11 research outputs found
A new integrated assessment framework for climate-smart nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa : the integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED)
Funding statement This work was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council through UK Research and Innovation as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund, AFRICAP programme, grant number BB/P027784/1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Stakeholder-driven transformative adaptation is needed for climate-smart nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa.
Improving nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa under increasing climate risks and population growth requires a strong and contextualized evidence base. Yet, to date, few studies have assessed climate-smart agriculture and nutrition security simultaneously. Here we use an integrated assessment framework (iFEED) to explore stakeholder-driven scenarios of food system transformation towards climate-smart nutrition security in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. iFEED translates climate-food-emissions modelling into policy-relevant information using model output implication statements. Results show that diversifying agricultural production towards more micronutrient-rich foods is necessary to achieve an adequate population-level nutrient supply by mid-century. Agricultural areas must expand unless unprecedented rapid yield improvements are achieved. While these transformations are challenging to accomplish and often associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions, the alternative for a nutrition-secure future is to rely increasingly on imports, which would outsource emissions and be economically and politically challenging given the large import increases required. [Abstract copyright: © 2024. The Author(s).
The Brazilian bolsa escola. Lessons for conditional cash transfer schemes around the world
The Bolsa Escola (âschool stipendâ) and its successor the Bolsa Familia (âfamily stipendâ) schemes have formed a crucial and successful part of Brazilâs welfare program. Bolsa Escola provided aid to Brazilâs poorest families on the condition that their children attended school, and Bolsa Familia has extended this idea, giving aid on the condition that children both attend school and receive vaccinations. Bolsa Familia is currently the largest Conditional Cash Transfer Program (CCTP) in the world, costing roughly 0.5% of Brazilian GDP and helping around 11.2 million families (around 44 million Brazilians, constituting roughly one fifth of the population).  Multilateral institutions have praised the schemes, and they are setting a leading example to other developing nations. In 2005, Paul Wolfowitz (former president of the World Bank) said, âBolsa Familia has already become a highly praised model of effective social policy. Countries around the world are drawing lessons from Brazilâs experience and are trying to produce the same results for their own people
The Brazilian bolsa escola. Lessons for conditional cash transfer schemes around the world
The Bolsa Escola (âschool stipendâ) and its successor the Bolsa Familia (âfamily stipendâ) schemes have formed a crucial and successful part of Brazilâs welfare program. Bolsa Escola provided aid to Brazilâs poorest families on the condition that their children attended school, and Bolsa Familia has extended this idea, giving aid on the condition that children both attend school and receive vaccinations. Bolsa Familia is currently the largest Conditional Cash Transfer Program (CCTP) in the world, costing roughly 0.5% of Brazilian GDP and helping around 11.2 million families (around 44 million Brazilians, constituting roughly one fifth of the population).  Multilateral institutions have praised the schemes, and they are setting a leading example to other developing nations. In 2005, Paul Wolfowitz (former president of the World Bank) said, âBolsa Familia has already become a highly praised model of effective social policy. Countries around the world are drawing lessons from Brazilâs experience and are trying to produce the same results for their own people
Rethinking NorthâSouth Research Partnerships Amidst Global Uncertainties: Leveraging Lessons Learned from UK GCRF Projects during COVID-19
International research and development projects (or grand challenge projects) consist of multicultural, multi-country, multi-sectoral, and multi-stakeholder initiatives aimed at poverty reduction. They are usually conceived as partnerships between actors in the global northâsouth. The COVID-19 pandemic was a major unexpected disruption to ongoing projects and challenged their already complex management. The aim of this paper is to present evidence on how international development projects were impacted by COVID-19 with a particular focus on the relationship between research institutions in the north and south. We conducted a mixed-methods research study, combining a reflective exercise with the co-author team and a survey with principal investigators, project managers, and capacity development leads drawn from 31 Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) projects funded through the UK governmentâs Official Development Assistance (ODA) and focused on socialâecological system research. The survey contained closed- and open-ended questions in order to (i) demonstrate how those involved in managing projects adapted to risks, including both threats and opportunities, presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, and (ii) consider the implications for tailoring adaptive management approaches in international research projects amidst uncertainties, with a special focus on enhancing equities in global northâsouth partnerships. The paper offers the following recommendations on designing, planning, and implementing international research and development projects: (i) devolve project management in order to enhance project resilience and improve northâsouth equities; (ii) allocate dedicated resources to enable equitable northâsouth research partnerships; (iii) rely more on hybrid and agile approaches for managing a projectâs life cycle; and (iv) improve resource flexibility, transparency, and communication through enhanced funderâimplementer collaboration
A critical review of a key Waste Strategy Initiative in England: Zero Waste Places Projects 2008-2009
In 2007, in England, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published WasteStrategy 2007 for England. To help drive the required behaviour change for increased sustainable practice the Government in England signalled up in the Strategy the intention to launch a Zero Waste Places (ZWP) initiative to develop innovative and exemplary practice. By inviting places (including cities, towns and rural communities) to bid for ZWP status, the successful applicants were then expected to become
exemplars of good environmental practice on all waste issues. The ZWP programme commenced in October 2008 with the selection of 6 distinct places based upon an application by a partnership containing a Local Authority or in one case a Regional Development Agency. The places ranged in size from the very small (one street of 201 properties) to a Region of England (5 million population). These 6 were chosen from an initial list of 12 applicants via a rigorous selection process against fixed criteria that were
designed to support Zero Waste practice. The funding was ÂŁ70,258 and the mean was ÂŁ11,709. The overall
assessment suggests that the Local Authorities and their project partners rose to the challenge of zero
waste and in most cases met or even exceeded their objectives (meeting at least 80% of aims and planned
actions) and achieved high value for money in terms of Government funded initiatives. Evaluation suggested
that there is a requirement to link, in the future, ZWP initiatives with other recent developments
such as Transition Towns, Eco-Town and Total Place developments within Local Authorities. A Certificated
Standard for ZWP was developed and is perceived as being both useful and valuable and it is hoped
that it will spur a large number of new ZWP application
A new integrated assessment framework for climate-smart nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa: the integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED)
Climate change will put millions more people in Africa at risk of food and nutrition insecurity by 2050. Integrated assessments of food systems tend to be limited by either heavy reliance on models or a lack of information on food and nutrition security.
Accordingly, we developed a novel integrated assessment framework that combines models with in-country knowledge and expert academic judgement to explore climate-smart and nutrition-secure food system futures: the integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED). Here, we describe iFEED and present its application in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
The iFEED process begins with a participatory scenario workshop. In-country stakeholders identify two key drivers of food system change, and from these, four possible scenarios are defined. These scenarios provide the underlying narratives of change to the food system. Integrated modelling of climate change, food production and greenhouse gas emissions is then used to explore nutrition security and climate-smart agriculture outcomes for each scenario. Model results are summarised using calibrated statements - quantitative statements of model outcomes and our confidence in them. These include statements about the way in which different trade futures interact with climate change and domestic production in determining nutrition security at the national level.
To understand what the model results mean for food systems, the calibrated statements are expanded upon using implication statements. The implications rely on input from a wide range of academic experts â including agro-ecologists and social scientists. A series of workshops are used to incorporate in-country expertise, identifying any gaps in knowledge and summarising information for country-level recommendations. iFEED stakeholder champions help throughout by providing in-country expertise and disseminating knowledge to policy makers.
iFEED has numerous novel aspects that can be used and developed in future work. It provides information to support evidence-based decisions for a climate-smart and nutrition-secure future. In particular, iFEED: i. employs novel and inclusive reporting of model results and associated in-country food system activities, with comprehensive reporting of uncertainty; ii. includes climate change mitigation alongside adaptation measures; and iii. quantifies future population-level nutrition security, as opposed to simply assessing future production and food security implications
A new integrated assessment framework for climate-smart nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa: the integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED)
Climate change will put millions more people in Africa at risk of food and nutrition insecurity by 2050. Integrated assessments of food systems tend to be limited by either heavy reliance on models or a lack of information on food and nutrition security. Accordingly, we developed a novel integrated assessment framework that combines models with in-country knowledge and expert academic judgement to explore climate-smart and nutrition-secure food system futures: the integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED). Here, we describe iFEED and present its application in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. The iFEED process begins with a participatory scenario workshop. In-country stakeholders identify two key drivers of food system change, and from these, four possible scenarios are defined. These scenarios provide the underlying narratives of change to the food system. Integrated modeling of climate change, food production and greenhouse gas emissions is then used to explore nutrition security and climate-smart agriculture outcomes for each scenario. Model results are summarized using calibrated statementsâquantitative statements of model outcomes and our confidence in them. These include statements about the way in which different trade futures interact with climate change and domestic production in determining nutrition security at the national level. To understand what the model results mean for food systems, the calibrated statements are expanded upon using implication statements. The implications rely on input from a wide range of academic expertsâincluding agro-ecologists and social scientists. A series of workshops are used to incorporate in-country expertise, identifying any gaps in knowledge and summarizing information for country-level recommendations. iFEED stakeholder champions help throughout by providing in-country expertise and disseminating knowledge to policy makers. iFEED has numerous novel aspects that can be used and developed in future work. It provides information to support evidence-based decisions for a climate-smart and nutrition-secure future. In particular, iFEED: (i) employs novel and inclusive reporting of model results and associated in-country food system activities, with comprehensive reporting of uncertainty; (ii) includes climate change mitigation alongside adaptation measures; and (iii) quantifies future population-level nutrition security, as opposed to simply assessing future production and food security implication
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The African SWIFT project: growing science capability to bring about a revolution in weather prediction
Africa is poised for a revolution in the quality and relevance of weather predictions, with potential for great benefits in terms of human and economic security. This revolution will be driven by recent international progress in nowcasting, numerical weather prediction, theoretical tropical dynamics and forecast communication, but will depend on suitable scientific investment being made. The commercial sector has recognized this opportunity and new forecast products are being made available to African stakeholders. At this time, it is vital that robust scientific methods are used to develop and evaluate the new generation of forecasts. The GCRF African SWIFT project represents an international effort to advance scientific solutions across the fields of nowcasting, synoptic and short-range severe weather prediction, subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) prediction, user engagement and forecast evaluation. This paper describes the opportunities facing African meteorology and the ways in which SWIFT is meeting those opportunities and identifying priority next steps.
Delivery and maintenance of weather forecasting systems exploiting these new solutions requires a trained body of scientists with skills in research and training; modelling and operational prediction; communications and leadership. By supporting partnerships between academia and operational agencies in four African partner countries, the SWIFT project is helping to build capacity and capability in African forecasting science. A highlight of SWIFT is the coordination of three weather-forecasting âTestbedsâ â the first of their kind in Africa â which have been used to bring new evaluation tools, research insights, user perspectives and communications pathways into a semi-operational forecasting environment