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Addressing global challenges through engaged excellence: Pathways and roadblocks
Professor Melissa LeachDirectorInstitute of Development Studies
[email protected]@mleach_ids
Keynote talk, 5th Joint Nordic Development Research Conference Copenhagen 27‐28 June 2019
Global development challenges
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Risks and uncertaintiesShort‐term shocks, long‐term stressesCross‐scale interactionsTechnical, social and political dimensions
Urbanisation
Epidemics, AMR
Climate change
Insecurity, extremism, migration
Embraced in Agenda 2030 – and beyond
SDGs – and their interconnections, synergies and tensions
Modelling the future we want
Finding transformational pathways
Breakdowns‐ In environmental relations – climate, biodiversity and pollution catastrophes; non‐
human natures under assault‐ In rights and justice – acceleration of multiple inequalities; extreme marginalisations;
backlashes ‐ In technological optimism ‐ narrow technical solutions meet failures and resistance;
digital and AI – disruption, opportunities, threats‐ In place – mobility, displacement, migration, globalisation of people, emergent
geographies‐ In manageability – amidst uncertainties, fragilities and intersecting protracted crises ‐ In established democratic orders – strident conservatism and extreme right wing
politics; authoritarian populisms; broken or incomplete representative forms; democratic innovations
‐ In the value and use of evidence and knowledge ‐ declining trust in expertise, rise of un‐grounded narratives and fake news; swaying of politics by narratives with little grounding in evidence; shutdown on uncomfortable truths; closing political space for research
Development/development studies needed more than ever –with (even) more vitality, imagination, courage• Normative
IDS: contribute to positive transformative change to address global challenges, and build equal and sustainable societies, locally and globally, where everyone can live secure, fulfilling lives free from poverty and injustice.
• Challenge and problem‐focused • Interdisciplinary ‐ across diverse social and natural sciences• Transdisciplinary ‐ engaged with policy, practice and society• Globally alert yet locally grounded – in people’s highly diverse realities
and experiences• Multiple knowledges and mutual learning – ideas/experiences from
diverse people, places, histories; universal, de‐colonial, comparativeMany pathways, many roadblocks……..
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Engaged Excellence
Example 1: Tackling infectious disease threatsGlobal challenge discourses
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The Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium
To reduce the risks of zoonotic diseases and the negative consequences for poor people in Africa, by ensuring that ecosystems are managed sustainably in ways that assure disease regulation while avoiding negative trade‐offs for livelihoods.
Kenya: Rift Valley FeverZambia and Zimbabwe: TrypanosomiasisGhana: henipavirusSierra Leone: Lassa fever
Exploring local disease‐ecosystem dynamics and experiences
Untangling interactions through new knowledge of environment and ecology; human/animal health and epidemiology; people’s behaviour and understandingsSocial science as integral, not afterthoughtTriangulating amongst modelling approaches: pattern‐based, process‐based, participatory
Interdisciplinary research
Co‐constructing knowledge, transdisciplinary science
• IDS/ESRC STEPS Centre, UK• University of Cambridge, UK• Institute of Zoology, UK• University of Edinburgh, UK• University College London (UCL), UK• Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, Ghana• University of Ghana, Ghana• Department of Veterinary Services, Kenya• International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya• Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), Kenya• University of Nairobi, Kenya• Kenema Government Hospital, Sierra Leone• Njala University, Sierra Leone• Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development, Zambia• University of Zambia, Zambia• Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Zimbabwe• University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe• Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden• Tulane University, USA
DDDAC partners – universities, government agencies – co‐developed questions, co‐collected data, co‐communicated findings
Co‐constructing knowledge with communities – participatory research on disease categories, human‐animal interactions
Mobilising evidence for impactNovel findings with development implications: eg. in Zimbabwe, Tsetse flies and HAT cases focused in landscape patches where poor users vulnerable => target eradication, livelihood interventions to reduce vulnerabilityeg. women’s dry season swamp rice and vegetable gardens a key focus of Lassa virus transmission risk=> Integrate crop protection from rodents and disease control; inclusion of women gardeners
Practical techniques
Integrated policy interventions
Surveillance approaches
Institutions
Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA)
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Mobilising social science evidence in real‐time: Ebola2014‐16 West Africa, 2018 ongoing DRC
• Integrated social science research and local knowledge around: transmission dynamics, care for the sick, burial practices, vaccine and therapy trials, local social and cultural relations, inequalities, conflict and politics underlying resistance, rumour and distrust
• Briefings and contextual analyses; contributions to guidelines, protocols and operational workshops; operational field research; membership of key policy and response committees; media and social media engagement; 20+ published articles
• Supporting response to be more sensitive, respectful and community‐engaged ‐ key to turning W. African epidemic around, and ‘re‐set’ in DRC
"Wise people" help to fight Ebola in remote villagesMarianne BayoIcamano, Guèkuèdouprefecture, Guinea
The problems
Who, or what, is being prepared for what, and by whom? Can we identify principles and practices relevant to ‘preparedness from below’?
GLOBAL
REGIONAL
NATIONAL
LOCAL, COMMUNITY INTE
RCONNEC
TIONS
Uganda, Sierra Leone
2 Uganda sites, 2 Sierra Leone sites(village, local government units)
Exploring diverse concepts, meanings and practices of preparedness
14
Example 2: navigating climate catastrophe
Understanding and engaging with science‐policy‐politics
Finding pathways to mitigate, adapt, live differently
15
Transformative pathways
Transformative as well as incremental change
Structural economic transformation – not just, or necessarily, growth, but its quality and direction
Interactions of technology, markets, states, citizens
Bottom‐up and top‐down, transformative alliances
Bringing marginalised perspectives and pathways to light
Geo‐engineering – top‐down, bottom‐up
‘Climate smart’ agriculture’ and ‘biochar’ as win‐win solutions to climate change, and soil infertility and poverty?
But do indigenous farming practices already enhance soil fertility and carbon?The Amazonian terra preta story
• Amazonia – dark earths (ADE) or ‘terra preta’ were formed by inhabitation and farming practices of local populations – before European conquest 500 years ago.
• Terra Preta found to have extremely high fertility and carbon sequestration potential, due to the high proportion of charred C, or ‘biochar’, that they contain
• Indigenous practice that supported large, settled farming populations
Exploring African Dark Earths (AfDE)
Do Terra Preta analogues exist in the West African forest zone ‐ currently forming through local land use practice?
Interdisciplinary research, engaged with communities Soil science, botany, anthropology, history, archaeology, participatory research with farmers in Guinea, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia
Started with farmers’ own knowledge, practices and their views of their effects, revealed through anthropological/participatory research
o ‘Black soils’ known and understood (eg. Mende por lei, porleilei…)
o Formed through everyday waste deposits and cultural practices – cooking, agri‐processing
o Associated with old settlements and forming rings around villages and farm camps
o Understood as ‘super‐fertile’ compared with background soils
o Valued by men for agroforestry, cacao, tree nurseries; by women for gardening
Revealed African Dark Earth (AfDE) knowledge, formation and use
Liberia Ghana
Tota
l org
anic
car
bon
cont
ent (
Mg
ha-1
)
0
100
200
300
400
500AfDEAS
**
**
**
**
Soil science reveals high carbon content, analogous to terra pretaIndigenous African soil enrichment as climate‐smart sustainable agriculture alternative
Pathways to impact:
FOSED – sustainable upland farming in Sierra LeoneEU BeBi project – locally‐appropriate biochar developmentsEthiopia – indigenous fertilizers
Fairhead, James, Solomon, Dawit, Lehmann, Johannes, Fraser, James A, Leach, Melissa, Amanor, Kojo, Frausin, Victoria, Kristianson, Soren M and Millimouno, Dominique (2016) Indigenous African soil enrichment as a climate‐smart sustainable agriculture alternative. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 14 (2). pp. 71‐76. ISSN 1540‐9309
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Reflections on four pillars of engaged excellence
1. High quality researchOpportunities
• Rigorous methodologies• Diverse and mixed methods – quant, qual, participatory
• Multi‐disciplinarity – equity and balance of different perspectives; richer picture
• Interdisciplinarity – integrated frameworks and approaches
• Robust evidence
Challenges
• Maintaining rigour in challenging contexts
• Bridging differences of concepts, assumptions, language
• Overcoming disciplinary hierarchies and power relations
• Institutional and career incentives don’t always support interdisciplinarity
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2. Co‐constructing knowledge
Opportunities• Involve diverse people and groups in research process – local community members, practitioners, policymakers, government staff…
• Co‐design of questions and framings• Co‐collection of data• Co‐communication of findings• Contribute to relevance, impacts, cognitive justice
Challenges• Time, patience• Power relations amongst stakeholders• Need for effective processes – and facilitation skills
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3. Mobilising evidence
Opportunities• Ensuring that evidence shapes decisions and practices
• Direct and less direct (shifting the narrative)
• Different timeframes – including real‐time
• Diverse scales – local, national global• Diverse methods – face to face, online platforms, dialogues, briefings, visual and multi‐media
Challenges• Politics of policy processes – evidence plays situated and sometimes limited role
• Time and capacity of decision‐makers to engage
• Hard to shift power‐embedded ideas, concepts, practices
• ‘Post‐truth’ politics and discrediting of expertise
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4. Building enduring partnerships
Opportunities• Combining diverse skills, insights, capabilities
• Embedding in local and national contexts
• Bringing comparative learning • Equitable partnerships – for practical and normative reasons
• Mutual learning and capacity‐strengthening
Challenges• Overcoming embedded power relations
• Overturning established practices –such as S partners do ‘country’ work, N partners do global/comparative
• Capacities very different and take effort to build
• Trust is key – takes time and interpersonal relationships to build
Engaging with power
• Recognise that ideas, practices, partnerships and power relations mutually constructed in multiple ways
• Seek actively to analyse and counter breakdowns through informed and constructive critique and evidence, and boldness in calling out and challenging dominant power relations
• Identify and amplify alternatives and niches for change – whether in the everyday experiences of marginalised people, the progressive voices and actions of youth; of citizen and activist movements, or progressive state and business initiatives –harnessing and supporting social energies
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Thank youProfessor Melissa LeachDirectorInstitute of Development Studies
[email protected]@mleach_ids
www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transforming