Ecosystem services valuation for improved water resource management under climate change in Africa.

188 p.The present thesis is entitled "Ecosystem services valuation for improved water resource management under climate change in Africa". Through four chapters, ecosystem services valuation is used as a tool to inform water resource management. After a first chapter at continent-level, the geographic focus of the remainder chapters shifts to Ghana and its northern region.The research draws links to the existing literature on ecosystem based adaptation, smallholder farmers' livelihoods strategies and risk coping, poverty alleviation, nature based-solutions, climate change adaptation and the political economy of water resource management.Given the pressures water related ecosystem are under, ES valuation can play a role in providing economic evidence to policy-makers. The main objective of the present work is to apply ES valuation and use its results to produce tailored evidence that is of value in specific policy contexts

Economic vulnerability to the RussiaUkraine War: which low- and middle-income countries are most vulnerable?

The global economy is still recovering – modestly – from the pandemic and is now facing significant uncertainty over the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war. It is too early to tell the magnitude of the impacts, which will depend on the duration and the escalation of the war and on the corresponding regional and global responses (e.g. economic sanctions) against Russia. Estimates suggest that the ongoing war will reduce global output by 0.4 percentage point to 1 percentage point (pp) in 2022 (Juanino and Millard, 2022; OECD 2022; Peterson et al, 2022). This will amount to global costs between $380 billion and$950 billion in 2022.Global shocks can derail the growth and economic transformation trajectories of low- and middle-income countries (L&MICs). While this war is isolated to Russian and Ukraine territories, its impacts on L&MICs will be felt through various channels, such as disruptions in trade and upward pressure in global prices of products (e.g. oil, metals, wheat) of which Russia and/or Ukraine are major global suppliers. For instance, Brent crude oil prices went up by 11% between 25 February 2022 and 1 April 2022, while wheat prices increased by 30% during the same period. Such increase would occur in a context of already rising commodity prices. Global price indices increased for food (11%) and metals and minerals (12%) between December 2021 and February 2022 (World Bank, 2022).This paper quantifies the economic vulnerabilities of 118 L&MICs to the economic effects of the Russia–Ukraine war through different impact channels. In this paper, economic vulnerability to the war at country level is measured as the combination of direct economic exposure to Russia and Ukraine (e.g. through bilateral trade and investment, migrants) and indirect exposure to the global effects of the war (e.g. through levels of commodity imports, trade and investment openness, tourism), minus resilience (e.g. quality of economic governance, capacity for energy transition, food security) to manage the negative impact of shocks that may emerge from the war

Assessing river basin development given water-energy-food-environment interdependencies

Many river basins in the Global South are undergoing rapid development with major implications for the interdependent water-energy-food-environmental (WEFE) ‘nexus’ sectors. A range of views on the extent to which such natural-human systems should be developed typically exist. The perceived best investments in river basins depend on how one frames the planning problem. Therefore, we propose an approach where the best possible (optimised) implementations of different river basin development scenarios are assessed by comparing their WEFE sector trade-offs. We apply the approach to Tanzania’s river basin, an area with multiple WEFE interdependencies and high development potential (irrigation and hydropower) and ecosystem services. Performance indicators are identified through stakeholder consultation and describe WEFE sector response under scenarios of river basin development. Results show considerable potential exists for energy and irrigation expansion. Designs that prioritise energy production adversely affect environmental performance, however, part of the negative impacts can be minimised through release rules designed to replicate the natural variability of flow. The reliability of monthly energy generation is more sensitive to environmental-oriented management than the cumulative annual energy production. Overall results highlight how sectoral trade-offs change depending on the extent of development, something that may be difficult to regulate in the future, and that there are important basin-scale interdependencies. Benefits and limitations of the approach and its application are discussed

Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals through development corridors in East Africa: a Q-Methodology approach to imagining development futures

In this paper we advance a novel approach to integrated assessment of the ways in which the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are likely to manifest and interact within a given development context, using Q-Methodology and the conceptual framing of imaginaries. We apply this to development corridors and identify three qualitatively distinct imaginaries of SDG futures that exist among stakeholders across five development corridors in East Africa. These imaginaries articulate shared understandings of the ways in which corridors are likely to support, or limit, achievement of the SDGs and construct explanatory logics around the ways in which SDG trade-offs and synergies are likely to manifest within corridors. Our analysis suggests that SDG goals and targets are mostly synergistic in corridor landscapes, but that interactions can be multi-dimensional. We also (1) identify specific clusters of goals and targets that may be directly mutually reinforcing and which, strengthened in parallel, could upscale development within corridors and; (2) identify ways in which, following current corridor trajectories, progress towards some SDGs is likely to threaten progress towards other goals and targets. Particularly, the analysis identifies biodiversity conservation (SDG14/SDG15), sustainability (SDG11, SDG12, SDG13), secure and equal access to land (SDG2.3) and inequality reduction (SDG10) to be likely trade-offs to other development gains in current corridor trajectories. The research emphasises the need for more integrated corridor governance to achieve the SDGs efficiently, as a whole and for all. The method is flexible and could be applied to enable rapid assessment of SDG trajectories within other development contexts

Transformative climate action in cities

A critical, but understudied, issue of concern is how climate change will affect migrant populations living in cities, and how local governance and actions to combat the effects of climate change will address displaced people’s vulnerability and support their integration. This article is based on desk research, interviews with experts in a variety ofdomains, and representatives of mayoral and municipal offices in North American, European, African, and Asian cities