Introduction: Courting Catastrophe? Can Humanitarian Actions Contribute to Climate Change Adaptation?

Climate change introduces new challenges for humanitarian aid through changing hazard patterns. The linkages between climate change and humanitarian aid are complex. While humanitarian organisations deal directly with vulnerable populations, interventions and actions also form part of global politics and development pathways that are currently generating climate change, inequities and vulnerability. This IDS Bulletin represents a call for increasing engagement between humanitarian aid and adaptation interventions to support deliberate transformation of development pathways. Based on studies carried out as part of the ‘Courting Catastrophe’ project, we argue that humanitarian interventions offer several entry points and opportunities for a common agenda to drive transformational adaptation. Changes in political and financial frameworks are needed to facilitate longer-term actions; additionally, transformational adaptation demands moving from a mode of delivering expert advice and solutions to vulnerable populations, to taking up multiple vulnerability knowledges and making space for contestation of current development

Courting Catastrophe? Humanitarian Policy and Practice in a Changing Climate

Humanitarian crises appear dramatic, overwhelming and sudden, with aid required immediately to save lives. Whereas climate change is about changing hazard patterns and crises are in reality rarely unexpected, with academic researchers and humanitarian and development organisations warning about possible risks for months before they take place. While humanitarian organisations deal directly with vulnerable populations, interventions are part of global politics and development pathways that are simultaneously generating climate change, inequities and vulnerability. So what is the level of convergence between humanitarian interventions and efforts to support adaptation to climate change, and what lessons can be drawn from current experience on the prospects for reducing the risk of climate change causing increased burdens on humanitarian interventions in the future? This IDS Bulletin is a call for increasing engagement between humanitarian aid and adaptation interventions to support deliberate transformation of development pathways. Based on studies from the ‘Courting Catastrophe’ project, contributors argue that humanitarian interventions offer opportunities for a common agenda to drive transformational adaptation. Changes in political and financial frameworks are needed to facilitate longer-term actions where demands move from delivering expert advice and solutions to vulnerable populations to taking up multiple vulnerability knowledges and making space for contestation of current development thinking. Yet while the humanitarian system could drive transformative adaptation, it should not bear responsibility alone. In this issue, alternative pathways and practical ways to support local alternatives and critical debates around these are illustrated, to demonstrate where humanitarian actions can most usefully contribute to transformation

D3.4: Report on educational strategy, year 2

A new way of doing education will be important to cultivate the competences needed to deal with the challenge of sustainability in agrifood and forestry systems. Overall, the new educational approach is characterised by 1) a shift from theory to phenomenon and action as the starting point for the learning process (‘experiential learning’, ‘action learning’) and 2) a shift from knowledge to competence as the focus of the educational activities. The Nextfood project aims at contributing to these shifts by facilitating according to a master manual worked out by the project (deliverable D2.2) a transition to action learning in twelve educational cases in Africa, India and Europe. Simultaneously, research is done according to an action research protocol (deliverable D2.1) on the case transition process and on effects of action learning on students and involved stakeholders. The present report on the implementation of this educational strategy in the twelve cases focus on: (1) the case development process (main challenges and supporting forces associated with implementation of the Nextfood approach) (2) the students’ experiences and learning outcomes (their development of key competences and transition to an experiential learning mode) (3) benefits of involving non-university stakeholders (their learning outcomes and contributions) The cases have collected data on the development and implementation of the intended educational activities. In a separate section of the case development reports (deliverable D2.6), the cases have been asked to report on how these data were collected, the analysis process, what the data indicate and whether there were any significant factors influencing the validity and reliability of the findings. These data form the basis for the findings reported in this document. Data on the process of implementing action learning showed that a major challenge is to build an understanding of the need for interdisciplinary, systems-oriented, selfdirected, group and peer action learning having as primary focus the training of key competences needed for sustainable development. To a varying degree this has been experienced in several cases with academic institutions, teachers, students and offcampus stakeholders involved in the education. This indicates a need for a shift in culture and mindset at several levels to remove the formal and practical obstacles identified and to create a favourable environment and motivation for a different kind of learning and assessment strategy. Although the reported challenges outnumbered the supporting forces, the latter included interest and support for systems-oriented action learning among institutions at various levels of governments and educational institutions and among individual stakeholders and commercial actors. Several scientific reports also strongly support the implementation of this approach. Data from the students’ self-assessment and information extracted from their reflection documents suggested a variable effect of action learning on the students’ selfdevelopment of key competences. Possible causal relationships have not been explored so far, but it seems likely that the extent to which the action-learning approach has been implemented in a case, plays an important role. So do probably also factors such as pre-knowledge about and motivation for action learning among teachers, students and other stakeholders involved. When it comes to students’ transition in mindset and mode of learning, there was indication that reflection was valued as a competence on which development of all the others depend, and several students praised the effect improved reflection competence had on their lives outside university. In several cases, students that came into the course with expectations to gain certain pieces of knowledge or technical skills, gradually focused less on those aspects and more on developing the core competences. Further, several cases reported increasing enthusiasm about action learning among students, but also examples of students that had the same questions after the course as they had before. The causal factors for this variability are probably similar to those mentioned above regarding competence development but were not investigated. Information about involving non-university stakeholders strongly suggests that they consider their interaction with students as useful learning opportunities enabling them to see their situation in different perspectives, that students were perceived as partners with important knowledge, and that the process of experience sharing worked in both directions. Similarly, their contributions are highly valued by course facilitators and students

Transformation in governance towards resilient food systems

The dynamics of systemic societal transformations are not well understood, and the extent to which such transformations can be governed is contested. This research paper is the result of a joint effort among a small group of researchers to identify pathways for transformation towards sustainable food systems, which are resilient towards shocks and towards climate change in particular. Using empirical studies, both transformations in governance systems and governance of transformations were investigated. These cases served as a preliminary analysis to identify some of the trends and patterns that warrant further investigation. Not surprisingly, transformational change in food systems is often triggered by a shock to the system, or by increasing pressure to that system. But that alone is not enough to bring about a transformation. A number of preconditions and conditions need to be present including sufficient ‘wealth’ or economic and social capital in the system with resources that can be mobilized, and sufficient flexibility in the institutional context to allow innovation to emerge and gain strength. A particular area of interest that appears to stimulate transformations is collective action, which often involves collaboration across geographical scales and interest groups. The outcomes of transformations are complex and typically multifaceted, and can take years to emerge. However, broadly speaking, the cases explored demonstrate that governance is central to food system transformation both in terms of pre-conditions and provoking processes as well as in the outcomes of the transformation itself. Food system transformations in general appear to entail fundamental shifts in social relations and institutions – in other words, the governance of the food system

Listen to the radio and go on field trips: A study on farmers' attributes to opt for extension methods in Northwest Ethiopia

Extension professionals are expected to help disseminate agricultural technologies, information, knowledge and skills to farmers. In order to develop valuable and long-lasting extension services, it is essential to understand the methods of extension that farmers find most beneficial. This understanding helps adopt improved practices, overcome barriers, provide targeted interventions and continuously improve agricultural extension programs. Thus, assessing factors affecting farmers' choice of agricultural extension methods is essential for developing extension methods that comply with farmers' needs and socio-economic conditions. Therefore, we analyzed the factors affecting farmers' preferences in extension methods, using cross-sectional data collected from 300 households in two sample districts and 16 Kebelles in Ethiopia between September 2019 and March 2020. Four extension methods, including training, demonstration, office visits and phone calls were considered as outcome variables. We fitted a multivariate probit model to estimate the factors that influence farmers' choice of extension methods. The results of the study showed that the number of dependents in the household head, formal education and membership of Idir (an informal insurance program a community or group runs to meet emergencies) were negatively associated with farmers' choices to participate in different extension methods compared to no extension. On the other hand, the sex of the household head, farm experience, participation in non-farm activities, monetary loan access, owning a mobile phone, radio access and membership of cooperatives were found to have a statistically significant positive impact on farmers' choices of extension methods. Based on these findings, the government and the concerned stakeholders should take farmers' socio-economic and institutional traits into account when selecting and commissioning agricultural extension methods. This could help to develop contextually relevant extension strategies that are more likely to be chosen and appreciated by farmers. Furthermore, such strategies can aid policymakers in designing extension programs that cater to farmers' needs and concerns. In conclusion, farmers' socio-economic and institutional affiliation should be taken into consideration when selecting agricultural extension methods

Adaptation interventions and their effect on vulnerability in developing countries: Help, hindrance or irrelevance?

This paper critically reviews the outcomes of internationally-funded interventions aimed at climate change adaptation and vulnerability reduction. It highlights how some interventions inadvertently reinforce, redistribute or create new sources of vulnerability. Four mechanisms drive these maladaptive outcomes: (i) shallow understanding of the vulnerability context; (ii) inequitable stakeholder participation in both design and implementation; (iii) a retrofitting of adaptation into existing development agendas; and (iv) a lack of critical engagement with how ‘adaptation success’ is defined. Emerging literature shows potential avenues for overcoming the current failure of adaptation interventions to reduce vulnerability: first, shifting the terms of engagement between adaptation practitioners and the local populations participating in adaptation interventions; and second, expanding the understanding of ‘local’ vulnerability to encompass global contexts and drivers of vulnerability. An important lesson from past adaptation interventions is that within current adaptation cum development paradigms, inequitable terms of engagement with ‘vulnerable’ populations are reproduced and the multi-scalar processes driving vulnerability remain largely ignored. In particular, instead of designing projects to change the practices of marginalised populations, learning processes within organisations and with marginalised populations must be placed at the centre of adaptation objectives. We pose the question of whether scholarship and practice need to take a post-adaptation turn akin to post-development, by seeking a pluralism of ideas about adaptation while critically interrogating how these ideas form part of the politics of adaptation and potentially the processes (re)producing vulnerability. We caution that unless the politics of framing and of scale are explicitly tackled, transformational interventions risk having even more adverse effects on marginalised populations than current adaptation

Insights into agency and social interactions in natural resource management. Extended case studies from northern Ethiopia

This dissertation explores natural resource management in northern Ethiopia from an actor-oriented perspective. It is the outcome of a PhD project funded by the University of Leuven and hosted by the MU-IUC programme (the Institutional University Cooperation with Mekelle University in Ethiopia) of VLIR (the Flemish Interuniversity Council). To gain insights into actors, institutions and interactions regarding natural resource management, data were collected during 22 months of fieldwork in northern Ethiopia using the extended case method, which is an ethnographic method that combines participant observation and interviews. This dissertation starts with a theoretical introduction, followed by four chapters based on the empirical data, and ends with a conclusion on the implications of the research findings for natural resource management in northern Ethiopia.The introduction first describes how the research emerged and then the research process itself. The description of the research process elaborates upon the research area, approach, questions and techniques. Next, the theoretical framework of political ecology is explored. It s origin and anthropological strand are clarified. Finally, the difficulty encountered in political ecology in interweaving actor-oriented and systems thinking is touched upon. Chapter one examines how local people gain access to and get control over water, based on a theoretical framework that combines development discourses, social interfaces and relations of property. The extended case of a governmental water supply intervention unravels relations of property over hand dug wells and how these are challenged within the governmental intervention in which pumps are placed on the wells. As such, it turns out that relations of property continue to be based on former private land holding systems in spite of socialist land reforms and that hybrids of development discourses are deployed at three levels of institutionalisation, policy making and implementation. All the more, because these three levels are disconnected from each other, discrepancies between policy discourse and practice prevail, as becomes clear in the analysis of interactions at the local-state social interface.Chapter two investigates discrepancies between policy discourse and practice diachronically with a focus on multiple interpretations of the concept of participation. The extended case study of a single natural resource rehabilitation programme (the zero-grazing programme) over four years time reveals continuities and changes in programme implementation through time and their effects on farmers lives. Three continuities seem to surface in these interactions at the local-state social interface: non-democratic participation , the TPLF-development nexus, and the intertwinement of development programmes. A major change exists in why and how farmers incorporate strategies that governmental officials deploy to make them participate . Chapter three explores conflicts over pastures along the Afar-Tigray regional boundary based on the analytical concepts of ethnicity, boundaries and borderlands. The extended case study of several conflicts over different pastures in the Afar-Tigray borderlands demonstrates the interplay of social, political and geographical space when people make place out of space and gain access to and get control over pastures. In addition to that, the extended case indicates the ambivalent role of the state in resource management, especially in boundary-making and conflict mediation, and how that influences local processes of identification and appropriation of place.Chapter four examines the concept of social resilience and recapitulates on the actor-oriented approach in political ecology. The origin and multiple definitions of social resilience are described and it is pointed out that the concept s underlying dynamics are poorly understood. Participation and social capital two central concepts in the social resilience debate are untangled along with the critique they received in the field of development studies. Then, based on the extended case study of the management of a national forest priority area in northern Ethiopia, an actor-oriented approach is proposed as a substantial contribution to the analyses of social resilience in natural resource management.The conclusion reflects upon the research results, summarizing the implications of the research findings for natural resource management in northern Ethiopia from a political ecological perspective and recapitulates about the possibility to interweave actor-oriented and systems thinking.Preface / Voorwoord .................................................................................................................. I Contents .................................................................................................................................. III List of abbreviations ................................................................................................................. V Summary ................................................................................................................................ VII Samenvatting........................................................................................................................... IX Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 The environmental entitlements framework ................................................................. 3 Natural resource management in northern Ethiopia ...................................................... 6 The research ................................................................................................................ 10 The research area ............................................................................................. 10 The research approach ..................................................................................... 12 The research questions .................................................................................... 15 The research techniques .................................................................................. 17 The theoretical framework .......................................................................................... 19 From the cases to political ecology ................................................................. 19 The origin of political ecology ........................................................................ 20 The anthropological strand within political ecology ....................................... 22 Actor-oriented and systems thinking ............................................................... 24 Outline of the dissertation ........................................................................................... 25 Chapter 1 Water for all and all for water? Governmental interventions affecting property of natural resources ................................................................................................................ 29 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 30 Conceptual framework ................................................................................................ 30 Ethiopian context ......................................................................................................... 33 From modernist to populist-socialist development discourse ......................... 33 Socialist interfaces between hierarchic levels ................................................. 33 Relations of property regarding natural resources ........................................... 34 Study area..................................................................................................................... 35 Results ......................................................................................................................... 36 Local power dynamics ..................................................................................... 36 Dynamics at the community-government social interface .............................. 38 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 40 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 2 Interactions at the community-government social interface throughout multiple ‘participatory’ approaches ....................................................................................................... 47 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 48 Participation in the development arena ....................................................................... 48 The Ethiopian background for participation ............................................................... 50 Research area and methodology .................................................................................. 52 The introduction of the Zero-Grazing Programme in Tigray ...................................... 53 Introduction and implementation of the Zero-Grazing Programme in Mahbereslasie 54 The Zero-Grazing Programme in 2006 ....................................................................... 55 The Zero-Grazing Programme four years later ........................................................... 58 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 60 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 62 Chapter 3 ‘This pasture is ours since ancient times’. The interplay of social, political and geographical space along the Afar-Tigray regional boundary ................................................ 67 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 68 Ethnicity, boundaries and borderlands ........................................................................ 68 Ethiopian context ......................................................................................................... 70 Study area and methodology ....................................................................................... 72 Case studies ................................................................................................................. 74 A history of cooperation and conflict .............................................................. 74 Delalisho, where a church is burnt and rebuilt ................................................ 76 Muleyto, where plans for a mosque lead to gunshots ..................................... 78 Korha, place of interplay ................................................................................. 79 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 80 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 82 Chapter 4 Social resilience beyond development critiques: Towards and actor-oriented analysis of social-ecological systems ...................................................................................... 87 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 88 Participation and social capital disenchanted .............................................................. 90 The actor-oriented approach ........................................................................................ 91 Extended case study on Desaa forest management .................................................... 94 Loci of social resilience ............................................................................................... 97 Discussion ........................................................................................................ 99 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 100 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 105 Insights into natural resource management in northern Ethiopia .............................. 105 Why and how does ecological change happen? ............................................ 105 Who has access to natural resources and how? ............................................. 107 Why do natural resource management interventions fail? ............................ 108 Which social and political struggles are at play in natural resource management? ................................................................................................. 108 Actor-oriented and systems thinking interwoven? .................................................... 109 References ............................................................................................................................ 11nrpages: 126status: publishe

D3.2: A toolbox for teaching practitioners

A new way of doing education is essential to cultivate the competences needed to deal with often vexing challenges of reaching sustainability in agri-food and forestry systems. Overall, the new approach we introduce is characterized by 1) a shift from theory to phenomenon as the starting point for the learning process (‘experiential learning’) and 2) a shift from knowledge to competence as the focus of the educational activities. One key strategy is involvement of students and other stakeholders to the point where they have co-ownership of the learning process, and thus are more motivated to learn than when placed in a passive receiver role. Such a major shift in mindset and educational activities will represent a challenge for institutions, teachers and students or other stakeholders. It will be important to enable teachers to go through a necessary shift in mindset, and to enable them to master a new way of designing and doing education. We have therefore included the development of a toolbox for teaching practitioners in the Nextfood project: “We will support the teaching practitioners in the cases with a toolbox with guides, learning models and teaching materials, which will be continually updated during the project. This education materials will be demonstrated for case leaders in a series of workshops.” (from the Nextfood Grant Agreement). The toolbox will support teachers at any level of the education system (high school, vocational training & university), as well as extension specialists devoted to experiential learning approaches. It is intended for courses and programs in the area of sustainable agri-food and forestry systems, but the methods and models are not content-specific and can be applied in a variety of educational settings. The toolbox design supports the Nextfood educational approach, in which learners and other supply chain actors (farmers, foresters, advisors and industry representatives) are seen as important actors and co-creators of knowledge. Hence, the D3.2 provides process and tools for implementation of experiential learning in a multistakeholder setting. For a thorough explanation of the Nextfood educational approach, please refer to D3.1 (Educational approaches)

Water for all and all for water? Governmental interventions affecting property of natural resources in northern Ethiopia

In spite of growing international attention for natural resource management, relations of property regarding natural resources have hardly been studied in Ethiopia, a country known for its oxen-plow-based agriculture and revolutionary land reforms. This article goes beyond the agricultural focus and provides an actor-oriented analysis of water management in an Ethiopian microlevel context within a theoretical framework that builds on development discourses, social interfaces, and relations of property. The disconnectedness between government policies and local reality and the repercussions thereof for policy implementation are unraveled and so bring to light hybrids of development discourses. Relations of property still appear to be based on former private landholding systems in spite of socialist land reform, and hybrids of development discourses are deployed at three levels of institutionalization, policymaking, and implementation that are disconnected from each other, which leads to discrepancies between policy discourse and practice. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.status: publishe