Creating new markets via smallholder irrigation: The case of irrigation-led smallholder commercialization in Lume district, Ethiopia

Crop Production/Industries, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Managing rivers for multiple benefits – a coherent approach to research, policy and planning

Rivers provide water for irrigation, domestic supply, power generation and industry as well as a range of other ecosystem services and intrinsic and biodiversity values. Managing rivers to provide multiple benefits is therefore foundational to water security and other policy priorities. Because river flow is often insufficient to meet all needs fully, water management experts have acknowledged the need for trade-offs in river management. Ecosystem scientists have classified and quantified goods and services that rivers provide to society. However, they have seldom examined the way in which water management infrastructure and institutional arrangements harness and direct goods and services to different groups in society. Meanwhile, water management paradigms have often considered freshwater ecosystems as rival water users to society or a source of natural hazards and have underplayed the role healthy ecosystems play in providing multiple social and economic benefits. We argue that physical and social structures and processes are necessary to realize multiple benefits from river ecosystems, and that these structures and processes, in the form of (formal and informal) institutions and (gray and green) infrastructure, shape how benefits accrue to different groups in society. We contend that institutions and infrastructure are in turn shaped by political economy. We suggest a more coherent framework for river management research, policy and planning that focuses on (a) the ways in which political economy, institutions and infrastructure mediate access and entitlements to benefits derived from ecosystem services, and (b) the feedbacks and trade-offs between investments in physical and social structures and processes

Revisiting the Local Adaptive Capacity framework: learning from the implementation of a research and programming framework in Africa

While adaptation to climate change has emerged as a key area of development research, little is known about the enablers and constraints to implementing adaptation-oriented frameworks for research and development programming. This paper documents lessons learned from the Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance (ACCRA) programme – a multi-stakeholder consortium comprised of four large international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and a research organization. It revisits the development and implementation of the conceptual framework that guided ACCRA’s work: the Local Adaptive Capacity (LAC) framework. Between 2009 and 2013, ACCRA’s research used the LAC to understand the impact of development interventions on levels of adaptive capacity at community and household levels. This in turn informed targeting of NGO and government programming. Challenges such as definitional overlaps between resilience and adaptation, difficulties in articulating the intangible elements of LAC’s five characteristics of adaptive capacity and differing interpretations of commonly used terms between academic and practitioner partners each had to be grappled with. Experiences from ACCRA’s research highlight the LAC’s utility as a unifying framework. However, they also point to the need to ensure that certain elements of the LAC are not under-represented (such as gender, power and politics). In addition, the need for improved guidance in describing how the conceptual elements of the LAC can be operationalized, and ensuring greater levels of collaboration between all stakeholders were identified. It is hoped that the lessons from ACCRA not only help to shape future applications of the LAC but the large number of other adaptation and resilience-oriented frameworks that guide development research and practice

Unlocking climate-resilient economic development in drylands : pathways to a resilient world - submission to the Talanoa dialogu

The brief is based on a five-year evidence-based and stakeholder-driven research project carried out under the consortium for Pathways to Resilience in Semi-Arid Economies (PRISE) in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Targeted investment, more robust institutional frameworks, and adaptation actions that proactively support climate-resilient economic development (CRED) can enhance adaptive capacity. A territorial approach to adaptation that transcends national borders and administrative boundaries will open up opportunities for transboundary adaptation and support CRED at both regional and national levels.UK Government’s Department for International Development (DfID

Large-scale transdisciplinary collaboration for adaptation research: Challenges and insights

An increasing number of research programs seek to support adaptation to climate change through the engagement of large-scale transdisciplinary networks that span countries and continents. While transdisciplinary research processes have been a topic of reflection, practice, and refinement for some time, these trends now mean that the global change research community needs to reflect and learn how to pursue collaborative research on a large scale. This paper shares insights from a seven-year climate change adaptation research program that supports collaboration between more than 450 researchers and practitioners across four consortia and 17 countries. The experience confirms the importance of attention to careful design for transdisciplinary collaboration, but also highlights that this alone is not enough. The success of well-designed transdisciplinary research processes is also strongly influenced by relational and systemic features of collaborative relationships. Relational features include interpersonal trust, mutual respect, and leadership styles, while systemic features include legal partnership agreements, power asymmetries between partners, and institutional values and cultures. In the new arena of large-scale collaborative science efforts, enablers of transdisciplinary collaboration include dedicated project coordinators, leaders at multiple levels, and the availability of small amounts of flexible funds to enable nimble responses to opportunities and unexpected collaborations