Assessing the outcomes of IWMI’s research and interventions on irrigation management transfer

Irrigation management / Participatory management / Privatization / Water users associations / Farmers associations / Gender

Building climate resilience in rainfed landscapes needs more than good will

Rainfed smallholder farming is particularly vulnerable to climate change, which can greatly exacerbate existing poverty and livelihood challenges. Understanding the complexity of the systems that connect the environment, society and people can help us to reduce this vulnerability and increase the resilience of communities and households to climate perturbations. In recent years, resilience theory has proven a useful approach for exploring the complexity of development challenges. As a result, there has been an increase in the development of tools and frameworks for assessing resilience. Despite this increased focus, there is no consistent use of the resilience concept in development practice and little evidence as to the benefits of using the tools. This paper aims to bridge theory and practice by coupling research on resilience with its application in the international development field. The specific hypothesis we explore is if and how rural livelihoods build resilience toward increased climatic variability in already degraded agro-ecological landscapes? We present a resilience framework with indicators to assess the extent of community resilience to climate change through improved local agricultural production and natural resources management. Primary and secondary landscape and community data, together with development of participatory watershed action plans were used to populate 16 indicators in a resilience framework baseline for the two rainfed dominated watersheds in Ethiopia and Ghana respectively. Given community awareness of the challenges related to the watershed natural resources, local agriculture and extreme weather, the communities were very willing to develop action plans to improve their management of natural resources and build climate resilience. Nevertheless, our analysis of the watershed action plans revealed that strengthening resilience through local action alone, would likely not be sufficient to meet all climate -livelihood challenges identified. To address severity and recurrence of climate change related disturbances, such as droughts, floods and disease in poverty-affected rural communities, the capacity to improve resilience will depend on external factors, in addition to inherent action. New knowledge, infrastructure and social security mechanisms, including insurance and emergency assistance need to added to build resilience for poverty-affected communities in degraded watersheds. We conclude there are also challenges in the use of resilience framework for development and climate-action related to rural poverty affected and degraded livelihood systems. Populating complex social–environmental systems will also need further development, to understand progress in resilience building under changing climate. Special attention to systemic indicators that describe the coupling and interdependencies of social-ecosystem factors will be critical to take action

Viewpoint – Sustainable and equitable growth in farmer-led irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa: What will it take?

The rapid development of farmer-led irrigation is increasing agricultural productivity, incomes, employment and nutrition, but it might well not achieve its full potential. Small-scale irrigators tend to be younger, male and better-off. Women and resource-poor farmers – the majority of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa – are disadvantaged and often excluded from the numerous benefits to be gained from irrigation. Equity in access to water management technologies and practices is constrained by numerous factors, including high investment costs, absence of financial services, poor market integration, inadequate information services, and labour constraints. Lack of institutions for collective management of natural resources, such as water, further restricts access for resource-poor farmers, increasing inequity. In the absence of sustainable natural resources management approaches to agricultural intensification, this situation may become more acute as natural resources become increasingly valuable, and therefore contested. Realising the full potential of farmer-led irrigation requires contextualised policies, institutions and practices to improve equity, markets and sustainability and help ensure that sector growth is inclusive and beneficial

Water Metrics

Society has a universal need for water that crosses all sectors of activity. We need to be able to measure progress towards sustainable water for all by working towards targets that consider the different dimensions of water resources and use, including water quantity and quality. A suite of indicators that reflect water use by different sectors is needed to measure progress towards the forthcoming SDGs’ [sustainable development goals] water-related targets. Such indicators will need to rely on national data, must consider the variation in data availability, and can be complemented with new cost-effective ways for data collection. Remote sensing measurements, smart field sensors, ICT technologies, and open access databases create new opportunities to more accurately, cost-effectively and transparently quantify water resources. However, the usefulness and relevance of any indicators will be as important as the ease of measurement. The challenge in progressing towards the water-related targets is to ensure that a balance is achieved between the competing uses of water, meeting human needs while maintaining ecosystem health

Sustainable and Equitable Growth in Farmer-led Irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Will it Take?

The rapid development of farmer-led irrigation is increasing agricultural productivity, incomes, employment and nutrition, but it might well not achieve its full potential. Small-scale irrigators tend to be younger, male and better-off. Women and resource-poor farmers – the majority of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa – are disadvantaged and often excluded from the numerous benefits to be gained from irrigation. Equity in access to water management technologies and practices is constrained by numerous factors, including high investment costs, absence of financial services, poor market integration, inadequate information services, and labour constraints. Lack of institutions for collective management of natural resources, such as water, further restricts access for resource-poor farmers, increasing inequity. In the absence of sustainable natural resources management approaches to agricultural intensification, this situation may become more acute as natural resources become increasingly valuable, and therefore contested. Realising the full potential of farmer-led irrigation requires contextualised policies, institutions and practices to improve equity, markets and sustainability and help ensure that sector growth is inclusive and beneficial

Sustainable and Equitable Growth in Farmer-led Irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Will it Take?

The rapid development of farmer-led irrigation is increasing agricultural productivity, incomes, employment and nutrition, but it might well not achieve its full potential. Small-scale irrigators tend to be younger, male and better-off. Women and resource-poor farmers – the majority of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa – are disadvantaged and often excluded from the numerous benefits to be gained from irrigation. Equity in access to water management technologies and practices is constrained by numerous factors, including high investment costs, absence of financial services, poor market integration, inadequate information services, and labour constraints. Lack of institutions for collective management of natural resources, such as water, further restricts access for resource-poor farmers, increasing inequity. In the absence of sustainable natural resources management approaches to agricultural intensification, this situation may become more acute as natural resources become increasingly valuable, and therefore contested. Realising the full potential of farmer-led irrigation requires contextualised policies, institutions and practices to improve equity, markets and sustainability and help ensure that sector growth is inclusive and beneficial

Association of BRAFV600E Mutation and MicroRNA Expression with Central Lymph Node Metastases in Papillary Thyroid Cancer: A Prospective Study from Four Endocrine Surgery Centers

Background: Studies have demonstrated an association of the BRAFV600E mutation and microRNA (miR) expression with aggressive clinicopathologic features in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). Analysis of BRAFV600E mutations with miR expression data may improve perioperative decision making for patients with PTC, specifically in identifying patients harboring central lymph node metastases (CLNM). Methods: Between January 2012 and June 2013, 237 consecutive patients underwent total thyroidectomy and prophylactic central lymph node dissection (CLND) at four endocrine surgery centers. All tumors were tested for the presence of the BRAFV600E mutation and miR-21, miR-146b-3p, miR-146b-5p, miR-204, miR-221, miR-222, and miR-375 expression. Bivariate and multivariable analyses were performed to examine associations between molecular markers and aggressive clinicopathologic features of PTC. Results: Multivariable logistic regression analysis of all clinicopathologic features found miR-146b-3p and miR-146b-5p to be independent predictors of CLNM, while the presence of BRAFV600E almost reached significance. Multivariable logistic regression analysis limited to only predictors available preoperatively (molecular markers, age, sex, and tumor size) found miR-146b-3p, miR-146b-5p, miR-222, and BRAFV600E mutation to predict CLNM independently. While BRAFV600E was found to be associated with CLNM (48% mutated in node-positive cases vs. 28% mutated in node-negative cases), its positive and negative predictive values (48% and 72%, respectively) limit its clinical utility as a stand-alone marker. In the subgroup analysis focusing on only classical variant of PTC cases (CVPTC), undergoing prophylactic lymph node dissection, multivariable logistic regression analysis found only miR-146b-5p and miR-222 to be independent predictors of CLNM, while BRAFV600E was not significantly associated with CLNM. Conclusion: In the patients undergoing prophylactic CLNDs, miR-146b-3p, miR-146b-5p, and miR-222 were found to be predictive of CLNM preoperatively. However, there was significant overlap in expression of these miRs in the two outcome groups. The BRAFV600E mutation, while being a marker of CLNM when considering only preoperative variables among all histological subtypes, is likely not a useful stand-alone marker clinically because the difference between node-positive and node-negative cases was small. Furthermore, it lost significance when examining only CVPTC. Overall, our results speak to the concept and interpretation of statistical significance versus actual applicability of molecular markers, raising questions about their clinical usefulness as individual prognostic markers.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140269/1/thy.2015.0378.pd