Making Group Work Work: Improving university group work for students and staff

The project’s aims included exploring the challenges of group work and creating practical guidelines for staff, with the goals of enhancing student experience as well as contributing to academic discourse. Findings focus on the symbiotic relationship between skills-based learning and knowledge acquisition; beneficial use of formative and summative assessment; and the importance of transparency and facilitation to empower students as partners in group-based learning and enhance their experiences. Unlike many projects we read about, this research took staff experiences and approaches to group work as its starting point, though student surveys did augment our findings. We drew on the ideas of action learning to guide participants through a cycle of planning, doing and reflecting on their own experiences, though some did not participate in every phase. Participants – in total 14, across social and physical sciences – also shaped analysis of emerging findings through interactive Reference Group sessions. Staff found the reflective interviews unexpectedly beneficial for their thinking and practice. The project has led to collaboration on the Knowledge Exchange programme led by the School of Earth and Environment’s Teaching Enhancement Scheme co-ordinator in order to begin to create space for generative reflective exchange, in addition to the practical resources produced by the project

Autonomous adaptation to riverine flooding in Satkhira District, Bangladesh: implications for adaptation planning

Systematic understanding of adaptation measures utilised by households in developing countries is needed to identify the constraints they face, and the external interventions or adaptation planning needed to overcome them. Understanding of autonomous household adaptation patterns remains underdeveloped. In particular little is known regarding whether households are implementing incremental or transformational adaptation measures as well as the implications of this for adaptation planning. We demonstrate the suitability of the risk hazard approach for understanding autonomous household adaptation patterns and discuss the implications for planned adaptation. To achieve this we use an in-depth village case study from an area of Bangladesh particularly vulnerable to climate change, using qualitative semi-structured household interviews as primary material. We find that the risk hazard approach is ideal for exploring autonomous adaptations because of its capacity for understanding how households respond to livelihood risk, and what resources are required for it to be most effective. However, the risk hazard approach overlooks equity and fairness considerations need to be integrated due to the insufficient emphasis on these concerns

The role of microfinance in household livelihood adaptation in the Satkhira District, Southwest Bangladesh

There is increasing interest in the potential of microfinance to foster climate change adaptation. However, existing literature over-relies upon theoretical arguments rather than empirical evidence, and until now the emphasis has been on potential positive linkages. We address these weaknesses by empirically examining the role of microfinance in adaptation, drawing from household-level quantitative and qualitative data gathered from Satkhira District, Southwest Bangladesh. We find evidence that microfinance facilitates coping by reducing sensitivity to environmental and climate hazards. Credit is especially important because its availability is uncorrelated with the occurrence of flooding, unlike many other traditional coping responses. We also find evidence that microfinance facilitates adaptation by helping households to overcome financial barriers of adopting adaptation options which reduce exposure or sensitivity. However, credit limits restrict its role to incremental adaptations, which may not meaningfully reduce vulnerability. Transformational adaptations require access to bank credit. Therefore the poorest cannot effectively adapt and are penalised financially by having to obtain loans to cope. We also find evidence that microfinance can lead to maladaptation when used in non-profit generating activities as income streams are not produced to help repay associated costs. Almost a fifth of all loans were obtained for repaying existing loans. Thus microfinance may undermine longer term adaptive capacity

Farmers' perspectives on challenges in the food system: a collaborative research partnership, Final Technical Report

This report reflects on the learning from the project, especially the process of collaboration between academics and farmers' organisations. It summarises a process of co-development and delivery of a research training programme and the supervision of Early Career Researchers in undertaking projects to benefit small scale farmers and their organisations in sub-Saharan Afric

Guest Editorial: Special issue on Fair Trade and the Sustainable Development Goals

This special edition of Food Chain focuses on Fair Trade and its relevance for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With its emphasis on producer empowerment, living wages, fair pricing, and long-term partnerships, linked to socially focused businesses and supply chains, the Fair Trade movement aims to transform both production and consumption and contribute to wider systemic change that supports sustainable livelihoods. We refer to Fair Trade (two words) as a broad range of organizations and campaigning networks, including Fairtrade (one word) certification, social enterprises, and cooperatives that espouse Fair Trade principles and support the International Fair Trade Charter (2018)

Ethical trade, people and forests (A manual)

This manual is aimed at providing both an introduction to the complex maze of ethical trading approaches and practical information on how to do ethical trading, for those tackling or facing poverty and those promoting sustainable livelihoods. It focuses on the fair trade, forest and timber certification, organic production and conservation driven trade options

Business ‘Power of Presence’: Foreign Capital, Industry Practices, and Politics of Sustainable Development in Zambian Agriculture

Sustainable Development Goals have brought optimism around ‘agriculture for development’ but also questioned agribusinesses in sustainable development. This paper assesses how an agribusiness’ power exploits domains to exert control over industry governance. Using interviews and group discussions from three smallholder outgrower schemes under Illovo Sugar Plc in Zambia, the paper demonstrates that corporations can deploy the ‘power of presence’ to influence national policy development, and sustainability in regional and local practices. Investment and trade policies currently foster agribusinesses but overlook environmental assessments that expose social and ecological contradictions such as on competing water uses. State-donor relations enable smallholder integration in sugarcane as poverty reduction whilst agribusinesses are limiting their participation through controls on resources and production systems. By analysing power expressions, we show how possibilities of sustainable agriculture and rural development are undermined by agribusiness practices. We suggest that current policy efforts around ‘agriculture for development’ in Zambia are about entrenching power and interests of an agribusiness, neglecting industry expansion and sustainability. The paper highlights the limits and importance of domestic institutions in framing large-scale agricultural investments as well as mediating corporate practices that will be required to provide a greater focus on national planning processes for sustainable agriculture and rural development

The making of an oil frontier: Territorialisation dynamics in Uganda's emerging oil industry

Extractive industries are operating in an increasingly complex global context with concerns about human rights, environmental protection, and transparency high on the agenda. To establish a new oil project, oil companies must navigate a landscape of competing territorialisation processes, where the state and extractive companies put in place measures to recognise community rights, conduct ESIAs and provide local benefits. Indigenous groups, social movements and NGOs may challenge these efforts by demanding greater rights protection and benefits, or by resisting extractive industry projects. Drawing on the post frontier concept, this article explores territorialising and counter territorialising dynamics in Uganda during the pre-oil stages of the industry. We find that the drivers and agents of competing territorialisation processes change over time as the industry develops. This is due to the changing role and priorities of oil multinational companies (MNCs) over time, constraints on Ugandan civil society, and tension between the interests of the state to push through oil infrastructure projects and the pressure on oil MNCs to uphold international standards of human rights. We find that the Ugandan post frontier is emerging through a negotiated process, however, not one that is locally responsive and based on consensus but driven more by the changing priorities of oil MNCs and the need to mitigate risk

Tailored climate projections to assess site-specific vulnerability of tea production

Tailored climate change information is essential to understand future climate risks and identify relevant adaptation strategies. However, distilling and effectively communicating decision-relevant information from climate science remains challenging. In this paper, we develop and apply an iterative stakeholder engagement approach and a Site Specific Synthesis of Projected Range (SPR), to co-produce future climate information for Africa’s largest tea producing nations - Kenya and Malawi - for the mid-and late-21st century. SPR provides a novel analysis approach, which combines long-term station observations with projections from 29 global climate models and the first convection-permitting high-resolution climate projection for Africa (CP4A). This addresses the mismatch between spatial scales of projections, large-scale modelling uncertainties and stakeholder need for site-specific information. Iterative stakeholder engagement and communication helped to build trust, allowed use of new observation data and improved visualisations of climate information for stakeholders. SPR demonstrates site-specificity in changes in all metrics, showing risks of large changes in tea crop sensitive metrics. All nine locations analysed show substantial (up to four times) increases in heatwave days and large decreases in cold nights by 2050s compared to the current climate. While tea producers are already witnessing changing climatic conditions, potential future changes will greatly affect the resilience of tea production, thereby affecting the sustainability and quality of tea production in the region. Site specific climate information iteratively co-produced with stakeholders helps them to identify location-specific adaptation strategies and investment priorities, potentially safeguarding supply-chains and millions of livelihoods