Suchergebnisse

ABSTRACTThough commonly viewed as a human right, access to water is often difficult and highly unequal within and between communities, depending on various social and power relations, access mechanisms and property rights regimes. However, moral norms and subsistence ethics can also play a balancing role, enhancing access to water for vulnerable groups and individuals, particularly in contexts of water scarcity. Using the example of a Nile Delta village, this article explores the role of charitable water wells (sobol) in influencing both irrigation and drinking water access relations, by understanding their different modes of governance and the motivations behind their emergence. The article argues that charitable norms underlying sobol are dynamic. They stem from certain moral ideologies concerning religion, property and reciprocity, and while they do greatly enhance access to water, it is with varying degrees, limitations and remaining access discrepancies. Sobol alter property rights relations, extending entitlements to water, but their effectiveness is also limited by existing property rights regimes. Sobol are also limited by existing anti‐cooperative actions, and being embedded in an inequitable access system, they may not fully counterbalance inequitable water access. The limitations of cooperative water access arrangements should be counterweighed and complemented by overarching and equitable water distribution systems.

Nigeria's rural youth are facing various challenges in agriculture, with limited job opportunities outside the sector. Using qualitative focus group discussions and individual interviews with youth in four communities in two Nigerian states, the paper reflects on nuanced differences in perceptions of opportunities, coping mechanisms and overall resilience of youth in rural Nigeria, as well as differential access to information, inputs and irrigation based on age, gender and community. We apply the GCAN framework, to illustrate the factors that shape resilience pathways in the context of climate change and other shocks and stressors. Many of the constraints rural youth face are faced by other groups, including lack of finance, farm inputs and modern equipment for production and processing. Yet, youth face higher and specific hurdles related to lack of capital, experience and a strong social capital and networks that would facilitate coping with climatic and other shocks and improving their livelihoods. Young women in particular have less access to information and irrigation, and are less likely to benefit from cooperative memberships. Nevertheless, young men and women have higher resilience compared to older groups in terms of health, mobility and ability to migrate, as well as easier access to the internet as a source of information. Youth can better build resilience and a network and receive government assistance when part of a cooperative. Nevertheless, a larger enabling environment in the sector is needed, to improve roads, access to markets, information, inputs and equipment to support young farmers who cannot leave the agriculture sector. A promising factor is that many young men and women realize the importance of agriculture and aspire to become successful in the sector. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; DCA; GCAN; CRP7; Capacity Strengthening; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply ; EPTD ; CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

The role of gender in institutions and governance affecting rural areas is complex and multifaceted; the tools and methods to analyze and explore their interactions must address this complexity. Researchers, practitioners and policymakers from various disciplinary backgrounds have used a wide range of tools. This paper provides them with guidance on the tools that are available, and points to gaps where methodological development is needed. Through a consultative search process including expert consultation and referrals supplemented by internet searches, we identified 69 tools at this nexus, encompassing frameworks, data-collection instruments, implementation and participatory implementation guides, and monitoring and evaluation tools. Data-collection tools and implementation guides emerged as the most common tool types. Most tools (72 percent) were designed to study or work with gender issues, but we included others if they could be naturally adapted or applied to gender research or practice. Reflecting the diversity of tools, we found a relatively even balance between qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. Two-thirds of tools dealt with community-level institutions or governance, suggesting the importance of the local level in existing research and practice. We also identified a high prevalence of participatory tools—which may reflect concerns with, and thus support for interventions, enhancing women's agency and gender equality in power relationships. Natural resource management and political engagement are the most common sectors covered, together comprising half of the tools. Natural resource management–focused tools span all tool types, with a large cluster in implementation guides, whereas most political engagement tools are data-collection instruments. Participation in groups is the most common focus of tools. Overall, the review highlights the wealth of tools available, as well as tool gaps (for example, climate change as a sector).

The Nile is the lifeblood of northeastern Africa, and its roles for and interdependency with the national economies it traverses and binds together grow as it moves from source to sea. With rapid economic development—population growth, irrigation development, rural electrification, and overall economic growth—pressures on the Nile's water resources are growing to unprecedented levels. These drivers of change have already contributed to stark changes in the hydropolitical regime, and new forms of cooperation and cross-sectoral collaboration are needed, particularly in the Eastern Nile Basin countries of Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Sudan. As direct sharing of water resources is hampered by unilateral developments, the need has increased for broader, cross-sectoral collaboration around the water, energy, and food sectors. This study is conducted to assess and understand the challenges of and opportunities for cooperation across the water-energy-food nexus nationally in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, as well as regionally across the Eastern Nile. To gather data, the paper uses an e-survey supplemented with key informant interviews geared toward national-level water, energy, and agriculture stakeholders, chiefly government staff and researchers. Findings from the survey tools suggest that most respondents strongly agree that collaboration across the water, energy, and agriculture sectors is essential to improve resource management in the region. At the same time, there is ample scope for improvement in collaboration across the water, energy, and food sectors nationally. Ministries of water, energy, and food were identified as the key nexus actors at national levels; these would also need to be engaged in regional cross-sectoral collaboration. Respondents also identified a wide range of desirable cross-sectoral actions and investments—both national and regional—chiefly, joint planning and operation of multipurpose infrastructure; investment in enhanced irrigation efficiency; joint rehabilitation of upstream catchments to reduce sedimentation and degradation; and investment in alternative renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar energy. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; CRP5; E Building Resilience ; EPTD; DSGD ; CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE)

Ethiopia has made consistent progress in improving development indicators, but vulnerability to extreme weather events is a continuing concern, especially for people reliant on agriculture for their livelihoods. The 2015/16 El Niño event caused both a severe drought and flooding, which highlighted the remarkable improvements in the country's resilience and the remaining challenges in ensuring that everyone "bounces back" relatively quickly from adverse climatic shocks. Given the links between climate change, cyclical droughts, and poverty, and the high cost of emergency humanitarian assistance, the Government of Ethiopia and development partners decided to review the country's resilience programming and identify opportunities and challenges to building greater resilience into the agricultural system. This work included three components: a review of the literature and government programs on resilience in Ethiopia; key informant interviews in several regions of the country; and quantitative crop modeling and economywide analyses to inform resilience programming. ; PR ; IFPRI2; CRP7; CRP2; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply ; EPTD; DSGD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS); CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

Confronting climate change requires action at all levels, from the individual to the global. While there are campaigns to change individuals' behavior and calls for global and national government action, more attention is needed to governance at the landscape level. The natural resources and ecosystem services that meet the material and nonmaterial needs of communities and form the basis of our agrifood systems, as well as the various types of land users and stakeholders with different land ownership and use rights, are intertwined in landscapes. Much of the debate and policymaking around the interconnected challenges to agrifood systems — climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and food insecurity — happen at the global and national scales. However, integrated landscape approaches offer great promise for helping countries to meet their Nationally Determined Contributions to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions by managing resources to reap multiple benefits and balance economic, social, and environmental goals. In the case of climate change, decisions on how and where to reduce GHG emissions and how to adapt in ways that can address other critical goals, including food and livelihood security, must take place at the landscape level. The real outcomes will be determined by the cumulative actions of many local stakeholders within particular landscapes, with differing, but potentially complementary interests that can support sustainable use of resources within their specific environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts. In this chapter we present a framework that highlights the importance of coordinated action and then look in more detail at approaches to strengthening this coordination for integrated landscape approaches, particularly polycentric governance systems and multistakeholder platforms. ; PR ; IFPRI4; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; DCA ; EPTD

Commons governance is complex and polycentric, involving a range of actors, working at different scales with different concepts of 'development', and different types of power. Multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) have generated considerable attention as a way to address these tensions among multiple and overlapping decision-making centers operating on different administrative levels and scales. Yet establishing MSPs that effectively involve both community, government, and private sector actors is far from straightforward. This paper analyzes the Indian NGO Foundation for Ecological Security's (FES) experience of strengthening polycentric governance through case studies of two MSPs in Gujarat and Odisha, at the block (subdistrict) level—a meso-level encompassing multiple communities situated around a commons landscape (hill range or small rivulet). By comparing local environments, institutional arrangements, stakeholder interactions, governance processes and the evolution of MSPs in the two states, it distills lessons on the tangible and intangible benefits of multi-stakeholder engagement, scale, and enabling conditions. We argue that the groundwork carried to build community level collective action supports effective polycentric governance of resources on the landscape level, especially through block-level MSPs that facilitate inter-community collaboration and learning, strengthening local voices and building trust between stakeholders over time. The cases also highlight that MSPs can evolve in different ways as the various actors interact and aim to influence the agenda. External actors like NGOs thus play an important role as facilitators and through mobilizing communities to help them claim their agency. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; CRP2; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; DCA ; EPTD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

The agriculture sector is key for economic and social development, but the sector's potential has not received enough attention from policy makers and stakeholders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Political transitions, instability, and the resulting refugee crisis have shifted focus away from other pressing development challenges, including slow progress in economic diversification, high unemployment, and persistent high food insecurity and rural poverty. Despite its small contribution to GDP, agriculture is strategic for sustainable development in the MENA countries. Agriculture, for example, is central to achieve food and water security in a region characterized as one of the most food insecure and water scarce in the world. The sector's role in employment is also central, given the region's high structural unemployment. However, it will not be possible for MENA countries to develop agriculture without a pathway to structural economic transformation. The region has already started the process of transformation but longstanding challenges remain. This report aims to examine the drivers, constraints, and social implications of agricultural development in MENA and to explore possible cornerstones for new and sustainable development strategies in the context of economic transformation. More specifically, the report provides answers to the following questions: • What development strategies and policies did governments in MENA put in place over the past three decades and how did they affect the performance of agriculture? • How did the structural characteristics of the MENA countries affect agricultural development and the economic transformation process in the region? • What did we learn from the past performance of agriculture? What should be the central elements guiding future agricultural policies? • What are elements of a new and sustainable development strategy in MENA countries? • What is the role of agriculture and agro-industries for development in MENA? ; PR ; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; IFPRI2; EgyptSSP; CRP2 ; DSGD; EPTD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)