Stakeholder-driven transformative adaptation is needed for climate-smart nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa.

Improving nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa under increasing climate risks and population growth requires a strong and contextualized evidence base. Yet, to date, few studies have assessed climate-smart agriculture and nutrition security simultaneously. Here we use an integrated assessment framework (iFEED) to explore stakeholder-driven scenarios of food system transformation towards climate-smart nutrition security in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. iFEED translates climate-food-emissions modelling into policy-relevant information using model output implication statements. Results show that diversifying agricultural production towards more micronutrient-rich foods is necessary to achieve an adequate population-level nutrient supply by mid-century. Agricultural areas must expand unless unprecedented rapid yield improvements are achieved. While these transformations are challenging to accomplish and often associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions, the alternative for a nutrition-secure future is to rely increasingly on imports, which would outsource emissions and be economically and politically challenging given the large import increases required. [Abstract copyright: © 2024. The Author(s).

Exploration and harnessing of usable knowledge in interpretive participatory research : a case of women in the Zambian mining community

This qualitative iterative study is informed by a pragmatic application of participatory action research (PAR) methodology in the mining community of Chingola - Zambia. The inquiry was motivated by argument in the literature for better articulation, conceptualisation and implementation of PAR and other grassroots interpretive participatory research approaches. The study examines how tacit and explicit knowledge is explored and harnessed for problem solving, decision-making, planning and innovation, to enhance and sustain the livelihoods of community members. Three action research perspectives (Coghlan & Brannick, 2005; McKeman, 1996; O\u27Leary, 2005) were reviewed to inform the conceptual framework, while five distinct components of PAR were identified and utilised to explore and inform the broad research questions. The research setting is characterised by the outcomes of post-socialist privatisation of mining enterprises experienced in the mid 1990s, which have impacted the livelihoods of mining community members and altered their conventional context. In particular, this study engages the perceptions of women aged 45 and over, and how these changes have influenced their daily lives. Having identified dislocation and empowerment as broad social issues in the selected community, PAR was employed as an intervention to build problem-solving capacity, among participants. The study intended to gain an in-depth understanding of a social change process, within the context of a real life situation, and from the standpoint of affected organisation members. An investigation of the process and outcomes of the Chingola Project (CP) were used to inform best practice in the use of PAR. Influenced by postmodernist thought, the study is primarily enlightened by the paradigm of praxis and the psychic prison metaphor, and how these impact on PAR, over and above, the functionalist and the interpretive paradigms (Burrell & Morgan, 1979). It is apparent that precedence set by action researchers is mostly labelled as interpretive. The researcher illustrates the significance of extending PAR into praxis, as an aid to achieving enhanced organisational performance, as well as designing and implementing sustainable social development initiatives. Praxis is presented as a remedy for liberating imprisoned mindsets; mindsets which are then enacted upon the world in the present context and in real time. This is in contrast to enacting socially constructed and sustained realities that are detached from the current situation, as represented by interpretivism (Morgan, 1980). Concepts of knowledge management, capacity building, social and cultural capital, and PAR were reviewed for their relation to knowledge sharing, collaborative learning, engagement of mental models and social change. In linking the findings to selected concepts, it was observed that most participants were extremely nostalgic and unmotivated; socialised and imprisoned in a strong culture of dependency. They attributed their problem situation to privatisation, new mine corporations and the Government. The researcher found that engaging subjects with such mindsets, in a process that requires a real connection to their present social dilemmas, posed a challenge to attaining socially significant change, and was a barrier to generating authentic and sustainable outcomes. In seeking to ensure that ownership of the social dilemma was gained by pai1icipants, specific research methods were employed to generate an environment enabling participants to liberate or shift their mindsets to match real time. The study illuminates specific triggers that instigated social change in some participant perceptions and behaviours, which then critically began to challenge the status quo. The researcher established that lengthy contextualisation (Klein & Myers 1999) and force field analysis (Lewin, 195 l) would be significant stimulants for best practice in the use of PAR. In addition, understanding and managing variations of participation and engagement in the PAR process, was given fundamental recognition. Individual and focus group interviews; document analysis; photography and picture elicitation as well as two split capacity-building workshops were employed to collect data. The study recommends an extension of the PAR procedure into the paradigm of praxis, as a remedy for linking participants\u27 mindsets to their present social dilemma, when seeking to enhance organisational performance; and to achieve socially significant and sustainable livelihoods. Contextualisation implemented in this study, involving a holistic and lengthy social and historical analysis of life (Klein & Myers, 1999) and revelation of underlying factors that shape the mindsets of community members is also proposed as a significant activity in the PAR process. This intervention culminated in evident mindset shifts for some pa1ticipants, as well as collaborative consensus to register a women\u27s community based organisation, signifying an effective and organic exit strategy by the researcher. The process and outcomes contribute to a model for best practice in the use of grassroots participatory research. Although results for the study cannot be entirely generalised, they can be adapted and used as a prototype in similar contexts. It is hoped that mining and other satellite corporations, seeking to be socially responsible and to contribute to matters of social development and sustainability, will be informed by this thesis. Similarly, local government and community development agencies, and local and international NGOs can benefit from this conceptualisation of PAR and the subsequent outcomes

A new integrated assessment framework for climate-smart nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa: the integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED)

Climate change will put millions more people in Africa at risk of food and nutrition insecurity by 2050. Integrated assessments of food systems tend to be limited by either heavy reliance on models or a lack of information on food and nutrition security. Accordingly, we developed a novel integrated assessment framework that combines models with in-country knowledge and expert academic judgement to explore climate-smart and nutrition-secure food system futures: the integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED). Here, we describe iFEED and present its application in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. The iFEED process begins with a participatory scenario workshop. In-country stakeholders identify two key drivers of food system change, and from these, four possible scenarios are defined. These scenarios provide the underlying narratives of change to the food system. Integrated modeling of climate change, food production and greenhouse gas emissions is then used to explore nutrition security and climate-smart agriculture outcomes for each scenario. Model results are summarized using calibrated statements—quantitative statements of model outcomes and our confidence in them. These include statements about the way in which different trade futures interact with climate change and domestic production in determining nutrition security at the national level. To understand what the model results mean for food systems, the calibrated statements are expanded upon using implication statements. The implications rely on input from a wide range of academic experts—including agro-ecologists and social scientists. A series of workshops are used to incorporate in-country expertise, identifying any gaps in knowledge and summarizing information for country-level recommendations. iFEED stakeholder champions help throughout by providing in-country expertise and disseminating knowledge to policy makers. iFEED has numerous novel aspects that can be used and developed in future work. It provides information to support evidence-based decisions for a climate-smart and nutrition-secure future. In particular, iFEED: (i) employs novel and inclusive reporting of model results and associated in-country food system activities, with comprehensive reporting of uncertainty; (ii) includes climate change mitigation alongside adaptation measures; and (iii) quantifies future population-level nutrition security, as opposed to simply assessing future production and food security implication