Integrating contested aspirations, processes and policy: development as hanging in, stepping up and stepping out

There are continuing disagreements regarding aspirations and processes in development and appropriate policies for promoting these. This paper proposes a dialogue around a conceptualisation of development as involving three complementary processes: ‘hanging in’, ‘stepping up’ and ‘stepping out’. It argues that these can describe different types of structural change operating at different scales and affecting national and sub-national societies and economies, different sectors within these economies, and people’s evolving livelihoods. The simplicity of this conceptualisation and its strong theoretical, empirical and experiential content make it a powerful framework both for inter-disciplinary, inter-sectoral, multi-scale analysis of dynamic development processes, and for structuring dialogue about contested aspirations, assumptions, modalities and constraints among development analysts and stakeholders with different interests and paradigms

The politics of global assessments: the case of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)

The IAASTD – the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development – which ran between 2003 and 2008, involving over 400 scientists worldwide, was an ambitious attempt to encourage local and global debate on the future of agricultural science and technology. Responding to critiques of top-down, northern-dominated expert assessments of the past, the IAASTD aimed to be more inclusive and participatory in both design and process. But to what extent did it meet these objectives? Did it genuinely allow alternative voices to be heard? Did it create a new mode of engagement in global arenas? And what were the power relations involved, creating what processes of inclusion and exclusion? These questions are probed in an examination of the IAASTD process over five years, involving a combination of interviews with key participants and review of available documents. The paper focuses in particular on two areas of controversy – the use of quantitative scenario modelling and the role of genetically-modified crops in developing country agriculture. These highlight some of the knowledge contests involved in the assessment and, in turn, illuminate four questions at the heart of contemporary democratic theory and practice: how do processes of knowledge framing occur; how do different practices and methodologies get deployed in crosscultural, global processes; how is ‘representation’ constructed and legitimised; and how, as a result, do collective understandings of global issues emerge? The paper concludes that, in assessments of this sort, the politics of knowledge needs to be made more explicit, and negotiations around politics and values, framings and perspectives, need to be put centre-stage in assessment design.ESR

Whose Power to Control? Some Reflections on Seed Systems and Food Security in a Changing World

Four key words are essential in understanding the changing global food system: power, control, risks and benefits. The interplay between state and private actors vying to influence the direction of change, and use whatever tools for control they can, is at the heart of the contention for the future control of food. It is one shaped by history and influenced by a changing geopolitics. This interplay has led to the creation of a range of global rules affecting food, agriculture and biodiversity in which those on ‘intellectual property’ or IP are central. These rules come from a system dominated by the interests of the biggest players. Also important are the changing understandings and nature of food security and the pathways to innovation in agri?food systems that are most likely to lead to a just, healthy and sustainable future for all. Developments in food and farming are central to this and are the context in which the political economy of cereal seed systems in Africa is grounded

Co-design with aligned and non-aligned knowledge partners: implications for research and coproduction of sustainable food systems

We discuss two different strategies to initiate a process of identifying a focused sustainability challenge, and co-defining and co-designing alternative pathways to more sustainable food systems. One strategy was based on working with a relatively closely aligned network of private sector, civil society and academic organisations, whilst the other involved working with a more plural, non-aligned group, ranging from representatives of agricultural social movements, through to the domestic seed industry and government officials, to academic agronomists. This paper reflects on the distinct benefits and challenges involved in each strateg

The Politics of Seed in Africa's Green Revolution: Alternative Narratives and Competing Pathways

As calls for a ‘Uniquely African Green Revolution’ gain momentum, a focus on seeds and seed systems is rising up the agricultural policy agenda. Much of the debate stresses the technological or market dimensions, with substantial investments being made in seed improvement and the development of both public and private sector delivery systems. But this misses out the political economy of policy processes behind this agenda: who wins, who loses, and whose interests are being served? Drawing on lessons from country case studies from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe, as well as insights from a set of complementary studies of cross?cutting themes, this article assesses the evolution of seed system research and development programmes and processes across the region. By examining how the contrasting politics and different configurations of interests affect the way cereal seed systems operate, it highlights opportunities for reshaping the terms of the debate and opening up alternative pathways to more sustainable and socially just seed systems

Crisis? What Crisis? The Normality of the Current Food Crisis

The 2005–8 food crisis was a shock to political elites, but in some respects the situation was normal. Food policies are failing to respond adequately to the squeeze on land, people, health and environment. Strong evidence of systems failure and stress, termed here New Fundamentals, ought to reframe twenty-first century food politics and effort. Yet so far, international discourse is too often narrow and technical. The paper suggests that 2005–8 reinforced how the dominant twentieth century productionist policy paradigm is running out of steam. This assumed that producing more food would resolve social problems. Yet distortions in markets, access and culture remain. At national and international levels of governance, despite realization of the enormity of the challenge ahead, there is still a belief in slow incremental change

Agriculture and the Generation Problem: Rural Youth, Employment and the Future of Farming

Youth unemployment and underemployment are serious problems in most countries, and often more severe in rural than in urban areas. Small?scale agriculture is the developing world's single biggest source of employment, and with the necessary support it can offer a sustainable and productive alternative to the expansion of large?scale, capital?intensive, labour?displacing corporate farming. This, however, assumes a generation of young rural men and women who want to be small farmers, while mounting evidence suggests that young people are uninterested in farming or in rural futures. The emerging field of youth studies can help us understand young people's turn away from farming, pointing to: the deskilling of rural youth, and the downgrading of farming and rural life; the chronic neglect of small?scale agriculture and rural infrastructure; and the problems that young rural people increasingly have, even if they want to become farmers, in getting access to land while still young

Reflecting on ICN2: Was it a game changer?

At the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), November 2014, 170 member states endorsed the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and a Framework for Action. The Rome Declaration committed to ending malnutrition in all its forms while the Framework for Action offered 60 voluntary actions to help achieve this. These documents and ICN2 itself had the potential to be a major step forward for public health nutrition, addressing issues associated with today's complex food system. This article reviews ICN2, its process, outputs and some of the gaps and weaknesses of the documents. ICN2's legacy can be interpreted in two ways-a missed opportunity or one of broad aspirations which have yet to translate into meaningful action. The paper considers whether ICN2 could have adopted a more ecological approach to diet and nutrition, linking health and sustainability. While this fits the evidence, it would require a strong commitment to coherence and food system change, almost certainly a firm stance on some food corporate power, and resolve to champion health at the heart of economic policy. This ambitious agenda would require specific multi-actor and multi-level action, together with metrics and mechanisms for accountability. Coherent government policies and actions to tackle all manifestations of inappropriate diet, and to reframe the economic forces which shape such diets are urgently required. To achieve this, the public health movement needs to work closely with civil society, yet ICN2 showed that there is some reluctance to energise that combination. As a result, ICN2 must be judged a missed opportunity, despite having useful aspirations