Mitigating 'Non-Conflict' Violence by Creating Peaceful Political Settlements

Understanding and addressing ‘non-conflict’ violence is a key challenge for development. Different types of ‘non-conflict’ violence, such as homicide, massacres, armed robbery and gender-based violence, which occur outside of armed conflict contexts involving state or other parties, are not only reflections of social problems like youth unemployment and gang culture. They should not be unlinked from political processes. Given the weakness of formal institutions and the strength of hybrid political orders in most violence-affected settings in the developing world, the political settlements approach helps to understand the political factors that underpin and drive ‘non-conflict’ violence; and develop policy responses that tackle the roots of the problem, not just its symptoms.UK Department for International Developmen

Getting Real About an Illicit ‘External Stressor’: Transnational Cocaine Trafficking through West Africa

Concerns over West Africa’s increasingly prominent role as transhipment point of South American cocaine en route to Europe are mounting. Gathering pace in the mid-2000s, large-scale drug trafficking has been associated with recent episodes of political instability and violence in Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Mali. It is also perceived as a serious threat to democratic institutions, governance and development in other, more stable countries of the region, such as Ghana; and as potentially contributing to reversing the hard-won end to the armed conflicts that ravaged Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau and Côte d’Ivoire in the 1990s and 2000s. Yet it is crucial to recognise that cocaine trafficking through West Africa has thus far not resulted in levels of violence comparable to those witnessed in several Latin American drug source and transit countries. The big policy challenge for West Africa is therefore not to curb the flow of cocaine through the region in order to reduce trafficking-related violence, but to effectively tackle the negative impacts – both existing and potential – of the illegal trade on governance and development in the region’s weak, unstable and impoverished states. Conventional drug control strategies, oriented towards law enforcement, are not well suited to help with this. Bold new policy responses are called for.UK Department for International Developmen

Core Collection Approaches and Genetic Diversity in \u3ci\u3eFlemingia macrophylla\u3c/i\u3e

Core collections are a useful means to optimise the management, including conservation, of forage germplasm collections. Such optimisation is warranted in view of increasingly limited research resources. As there are several potential options to create core collections, a project is presented in which three approaches are compared: (i) based on germplasm origin information; (ii) genetic diversity assessment by agronomic characterisation/evaluation; and (iii) DNA markers. As example-species for the project, the tropical legume shrub Flemingia macrophylla is selected because of its particular multiple-use potential in smallholder production systems. An important diversity descriptor is the content of tannins influencing feed and litter quality of this species. Data will be analysed using multivariate statistics and GIS tools. The results from the core collection approach comparison are expected to be applicable also to other wild legumes

Toward Effective Violence Mitigation: Transforming Political Settlements

Recognising the centrality of violence in the development process (though not subscribing to the notion that conflict and violence are development in reverse), in 2012–14 a group of researchers at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) engaged in depth with the complex and thorny questions of how ‘new’ forms of violence in the developing world – as opposed to ‘traditional’ civil or intra-state war – should be understood; and through which policies they could best be prevented and/or mitigated. The result of this endeavour is a series of evidence-based reports that were produced in collaboration with Southern partners in a sample of four violence-affected countries in Africa: Nigeria (Niger Delta), Sierra Leone, Egypt and Kenya (Marsabit County). The evidence from the four case studies suggests that – contrary to the early post-Cold War accounts of ‘barbarism’ and ‘senseless bloodshed’ – the violence we observe in many countries and locales today is about something. Yet, the analyses also show that the triggers, manifestations and effects of this violence – characterised as diffuse, recursive and globalised – cannot be captured by using the analytical tools developed to explain armed conflict within states. Strictly speaking, it would be misguided to label the violence in the Niger Delta, Marsabit County, Egypt and Sierra Leone as ‘civil war’, ‘internal armed conflict’ or ‘new war’. Instead, it is more accurate to speak of highly heterogeneous situations of violence or ‘fields of social violence’. At the same time, it is crucial not to dissociate these situations of violence from political processes by, for instance, reducing them to manifestations of criminality, such as homicide and illicit drug trafficking, or reflections of social problems like rampant youth unemployment, the use of prohibited psychoactive substances, and gang culture.UK Department for International Developmen

\u3cem\u3eCanavalia brasiliensis\u3c/em\u3e: A Multipurpose Legume for the Sub-Humid Tropics

Canavalia brasiliensis Mart. ex Benth. ( Brazilian jackbean ) is a weakly perennial, prostrate to twining herbaceous legume with a wide natural distribution in the New World tropics and subtropics. In comparison with C. ensiformis ( jackbean ), research reports on C. brasiliensis are scattered and restricted to studies done in Latin America. The species develops a dense and extensive, deep-reaching root system and subsequently tolerates a 5-6 month dry period. Based on studies that generally were done with only one genotype, it is adapted to a wide range of soils, including very acid, low-fertility soils. Its main use is as green manure, for fallow improvement and erosion control. Due to medium biomass decomposition, nutrient release of C. brasiliensis green manure has the potential to synchronise well with the nutrient demand of the succeeding crop and may lead to high N recovery rates. Whereas the high concentration, in Canavalia seeds, of antinutritive substances such as toxic amino acids (e.g., canavanin), lectins (e.g., concanavalin Br) and trypsin inhibitors, there is little information on the nutritive value of the herbage of this species (Schloen et al., 2004). In order to develop multipurpose legume germplasm for smallholder systems in the sub-humid tropics, we initiated a C. brasiliensis germplasm screening experiment and engaged with farmers in Central America to integrate this legume into local maize-bean production systems. First promising results are reported

\u3cem\u3eDesmodium velutinum\u3c/em\u3e: A High-Quality Shrub Legume for Acid Soils in the Tropics

Drought tolerant legume shrubs can enhance the sustainability of smallholder production systems in the tropics through the provision, year-round, of high-quality feed and through their positive effect on soil. Desmodium velutinum (Willd.) DC. is one of the few shrub species that have been identified as (1) well adapted to acid tropical soils and (2) of good nutritive value (Schultze-Kraft, 1996). It is a perennial native to SE Asia and tropical Africa growing up to 3 m high, the velutinous (velvety) surfaces of its 1-foliolate leaves being a characteristic feature. It grows well on soils ranging from pH 4.0 to alkaline, prefers high rainfall (1000 to \u3e 3000 mm/year) but tolerates up to five dry months. Though previous work in West Africa (e.g., Mzamane & Agishi, 1986) and South America (e.g., Thomas & Schultze-Kraft, 1990) has indicated the potential of the species, there are only few studies and these are restricted to only one or a few accessions. It is important to assess the genetic diversity and agronomic variability in the germplasm collection of about 140 accessions that is now available in order to identify a core collection and accessions with promising agronomic performance and nutritive value. Possible relationships between accession origins, morphological-agronomic characteristics, and genetic diversity need to be assessed. The first-year results from a field experiment on forage yield and quality are presented here. The project is financially supported by the Volkswagen Stiftung, Hannover, Germany

Preparation and execution of voluntary action both contribute to awareness of intention

How and when motor intentions form has long been controversial. In particular, the extent to which motor preparation and action-related processes produce a conscious experience of intention remains unknown. Here, we used a brain–computer interface (BCI) while participants performed a self-paced movement task to trigger cues upon the detection of a readiness potential (a well-characterized brain signal that precedes movement) or in its absence. The BCI-triggered cues instructed participants either to move or not to move. Following this instruction, participants reported whether they felt they were about to move at the time the cue was presented. Participants were more likely to report an intention (i) when the cue was triggered by the presence of a readiness potential than when the same cue was triggered by its absence, and (ii) when they had just made an action than when they had not. We further describe a time-dependent integration of these two factors: the probability of reporting an intention was maximal when cues were triggered in the presence of a readiness potential, and when participants also executed an action shortly afterwards. Our results provide a first systematic investigation of how prospective and retrospective components are integrated in forming a conscious intention to move

Integrating Pastures into the Traditional Slash-and-Burn Cycle in Northeastern Pará, Brazil

A project to test possibilities to integrate pastures into the traditional slash-and-burn cycle of small farmers in the Bragantina region in northeastern Pará, Brazil, is presented. Whereas in practice the traditional grass-only pasture is managed separately from the crop/fallow cycle, two options for integration are tested: a Brachiaria humidicola pasture enriched with two bushy and one herbaceous legume, Cratylia argentea, Chamaecrista rotundifolia and Arachis pintoi, and a B. humidicola pasture allowing a controlled regrowth of secondary vegetation ( Capoeira ). The regeneration performance of these pastures for a subsequent cropping period is compared with plots of undisturbed regrowth of Capoeira concerning soil chemical and physical properties, botanical composition and biomass accumulation. To evaluate comparative pasture productivity and animal performance, a traditional grass-only pasture is included in the comparisons. The results will show if these alternative pastures lead to an ecologically more appropriate management concept for grasslands in the humid tropics