outcomes. Conclusions The magnitude of the intervention's impacts was similar to or larger than that of other nutrition-sensitive interventions that provided more substantial inputs but were not agroecologically focused. These data suggest the untapped potential for nutrition-sensitive agroecological approaches to achieve human health while promoting sustainable agricultural practices

Report of a Symposium on Canadian Defence Policy: Some Critical Considerations

This report was prepared by Ryerson Christie and David Dewitt with the assistance of Ken Boutin, Kyle Grayson, and Abhinav Kumar, along with the technical input of Sarah Whitaker. We are most grateful to the numerous comments provided by many of those who participated in the April 2003 symposium. The symposium titled Critical Defence Review Conference, was held at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto on 11 April 2003. The views expressed in this report are an incomplete reflection of the discussions which occurred at the symposium and through correspondence since then. They are not meant to represent in full the preferences of any individual or YCISS.YCISS hosted a conference at the Canadian Forces College on 11 April 2003, which brought together a select group of academics from across Canada, drawn primarily from Security and Defence Forum (SDF) centres, to discuss the questions of what a re-conception of security policy would mean for the organisation of the Canadian Forces, and how critical perspectives could make concrete policy recommendations for the CF. While the participants approached the topics from a range of perspectives, there was a broad underlying belief that the status quo was having a negative impact on the capacity of the CF to fulfil its assigned missions, and that the security environment facing Canada today is dramatically different from the one present in the early 1990s when the last Defence Review was undertaken. This policy paper is based on the discussions that took place at our April meeting, but does not necessarily represent the views of all of the participants. W hat we have set out to demonstrate is that a defence review is required and that it must commence with an examination of what Canada’s security needs are prior to an examination of the threats that are, or may be, present. After these core arguments, we present one view of how a reconception of Canada’s security needs in the context of the current and emerging international environment will result in changes in the manner in which the Canadian Forces are organised. Covering the range from domestic security through human security and international peace and security challenges including the traditional forms of robust military force, this policy paper advocates a re organisation of the Canadian Forces that would ensure its continued viability, relevance, and effectiveness as a modern military

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This is data made available by Danielle Navarro for her text book on R. I'm just placing it here for the convenience of my students