Collecting development data with mobile phones: Key considerations from a review of the evidence

Growth in mobile phone access and ownership presents an opportunity to collect more data, more frequently, from more people, and for less money. There are multiple ways to collect data with mobile phones (SMS, voice calls, etc.), each with particular strengths and weaknesses. n The best mode of data collection depends on the characteristics of the target population (e.g. literacy, network access, acceptability of using mobile phones, etc.) and of the data to be collected (e.g. quantitative vs. qualitative, number of questions, sensitivity of information, etc)

Roads to interdisciplinarity - working at the nexus among food systems, nutrition and health: 1st annual Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (ANH) Academy Week, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), 20-24 June 2016

The development agenda over the next 15 years will be framed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), of which more than half relate either directly or indirectly to the agricultural sector, highlighting its importance in economic growth and development of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) (FAO 2015). It is therefore imperative that agricultural systems are better understood, so that they may be strengthened and optimised to deliver outcomes in line with the SDGs. The interface between agriculture, nutrition and health is particularly multifaceted and complex, and the development of successful strategies will require an integrated and multi-sectoral approach (Dorward and Dangour 2012; Jones and Ejeta 2016). ‘Agri-health’ is an evolving paradigm seeking to unify research approaches and methodologies between agriculture and health. Research within the field encapsulates a broad range of disciplines, locations and actors, and aligns these into a common research agenda. In doing so, agri-health aims to transcend barriers imposed by the longstanding institutional and disciplinary silos. Much progress has been made in recent years in this regard (Harris et al. 2013; Kanter et al. 2014; Picchioni et al. 2015). However, more coordinated efforts are required to generate consensus and target strategic priorities amongst the many existing information gaps (Webb and Kennedy 2014). Understanding the linkages between complex issues such as globalisation, climate change, food systems, and evolving burdens of malnutrition is central to agri-health research. The Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH) was created in 2010 with a key focus on agri-health interdisciplinary research. LCIRAH includes experts from across the member colleges of the University of London: the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and the Royal Veterinary College (RVC). The Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy (ANH Academy), was established in 2015 as a platform to facilitate learning, knowledge sharing, capacity building and collaborative partnerships among the growing global community of researchers, practitioners and policy makers working within agri-health. It was developed with support from the Innovative Metrics and Methods for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA) research programme,Footnote1 led by LCIRAH and Tufts University, in partnership with the CGIAR Programme on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH). Within this scope, the ANH Academy hosts an annual ANH Academy Week, building on the legacy of five agri-health research conferences organised by LCIRAH; as well as events and activities coordinated under the CGIAR A4NH. The inaugural ANH Academy Week took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in June 2016 and included two days of interactive ‘learning labs’ (training sessions on skills and methods across a broad range of disciplines in agri-health), followed by a three-day research conference. The conference included a mix of abstract-driven sessions, round table discussions, and keynote speeches from across the spectrum of agriculture, nutrition and health disciplines, and a wide range of countries. Hawkes et al. (2012) developed a conceptual framework (Fig. 2, hereafter referred to as the Framework), outlining the key pathways through which agriculture may affect nutritional status in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs), as well as broader drivers of these pathways. Drawing on this Framework, this paper aims to provide an analytical synthesis of the ANH Academy week by mapping the research and debates presented during the conference

Time-Use Analytics: An Improved Way of Understanding Gendered Agriculture-Nutrition Pathways

There is a resurgence of interest in time-use research driven, inter alia, by the desire to understand if development interventions, especially when targeted to women, lead to time constraints by increasing work burdens. This has become a primary concern in agriculture-nutrition research. But are time-use data useful to explore agriculture-nutrition pathways? This study develops a conceptual framework of the micro-level linkages between agriculture, gendered time use, and nutrition and analyzes how time use has been conceptualized, operationalized, and interpreted in agriculture-nutrition literature on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The paper argues that better metrics, but also conceptualizations and analytics of time use, are needed to understand gendered trade-offs in agriculture-nutrition pathways. In particular, the potential unintended consequences can be grasped only if the analysis of time use shifts from being descriptive to a more theoretical and analytical understanding of time constraints, their trade-offs, and resulting changes in activity

Measurements of the spectral components of direct normal solar radiation over Athens

The spectral composition of direct solar radiation and its long-term trends for the period 1963-1990 over Athens have been studied. Measurements were made with the use of QRT, OG1, RG2 and RG8 Schott glass fillers, allowing the division of the solar spectrum into 4 bands. The percentage of direct normal solar irradiance was found to increase in the wavelength regions under 630 nm and to decrease in the regions with longer wavelengths. © 1995 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Erratum to: Roads to interdisciplinarity – working at the nexus among food systems, nutrition and health

The article Roads to interdisciplinarity – working at the nexus among food systems, nutrition and health: 1st annual Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (ANH) Academy Week, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), 20–24 June 2016, written by [F. Picchioni, E. Aurino, L. Aleksandrowicz, M. Bruce, S. Chesterman, P. Dominguez-Salas, Z. Gersten, S. Kalamatianou, C. Turner and J. Yates], was originally published Online First without open access. After publication in volume [9], issue [1], page [181–189] the author decided to opt for Open Choice and to make the article an open access publication. Therefore, the copyright of the article has been changed to © The Author(s) [2016] and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attributio