A Strategic Approach to Agricultural Research Program Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Downloads May 2008-July 2009: 13,

A Strategic Approach to Agricultural Research Program Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa

Recent studies have shown that agricultural research can have high payoffs in Africa, but impact depends on how well technology fits with evolving needs and capacity in the agricultural sector and the rest of the economy. Structural adjustment policies (e.g., market liberalization, currency devaluation) and political change are transforming user demands for new technology and the economic environment in which technology must perform. The challenge is how to design agricultural research as a strategic input to promote broad-based economic growth, structural transformation, and food security in the increasingly market-driven, but fragile, economies of Africa.Food Security, Food Policy, Agricultural Research, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Downloads May 2008-July 2009: 44, Q18,

An archival case study : revisiting the life and political economy of Lauchlin Currie

This paper forms part of a wider project to show the significance of archival material on distinguished economists, in this case Lauchlin Currie (1902-93), who studied and taught at Harvard before entering government service at the US Treasury and Federal Reserve Board as the intellectual leader of Roosevelt's New Deal, 1934-39, as FDR's White House economic adviser in peace and war, 1939-45, and as a post-war development economist. It discusses the uses made of the written and oral material available when the author was writing his intellectual biography of Currie (Duke University Press 1990) while Currie was still alive, and the significance of the material that has come to light after Currie's death

Uma Abordagem Estratégica Sobre e Planificação de Programas de Pesquisa Agrícola na África Sub-Sahariana

Crop Production/Industries, Downloads July 2008-June 2009: 5,

Une approche stratégique pour la planification du programme de recherche agricole en Afrique sub-saharienne

Des études récentes ont montré que la recherche agricole en Afrique peut avoir une rentabilité élevée, mais son impact dépend de l'adaptabilité des nouvelles technologies aux capacités et aux besoins changeants du secteur agricole et du reste de l'économie. Les politiques d'ajustement structurel (ex : la libéralisation des marchés et la dévaluation monétaire) et les changements politiques sont en train de transformer la demande de nouvelles technologies et l'environnement économique au sein duquel ces technologies doivent opérer. Le défi est de concevoir la recherche agricole comme un intrant stratégique qui encourage une croissance économique à base élargie, la transformation structurelle de l'économie et la sécurité alimentaire dans des économies africaines de plus de plus orientées vers la production pour la commercialisation mais qui restent encore fragiles.food security, food policy, agricultural research, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Downloads June 2008-June 2009: 11, Q18,

Une approche stratégique pour la planification du programme de recherche agricole en Afrique sub-saharienne

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Downloads July 2008-June 2009: 6,

Global Governance Behind Closed Doors : The IMF Boardroom, the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility, and the Intersection of Material Power and Norm Change in Global Politics

Up on the 12th floor of its 19th Street Headquarters, the IMF Board sits in active session for an average of 7 hours per week. Although key matters of policy are decided on in the venue, the rules governing Boardroom interactions remain opaque, resting on an uneasy combination of consensual decision-making and weighted voting. Through a detailed analysis of IMF Board discussions surrounding the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF), this article sheds light on the mechanics of power in this often overlooked venue of global economic governance. By exploring the key issues of default liability and loan conditionality, I demonstrate that whilst the Boardroom is a more active site of contestation than has hitherto been recognized, material power is a prime determinant of both Executive Directors’ preferences and outcomes reached from discussions. And as the decisions reached form the backbone of the ‘instruction sheet’ used by Fund staff to guide their everyday operational decisions, these outcomes—and the processes through which they were reached—were factors of primary importance in stabilizing the operational norms at the heart of a controversial phase in the contemporary history of IMF concessional lending

Climate vulnerability assessment for Pacific salmon and steelhead in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem.

Major ecological realignments are already occurring in response to climate change. To be successful, conservation strategies now need to account for geographical patterns in traits sensitive to climate change, as well as climate threats to species-level diversity. As part of an effort to provide such information, we conducted a climate vulnerability assessment that included all anadromous Pacific salmon and steelhead (Oncorhynchus spp.) population units listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Using an expert-based scoring system, we ranked 20 attributes for the 28 listed units and 5 additional units. Attributes captured biological sensitivity, or the strength of linkages between each listing unit and the present climate; climate exposure, or the magnitude of projected change in local environmental conditions; and adaptive capacity, or the ability to modify phenotypes to cope with new climatic conditions. Each listing unit was then assigned one of four vulnerability categories. Units ranked most vulnerable overall were Chinook (O. tshawytscha) in the California Central Valley, coho (O. kisutch) in California and southern Oregon, sockeye (O. nerka) in the Snake River Basin, and spring-run Chinook in the interior Columbia and Willamette River Basins. We identified units with similar vulnerability profiles using a hierarchical cluster analysis. Life history characteristics, especially freshwater and estuary residence times, interplayed with gradations in exposure from south to north and from coastal to interior regions to generate landscape-level patterns within each species. Nearly all listing units faced high exposures to projected increases in stream temperature, sea surface temperature, and ocean acidification, but other aspects of exposure peaked in particular regions. Anthropogenic factors, especially migration barriers, habitat degradation, and hatchery influence, have reduced the adaptive capacity of most steelhead and salmon populations. Enhancing adaptive capacity is essential to mitigate for the increasing threat of climate change. Collectively, these results provide a framework to support recovery planning that considers climate impacts on the majority of West Coast anadromous salmonids