Suchergebnisse

As river basin authorities and national governments develop policies to achieve sustainable development outcomes, conflicting signals between existing policies are undermining cross-thematic integrative modes of policy planning. This raises fundamental questions over how coherent portfolios of policy interventions across vital themes can best be advanced and managed. Taking the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) as an empirical example, we analyse transboundary policies and intervention documents relating to climate adaptation, water governance and conflict management to ascertain the interdependencies at the adaptation-water-peace nexus. Using a Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA) approach and a set of subjective integration scoring criteria, we assess whether and how integration is planned, setting out ways forward for mutually beneficial integration actions.Despite recent progress in addressing lake drying and recognising cross-thematic challenges, most LCB intervention plans continue to adopt standalone basin-scale agendas and seldom consider action plan preparedness based on local-level assessments. Analysis of a few (existing) cross-thematic, well-integrated initiatives indicates that the timings of societal challenges and funding arrangements appear to play a key role in shaping policy strategies, the manner in which climate adaptation, water or security are treated and the level of integration attained. Based on the notion that integration is inherently desirable, we suggest a new 'policy integration thinking' that embraces a development landscape logic and balances short-term and long-term development priorities.

This article examines lake drying and livelihood dynamics in the context of multiple stressors through a case study of the ''Small Lake Chad'' in the Republic of Chad. Livelihoods research in regions experiencing persistent lake water fluctuations has largely focused on the wellbeing and security of lakeshore dwellers. Little is known about the mechanisms through which lake drying shapes livelihood drawbacks and opportunities, and whether locally evolved responses are enhancing livelihoods. Here we address these gaps using empirical, mixed-methods field research couched within the framework of livelihoods and human well-being contexts. The analysis demonstrates that limited opportunities outside agriculture, the influx of mixed ethnic migrants and the increasing spate of violence all enhance livelihood challenges. Livelihood opportunities centre on the renewal effects of seasonal flood pulses on lake waters and the learning opportunities triggered by past droughts. Although drying has spurred new adaptive behaviours predicated on seasonality, traditional predictive factors and the availability of assets, responses have remained largely reactive. The article points to where lake drying fits amongst changes in the wider socioeconomic landscape in which people live, and suggests that awareness of the particularities of the mechanisms that connect lake drying to livelihoods can offer insights into the ways local people might be assisted by governments and development actors.

Conservation Agriculture (CA) is advocated as an agricultural innovation that will improve smallholder famer resilience to future climate change. Under the conditions presented by the El Niño event of 2015/16, the implementation of CA was examined in southern Malawi at household, district and national institutional levels. Agricultural system constraints experienced by farming households are identified, and in response the technologies, structures and agency associated with CA are evaluated. The most significant constraints were linked to household health, with associated labour and monetary impacts, in addition to the availability of external inputs of fertiliser and improved seed varieties. Our findings show that such constraints are not adequately addressed through current agricultural system support structures, with the institutions surrounding CA (in both Government extension services and NGO agricultural projects) focusing attention predominantly at field level practice, rather than on broader system constraints such as education and health support systems. Limited capacity within local institutions undermines long term efforts to implement new technologies such as CA. It is vitally important that the flexibility of farmers to adapt new technologies in a locally-appropriate manner is not closed down through national and institutional aims to build consensus around narrow technical definitions of a climate-smart technology such as CA. To enable farmers to fully utilise CA programmes, interventions must take a more holistic, cross-sectoral approach, understanding and adapting to address locally experienced constraints. Building capacity within households to adopt new agricultural practices is critical, and integrating healthcare support into agricultural policy is a vital step towards increasing smallholder resilience to future climate change.

Climate compatible development (CCD) is gaining traction as a conceptual framework for mainstreaming climate change mitigation and adaptation within development efforts. Understanding whether and how CCD design processes reconcile different stakeholder preferences can reveal how the concept contends with patterns of sociocultural and political oppression that condition patterns of development. We, therefore, explore procedural justice and power within CCD design through a case study analysis of two donor-funded projects in Malawi. Findings show that donor agencies are driving design processes and involving other stakeholders selectively. While considerable overlap existed between stakeholders' "revealed" priorities for CCD, invisible power dynamics encourage the suppression of "true" preferences, reducing the likelihood that CCD will be contextually appropriate and have widespread stakeholder buy in. Visible, hidden, and invisible forms of power create barriers to procedural justice in CCD design. We present five recommendations to help policy makers and practitioners to overcome these barriers.

This article builds on the growing literature that explores the relationships between environmental change and non-traditional security, defined as non-military threats that challenge the survival and well-being of peoples and states. The Lake Chad basin in Africa is used as a case study for analysis. Focusing on a set of questions that have dominated recent theoretical debates, this article investigates whether conflicts resulting from water scarcity are as much about the broader vulnerability of the Lake Chad region as they are about changes in the lake system and its environment. It argues that conflict is a probable outcome only in locations that are already challenged by a multitude of other context-specific factors besides resource scarcity. In the Lake Chad context, the likelihood of scarcity-driven conflict depends on whether vulnerability increases or decreases in the face of a declining water supply. The article provides perspectives for a nuanced understanding of how the receding Lake Chad has led to conflict and outlines an integrated, forward-looking research agenda for linking environmental change, vulnerability and security issues in integrated human–environment systems.