Particulate matter pollution in an informal settlement in Nairobi : using citizen science to make the invisible visible

We used a citizen science approach to explore personal exposure to air pollution of selected informal settlement dwellers in Nairobi, Kenya. This paper presents the methods used, with the aim of informing others who wish to conduct similar work in the future, and some results, including policy impact. We used three interlinked methods: 1) a personal mobile exposure monitoring campaign in which individual workers used Dylos monitors to measure variations in their exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) within the settlement over the course of a day, 2) a questionnaire conducted before and after the monitoring campaign to assess any changes in knowledge or attitude in the wider community, and 3) two workshops, which facilitated the citizen science approach and brought together members of the community, local policy makers and researchers. The three elements of the study provided the local community, policymakers and scientists with new insights into the challenges air pollution poses for human health in such settlements, and opportunities for exploring how to monitor, mitigate and avoid these pollutants using a citizen science approach. We found significant differences in PM2.5 exposure between individual workers that could be partially explained by spatial differences in concentration that we identified within the settlement. Residents of the informal settlement identified a number of sources that might explain these differences in concentration, although many residents perceived air quality to be good both indoors and outdoors. The workshops raised awareness of the issue of air pollution and brought together affected community members and local and national policy makers to discuss air pollution issues in Nairobi's informal settlements. As a result, a new knowledge exchange network, the Kenya Air Quality Network, of policy-makers, researchers and community members was formed with the aim to facilitate the improvement of air quality across Kenya

Transnational innovation systems for bioeconomy: insights from cassava value chains in East Africa

In this study, we analyze the purpose, challenges, and opportunities of transnational innovation systems using cassava as the case study crop in the East Africa region. Cassava scientifically referred to as Manihot esculenta Crantz, is an important food security crop for the poor and vulnerable and a potential building block for advancing the bioeconomy in Africa and the global South. Semi-structured interviews with researchers, government official, and small and medium enterprise representatives from the region were done to determine their level of collaborations with other partners across the region and the opportunities and challenges for transnational innovation systems along the cassava value chain. The selection of interviewees followed a purposive sampling technique according to their knowledge on transnational innovation in the cassava value chain. This was corroborated by a focused literature review on innovation systems concepts gathered from scholarly literature. The findings show that transnational collaborations and innovations in the East African region offer opportunities for expansion of biomass production, bioprocessing, and value addition to the rich bioresources available. Collaboration across borders and transnational innovation systems were found to play an important role for advancing and/or upscaling cassava breeding, growing, value-adding products and novel processing methods and contributing to a growing East African bioeconomy. Other than the regional policy challenges, organizational and cultural barriers were more prominent in venturing, participation, and involvement of parties and users in transnational innovations. These findings draw attention to the often unnoticed, but vital, role that institutional and policy frameworks play in initiating as well as supporting transnational innovation systems that address issues of current and future global concern. Therefore, appropriate policy environment and partnerships that offer opportunities for synergy and complementarity are vital for building effective transnational innovation systems that enhance the sustainability of production, value addition and end-uses of biobased cassava products

Erratum to "The launch of the first-ever Integrated Assessment of Air Pollution and Climate Change for Sustainable Development in Africa"

Erratum to "The launch of the first-ever Integrated Assessment of Air Pollution and Climate Change for Sustainable Development in Africa" published in Clean Air Journal, 32(2), 2022, https://doi.org/10.17159/caj/2022/32/2.15320 The original article can be found here: https://cleanairjournal.org.za/article/view/1532

Cross-cutting principles for planetary health education

Since the 2015 launch of the Rockefeller Foundation Lancet Commission on planetary health,1 an enormous groundswell of interest in planetary health education has emerged across many disciplines, institutions, and geographical regions. Advancing these global efforts in planetary health education will equip the next generation of scholars to address crucial questions in this emerging field and support the development of a community of practice. To provide a foundation for the growing interest and efforts in this field, the Planetary Health Alliance has facilitated the first attempt to create a set of principles for planetary health education that intersect education at all levels, across all scales, and in all regions of the world—ie, a set of cross-cutting principles

Direct payments to promote biodiversity conservation and the implications for poverty reduction among pastoral communities in East African arid and semi-arid lands

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) are widely being applied in the conservation of biodiversity and management of ecosystem services. In developing countries, particularly in Africa, PES mechanisms are expected to generate co-benefits of poverty reduction and improved livelihoods in rural areas. However, there are very few such schemes in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) that involve pastoral and semi-nomadic communities. Furthermore, there is little empirical evidence of the impact of PES on poverty. This thesis assesses the changes in biodiversity (using wildlife populations as a proxy), ecosystem services (provisioning, habitat and cultural and amenity services), human population and climatic variability in Kenyan ASAL at the national, sub-national and local levels. It further examines the potential and actual implications of PES on poverty and ecosystem based adaptation (EBA) to climate change among two pastoral Maasai communities living adjacent to wildlife protected areas in southern Kenya. It generates evidence of the positive effects of PES on the livelihoods of participating families, particularly during a period of extreme drought when PES serves as a critical safety-net against high livestock mortality and loss of cash income derived from livestock. In addition, PES is found to be an invaluable source of income diversification and is the most equitable of all income sources among participating households. Despite some of its positive attributes, there is need to assess and mitigate the potential negative implications of PES impact on the non-participating households and the landless families. Concerns also arise with regard to the equity implications, leakages and the lack of financial sustainability in the PES programs analysed.Les payements pour les services d'écosystème (PSE) sont largement utilisés pour la conservation de la biodiversité et le management des services environnementaux. Particulièrement en Afrique, les PSE sont supposés générer des revenus complémentaires pour la réduction de la pauvreté et l'amélioration des moyens de subsistance dans les zones rurales. Cependant, il y a très peu de PSE dans les zones arides et semi-arides (ZASA) qui impliquent les communautés pastorales et semi-nomades. Il y a peu d'évidences empiriques de l'impact des PSE sur la pauvreté. Cette thèse évalue les changements en biodiversité, les services environnementaux, la population humaine et la variation climatique dans les ZASA au Kenya. L'étude examine aussi les implications potentielles et réelles des PSE sur la pauvreté et les adaptations au changement climatique fondées sur les écosystèmes de deux communautés pastorales Maasai vivant à proximité des zones protégées de la faune sauvage dans le sud du Kenya. L'étude génère l'évidence des effets positifs des PSE sur les moyens de subsistance des familles participantes, particulièrement pendant une période d'extrême sécheresse quand les PSE servent comme un moyen de sécurité contre la mortalité élevée du bétail et la perte de revenus de l'élevage. Les PSE sont comme une source précieuse de diversification des revenus avec un effet de réduction de l'inégalité des revenus. Malgré ses aspects positifs, il est nécessaire d'évaluer et de contrôler les conséquences négatives potentielles de l'impact des PSE les non-participants et les familles sans terre. Les inquiétudes se posent sur les implications d'équité, et le manque de financement durable des programmes

“Dear Diary” revisited:reflecting on collaborative journaling

The genesis of this article was a request from the Journal of Geography in Higher Education to provide a reflection piece about our article 'Dear Diary: Early Career Geographers Collectively Reflect on their Qualitative Field Research Experiences' (2011) that won the journal's biennial award for 2009-2011. This request has afforded us the opportunity to reconnect as a team and, through self-directed interviews, to reflect upon how writing 'Dear Diary' continues to influences our current perceptions of journaling in qualitative research. More specifically, we focus here on the relationships between journaling and our approach to research, team-based collaboration, and our current teaching and mentoring practices. We all continue to keep fieldwork journals and perceive reflexive journaling as a crucial tool for qualitative methods and other collaborative ventures. © 2013 Taylor & Francis

The pastoral farming system: Balancing between tradition and transition

Economic growth in Africa accelerated in the new millennium, enhancing confidence in the continent’s future. Positive developments have taken place in the liberalization of trade and markets, in the strengthening of institutions and policies, and in investments in human and social capital and infrastructure. However, the growth has not trickled down to the large number of rural people experiencing chronic or crisis-driven hunger and poverty. Thus, Africa has had a larger proportion of extreme poor than any other region of the world. Most of Africa’s poor are rural and most rely largely on crops, livestock, trees and fish – along with off-farm income – for their livelihoods. The improvement of agriculture, particularly smallholder farming systems, is fundamental to overcoming the problems of rural poverty and lagging rural economies. The African rural development context is unique and diverse, in its geography, agro-ecology, history, politics and culture. National and regional decision makers face the challenge of identifying the best agricultural and rural development opportunities with the greatest impact on food security, livelihoods and economic growth. Experience has shown that policy and investment decisions must be better grounded in local context-specific analyses, incorporating multi-stakeholder and systems approaches focused on the livelihood strategies and opportunities of farm men and women. The value of targeting technologies and policies to different farming systems has been recognized in the Science Agenda of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA). At the opening of the new millennium an FAO/World Bank analysis was published that examined rural development opportunities over the period from 2000 to 2015 from the perspective of farm households in major farming systems of the developing world (Dixon et al. 2001; www.fao.org/farmingsystems/). The analysis classified and mapped farming systems, including those of Africa, examined the drivers of change for the 2000–2015 period and identified strategic priorities for each system. This farming system framework and analysis has proved to be valuable for targeting and prioritizing agricultural research and development initiatives and has been used repeatedly – for example, by the InterAcademy Council report on Africa, the Millennium Villages Project, the CGIAR Collaborative Research Programs, and others. Given the major changes in African agricultural opportunities, it was time for an update of the 2000 FAO/World Bank analysis of African farming systems looking forward from 2015 to 2030. Since 2000 the African population has increased by a third, dynamism has returned to many African economies and regional agricultural research and development organizations have generated and disseminated many new varieties and practices – but farm household vulnerability and international market volatility have increased. The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research supported an update, with assistance and guidance from the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the CGIAR, the World Bank, and the Food and Agricultural Organization. The work was coordinated by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Nairobi. More than 60 scientists and development professionals, working in multi-disciplinary teams, assessed constraints, trends and strategic interventions in the 15 major farming systems across the continent. The analysis integrated key recent strategic reports and a wealth of expert knowledge and spatial data – including natural resource, production, infrastructural and nutritional information from FAO, World Bank, CGIAR, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and other sources. The resulting book provides a unique systematic, forward-looking, compendium of continent-wide farming system assessments and databases for agribusiness, policy makers and science leaders. The document will undoubtedly be a fundamental guide for years to come for prioritization and targeting of public and private investments to deliver food and nutrition security and rural transformation in Africa

Spatial variation in the willingness to accept payments for conservation of a migratory wildlife corridor in the Athi-Kaputiei Plains, Kenya

To be effective in promoting the conservation of migratory wildlife, recipients of payment for ecosystem services (PES) must be willing to accept payment along the entire migratory corridor. This paper investigates spatial variation in willingness to accept (WTA) payments made by the Wildlife Conservation Lease Program in the Athi-Kaputiei plains of Kenya. The program, designed as an incentive to keep land open for wildlife and livestock, offers land owners 10 US$ per ha per year, irrespective of location. We model the relation between WTA and distances to roads, towns and rivers, annual precipitation and slope and display the predicted spatial variation in WTA. The results reveal significant spatial variation in willingness to accept payments for availing land for conservation, with higher WTA concentrated away from roads and also in the Southeast of the plains. The results further suggest that wildlife movement will be blocked due to low WTA in the proximity of towns and tarmacked roads. We conclude that an effective strategy to keep the land open for migratory wildlife should consider spatial variation in WTA payment for land lease. It is suggested to consider stratifying the lease rates geographically to reflect the underlying spatial variation in WTA.</p