Sustainability

As a consummately effective ‘boundary term’, able to link disparate groups on the basis of a broad common agenda, ‘sustainability’ has moved a long way from its technical association with forest management in Germany in the eighteenth century. In the 1980s and 1990s it defined – for a particular historical moment – a key debate of global importance, bringing with it a coalition of actors – across governments, civic groups, academia and business – in perhaps an unparalleled fashion. That they did not agree with everything (or even often know anything of the technical definitions of the term) was not the point. The boundary work done in the name of sustainability created an important momentum for innovation in ideas, political mobilisation, and policy change, particularly in connection with the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio in 1992. All this of course did not result in everything that the advocates at the centre of such networks had envisaged, and today the debate has moved on, with different priority issues, and new actors and networks. But, the author argues, this shift does not undermine the power of sustainability as a buzzword: as a continuingly powerful and influential meeting point of ideas and politics.ESR

Regulatory manoeuvres : the 'Bt cotton' controversy in India

This paper asks what regulation actually means in practice in the post-economic reform context of India, taking the case of biosafety regulation and Bt cotton as a case. The last few years have been a test case for such regulations, culminating in the formal approval of Bt cotton for commercial production in 2002. The paper explores various dimensions of regulation – narrow and broad, “front end” and “back end”, technical and political. With the opening up of the economy and the encouragement of external investment in areas like biotechnology, biosafety regulation is one area retained by the central state. But how effective is this, given the role of powerful commercial players and the highly diverse set of practices found at more local, state levels? By examining the Bt cotton story in India – and in Karnataka state in particular – the paper demonstrates how – in practice – regulations emerge through a political process of negotiation between a wide range of actors in multiple sites. The result is usually an uneven, and often diverse, compromise, based on a combination of technical, social, political and, sometimes, moral considerations. It is the process of co-construction of policy, operating in a hybrid world between science, business and policy which is key for our understanding of regulation in practice. A particular focus of this paper is the interaction between national and state level processes in the Indian federal system, and an examination of how regulatory debates – formally located at the national level within national ministries and departments, firmly within the Delhi policy circuit – influence and, in turn, are influenced by what happens at a state level. Across these sites – all under the banner of “Bt cotton” – a number of quite different debates are being had: over the efficacy of the technology; over the changing nature of agriculture; over the control of agriculture and food by multinationals; over the role of the state in a federal system; over the relevance of regulation in a post-reform economy, and so on. Different actors, deploying different narratives about regulatory policy, join up with different allies at different times. There is no simple story. Yet the sheer complexity of the policy process, and the way this is embedded in the political and social fabric of India, is revealing and important for any discussion about what appropriate policy responses might be to the regulatory dilemmas presented by agricultural biotechnology in the developing world. Despite the advocacy of uniformity and harmonisation in regulatory policy, this paper shows how there clearly can be no one-size-fits-all solution

Global engagements with global assessments : the case of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)

The IAASTD – the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development – which ran between 2003 and 2008, involving over 400 scientists worldwide, was an ambitious attempt to encourage local and global debate on the future of agricultural science and technology. Responding to critiques of top-down, northern-dominated expert assessments of the past, the IAASTD aimed to be more inclusive and participatory in both design and process. But how far did it meet these objectives? Did it genuinely allow alternative voices to be heard? Did it create a new mode of engagement in global arenas? And what were the power relations involved, creating what processes of inclusion and exclusion? These questions are probed in an examination of the IAASTD process over five years, involving a combination of interviews with key participants and review of available documents. The paper focuses in particular on two areas of controversy – the use of quantitative scenario modelling and the role of genetically-modified crops in developing country agriculture. These highlight some of the knowledge contests involved in the assessment and, in turn, illuminate four questions at the heart of contemporary democratic theory and practice: how do processes of knowledge framing occur; how do different practices and methodologies get deployed in cross-cultural, global processes; how is ‘representation’ constructed and legitimised; and how, as a result, do collective understandings of global issues emerge? The paper concludes that, in assessments of this sort, the politics of knowledge needs to be made more explicit, and negotiations around politics and values, framings and perspectives needs to be put centre-stage in assessment design. Keywords: agriculture; policy; science; innovation; participation; deliberation

Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: A Framework for Analysis

The concept of ‘sustainable livelihoods’ is increasingly important in the development debate. This paper outlines a framework for analysing sustainable livelihoods, defined here in relation to five key indicators. The framework shows how, in different contexts, sustainable livelihoods are achieved through access to a range of livelihood resources (natural, economic, human and social capitals) which are combined in the pursuit of different livelihood strategies (agricultural intensification or extensification, livelihood diversification and migration). Central to the framework is the analysis of the range of formal and informal organisational and institutional factors that influence sustainable livelihood outcomes. In conclusion, the paper briefly considers some of the practical, methodological and operational implications of a sustainable livelihoods approach

Making policy in the "new economy" : the case of biotechnology in Karnataka, India

This paper is a story of the making of a policy, one that included many different players, located across a variety of sites. By tracing the origins of the millennium biotechnology policy in Karnataka state, south India, examining the content of and participants in the debate that led up to it, and analysing the final result and some of its consequences, the paper attempts to understand what policy-making means in practice. Who are the policy-makers? What is a policy? What are the technical, political and bureaucratic inputs to policy-making? These questions are asked for a much hyped, hi-tech sector – biotechnology – seen by some as a key to future economic development, and central to the “new economy” of the post-reform era in India. The paper argues that a new style of politics is emerging in response to the changing contexts of the “new economy” era. This is particularly apparent in the hi-tech, science-driven, so-called knowledge economy sectors, where a particular form of science-industry expertise is deemed essential. The paper shows how the politics of policy-making is a long way from previous understandings of the policy process in India, based on the assumptions of a centralised planned economy where states danced to the centre’s tune and the private sector was not a major player. Biotechnology with its global R and D chains, its internationalised market for products or contract research, its multi-million dollar venture capital requirements and its need for top-level scientific expertise is worlds away from this earlier context. The new politics of policy-making, the paper argues, is characterised by the involvement of an influential business-science elite, able to push their demands through groups, task forces and commissions. Being associated with success in a global, competitive economy, key individuals provide iconic symbols of great value to politicians, and become important policy entrepreneurs in the new space opened up by the post-reform, federal politics of India. But such individuals, while projecting the assured image of global success, are also local, and great play is made of their Bangalore roots. Biotechnology in Karnataka, this paper argues, has got intimately wrapped up in such a new politics of policy-making, and this has some major consequences for how biotechnology is seen in the context of the economic development of the state, and the policy prescriptions that flow from this

Contentious politics, contentious knowledges : mobilising against GM crops in India, South Africa and Brazil

Debates about science and technology are central to the future of development. No recent controversy has highlighted this as much as the debates about genetically-modified (GM) crops. Looking at the experiences of anti-GM activism in India, South Africa and Brazil, this paper explores how knowledge and politics are intertwined in mobilisation processes. These interactions are fundamentally shaped by different local and national contexts of history, politics and economics, but also influenced by global connections. Through a documentation of the unfolding of the anti-GM campaigns in the three sites over the past decade, the paper shows how strategic alliances have been formed – across actors and across debates – which have allowed concerns about GM crops to be inserted into public policy debates. The strategies and tactics used by anti-GM activist networks are explored across seven ‘spaces’ for citizen engagement: formal, invited spaces; informal networking and lobbying; party political and electoral processes; the legal process and the courts; research, practice and demonstration sites; protest and direct action; and the media. The case studies highlight the constraints and limitations of activist mobilisation, and how alternative knowledge framings and perspectives on science, technology and policy are often silenced. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ways forward, focusing on the need to bring consideration of wider politics and values into deliberations about future science and technology options, with a move beyond standard mechanisms and processes for deliberation and negotiation about science and technology policy. Keywords: GM crops, mobilisation, South Africa, Brazil, India

Contexts for regulation : GMOs in Zimbabwe

This paper looks at the regulation of biotechnology in Zimbabwe. It argues that key uncertainties in biosafety debates are context specific; this means that locally-developed, flexible regulatory systems are more appropriate than the standardised, internationally harmonised, solely science-based forms of riskassessment often advocated for developing countries. The paper begins with a brief examination of the development of regulatory institutions in Zimbabwe. It then looks at biosafety regulation in practice through two case studies, field testing of GM maize and cotton, and safety assessment of GM food aid imports. A final section moves to consider the limitations of the existing regulatory process and identifies challenges that exist for effective regulation in a small, agriculture-dependant country such as Zimbabwe