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This document summarises the outcome of a regional training workshop, "Interactive and dynamic approaches on forest and land use planning in Southern Africa". It was organised in December 2001 by the government of Botswana in cooperation with organisations in Zimbabwe and South Africa and with Swedish financial and technical support. The workshop aimed at exposing the participants to new cross sector approaches on strategic forest and land use planning, including the Area Production Model (APM) and concept, and to provide a platform for possible future development work in this field. It concerned such issues as the role of planning in relation to policies and local development, information and data needs in planning, the use of scenario modelling in land use planning, how to narrow the gap between "planning from above" and "planning from below", and the roles and interaction of different stakeholders in the planning process. The workshop had been proposed by the participating countries following an international training programme on policy and strategy development in Sweden. The 18 participants from three countries included central and local government staff concerned with forest and land use planning at the national and sub-national level, researchers and NGOs. The workshop consisted of two weeks of lectures, seminars and field based case studies and a concluding seminar, in which the participants presented their experiences and conclusions about the APM concept to a broader group of decision makers. Some of the main conclusions drawn by the participants were that the APM was a useful tool for promoting dynamic and multi-sector planning. At the same time the Model has a number of technical shortcomings that needs to be addressed. Those shortcomings were identified and discussed throughout the workshop. The need to keep the model simple and transparent was acknowledged. It was proposed that "homes" should be identified for the model in each country. Those homes should build up and maintain capacity to develop and adapt the model to the local conditions and priorities. INTRODUCTION. The workshop "Interactive and dynamic approaches on forest and land-use planning in Southern Africa" was arranged in Botswana in December 2001. It aimed at exposing the participants to new cross sector approaches on strategic forest and land use planning, including the Area Production Model (APM), and to provide a platform for possible future development work in this field. The workshop was the concluding step of a process that had been running for several years. It provides important lessons on approaches to cross-sectoral land use planning in Southern Africa. The process started in 1998, when there were several participants from Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe in an annual international course "Development of National Forest Policies and Strategies", organised by the Swedish National Board of Forestry and funded by Sida. Those participants strongly suggested that the Area Production Model, (APM), which had been demonstrated during the course, might be highly relevant in Southern Africa. As a response, the Country Capacity Building (CCB) project (a Sida funded project aiming at forest policy issues), set up a training programme in discussions with the three countries. As a first step, key personnel from the forest authorities in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe, underwent a post­ graduate course at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Umea, Sweden. The course took place in March 2000 and was focused on the ideas and applications of the APM. In a second step, a workshop designated for a wider audience, including governmental as well as non­ governmental organisations, was planned for mid 2000. The workshop was originally intended to be a two-phase arrangement. The first phase to be arranged in Zimbabwe, focusing on model theory with only limited field work, and a second phase, were the participants would split up and work a realistic case in a designated study area in each of the three countries involved. Unfortunately, the political situation in Zimbabwe during spring 2000 made it necessary to postpone the workshop. About a year later, in spring 2001, it was agreed among the interested countries to move it to another country in the Region, after the Ministry of Agriculture, Botswana, had generously accepted to host the workshop. The two-phase design of the workshop was by now reduced to a single event, with the joint study-area around Serowe in the eastern part of Botswana. The APM is a simulation model developed by Professor Nils-Erik Nilsson in co-operation with FAO. The Model, including an application concept, has been further developed by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Department of Forest Resource Management and Geomatics. The Swedish team of resource persons in the Botswana workshop have all been instrumental in the previous development work of the Model. The APM has been field tested on numerous occasions in South and Southeast Asia. This workshop, however, is the first occasion the model is used in Southern Africa. In spite of the simplicity and flexibility that characterises the model, the new setting was considered a major challenge when planning the workshop. The workshop results have given new and partly unexpected results in terms of both usefulness and applicability of the model. The Country Capacity Building project focuses on forest policy development. In modem terminology, nfp (national forest programmes) is a highly relevant term. Key strategies include support to demand driven processes, investment in human knowledge and, not least, a belief that personal commitment is as important for success as political commitments. On behalf of the organisers, I would like to thank the Ministry of Agriculture, Botswana, and the key­ persons from Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Without their commitment and enthusiasm, the positive outcome of the workshop would not have been possible.

The aim of introducing agroforestry and community-based forestry is to secure and improve livelihoods, maintain and restore ecosystem services, and contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, the adoption and scaling up of these systems among food insecure communities have proved to be difficult. To better understand why, I identified barriers and bridges at different adoption stages and levels of governance. These were analysed using policy narratives and the sustainable livelihood approach in the light of sustainable development, sustainability and resilience of landscapes. The first stage was the negotiation process between the Swedish NGO Vi-Skogen and the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) about funding. Three explanatory approaches were used: organizational, power and context. Vi-Skogen and Sida were caught in policy incompatibility dilemmas that slowed down the NGO policy process, and delayed critical changes that could have improved project outcomes. The second was Vi-Skogen's agroforestry project in Tanzania's Mara Region. A random sample of 21 households was drawn from each of 89 project villages. The proportion of households with surviving agroforestry trees varied from 10-90 % among villages. Field training and visits to farmers with good practices were important for households to start planting trees. Local collaboration, perceived ownership of trees and benefits of trees for crop production were additional factors important for households' decision to continue with agroforestry practices. The third was eleven community-based forest producer and user groups (CBFGs) in eastern and southern Africa. Development of many groups had stagnated and few had managed to develop large scale value-added production. I identified eight barriers and four bridges that influenced the scaling up process of agroforestry and community based forestry among food insecure households. All resulted from interactions among social, political, and economic structures and processes at multiple ...

The current share of sub-Saharan Africa in global carbon dioxide emissions is negligible compared to major contributors like Asia, Americas, and Europe. This trend is, however, likely to change given that both economic growth and rate of urbanization in the region are projected to be robust in the future. The current study contributes to the literature by examining both the direct and the indirect impacts of quality of institution on the environment. Specifically, we investigate whether the institutional setting in the region provides some sort of a complementary role in the environment-FEG relationships. We use the panel two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) technique to deal with the simultaneity problem. Data consists of 43 sub-Saharan African countries. The result shows that energy inefficiency compromises environmental standards. However, the quality of the institutional setting helps moderate this negative consequences; countries with good institutions show greater prospects than countries with poor institutions. On the other hand, globalization of the region and increased forest size generate positive environmental outcomes in the region. Their impacts are, however, independent of the quality of institution. Afforestation programs, promotion of other clean energy types, and investment in energy efficiency, basic city infrastructure, and regulatory and institutional structures, are desirable policies to pursue to safeguard the environment.

Includes bibliographical references and index

The aim of this essay is to provide an overview of current research on international democratization. I start by discussing the choice of empirical indicators. Given a set of indicators -- Freedom House & Polity, which stand out as the most useful ones -- I make a graphic representation of democratic tendencies in different regions in the world. In this survey one region, North Africa & the Middle East, comes out as exceptional; here no general improvements have been made since the early 1970s. I then make an account of explanatory conditions which have proved in large-n empirical studies to play a role for democratic progress (such as modernization, access to oil, popular demonstrations & the type of authoritarian regime). I end up in a puzzle, which regards the Muslim countries. We can establish, on the one hand, that these countries clearly under-perform democratically. But on the other hand, comparative research has not managed so far to point out why that is the case. We can see a pattern, but we cannot point out an empirically solid explanatory mechanism. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

Smallholder farmers are defined as key actors in the implementation of Agenda 2030, based on their importance for food security and poverty reduction, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is also true for South Africa, where smallholder farming has attracted considerable policy attention in an attempt to break the trend of rural poverty and the legacy of the apartheid era. One issue of concern is the long-term decline in arable production in fields, reflecting a wider trend of de-agrarianisation among peasantries and smallholders all over the world. In South Africa this withdrawal from field cultivation is compensated to an extent by intensification in garden cultivation. This thesis explores how smallholders perceive the role of these two different crop cultivation practices in their daily lives. The empirical data were collected during an ethnographic field study in rural South Africa in early 2020 using a variety of qualitative research methods. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of lifeworld and system world together with perspectives of livelihoods, the study shows that household agricultural production is being downscaled, with most households prioritising the continuation of garden cultivation. Garden cultivation draws upon capabilities that most households can access and is viewed as a taken-for-granted activity within the lifeworld of smallholders. Field cultivation emerges as a deliberate choice made by households who are able to access sufficient family labour and financial capital. Furthermore, arable production in fields is based on long-term experience of government involvement, resulting in a commonly shared view that a government presence in field farming is something to be expected even today. It would appear that this commonly shared view enables agricultural projects and certified seeds to be introduced that are disembedded from smallholders' local conditions, mirroring a policy belief in a New Green Revolution for Africa. This finding suggests that garden cultivation can serve as an example of crop cultivation that is attuned to local conditions, indicating the direction smallholders could take if they are to fulfil their role as promoters of sustainable development in line with Agenda 2030.