Can smallholder farmers buffer rainfall variability through conservation agriculture? On-farm practices and maize yields in Kenya and Malawi

Reduced tillage, permanent ground cover and crop diversification are the three core pillars of Conservation Agriculture (CA). We assess and compare on-farm effects of different practices related to the three pillars of CA on maize yields under ENSO-driven rainfall variability in Kenya and Malawi. Reduced tillage practices increased yields per hectare by 250 kg on average in Malawi under below-average rainfall conditions and by 700 kg in Kenya under above-average rainfall, but did not have any significant effect on yields under below-average rainfall conditions in Kenya. Ground cover had a positive impact on yields in Malawi (dry conditions) but not in Kenya (both dry and wet conditions), where mixed crop and livestock systems limited this practice. Crop diversification had positive impacts in Kenya (both dry and wet conditions), where maize-legume crop rotation is practiced, but not in Malawi where landholdings are too small to allow rotation. Our findings suggest that isolated CA techniques can have positive effects on yields even after only a few years of practice under variable rainfall conditions. This strengthens empirical evidence supporting the value of CA in resilience building of agricultural systems, and suggests that both full and partial adoption of CA practices should be supported in areas where climate change is leading to more variable rainfall conditions

Leveraging research partnerships to achieve the 2030 agenda : experiences from North-South cooperation

Transnational research partnerships are considered fundamental for supporting research and creating shared knowledge for sustainable development. They enable the acquisition and global sharing of high-quality information and create shared knowledge and capacity. This paper aimed to identify the enabling factors of such partnerships. In a survey carried out by the authors of this article, partnerships were perceived most beneficial when they provided access to new key features such as funding, technology and training. Compliance with research partnership principles, combined with funds and shared interests, was seen to further enhance the longevity of partnerships. Upon consulting the recent peer-reviewed literature, it became clear that research was lacking with regard to optimising the framework and performance of research partnerships, despite galloping technological progress in other areas of sustainable development. We believe that technological opportunities could be better harnessed to enable the concept of partnership to evolve and move towards transformative research for the advancement of sustainable development

Features of successful syndrome mitigation : enhancing resilience and empowering the vulnerable in East Africa

This paper examines how knowledge-based interventions improve the quality of life in communities where they are implemented. It draws on case studies of three interventions implemented as Partnership Actions to Mitigate Syndromes (PAMS) within the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South programme. The case studies consist of a qualitative evaluation based on experience, knowledge and expertise gained through participants’ observations, as well as relevant documents and reports. The concepts of 1) syndrome mitigation; 2) participation and empowerment; and 3) vulnerability and resilience are used as assessment indicators to demonstrate the levels of and differences in contributions by and among the respective interventions. The assessment reveals that although each of the three projects contributed to syndrome mitigation in its respective context, there are marked disparities in the level of individual achievement that are influenced by the nature of problems of unsustainability, technological requirements, and the implementation costs of the preferred intervention

A human actor model as a conceptual orientation in interdisciplinary research for sustainable development

Pursuing the normative goal of sustainable development is necessarily bound to the values held by the actors involved, and to these actors as agents of change. The outcomes of development efforts and interventions depend on actors’ actions and reactions, which are largely determined by these actors’ agency. The questions of how actors are conceptualised in development-oriented research and to what extent the resulting concept is shared beyond the social science community are thus of fundamental importance. Current livelihood models in development-oriented research fail to address agency; strategies of action and, consequently, change and innovation in action largely remain black boxes. In this article we propose a general human actor model that can serve as a tool for communication, reflection, and orientation in development-oriented research. It explicitly builds on existing theoretical foundations and ontologies and comprises four nested components: (1) action as the dynamic interplay between activity, means, and meaning, (2) strategy of action as a combination of actions, (3) dynamic conditions of action, to which activities and means are exposed, and (4) institutions, in which meanings of action are embedded. Application of the proposed model in interdisciplinary research for sustainable development has shown that the model can be concretised for specific actor categories, and therefore has a high heuristic potential regarding concrete inter- and transdisciplinary research questions. The model can trigger theoretical innovation and, most importantly, it can be used to promote reflexivity and unravel and share ethical positions in development-oriented research