Addressing global challenges through engaged … Leach IDS Joint NorDev...Addressing global...

www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transforming

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


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……..


Engaged Excellence

Example 1: Tackling infectious disease threatsGlobal challenge discourses



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)

www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transformin

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


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


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


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


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


Thank youProfessor Melissa LeachDirectorInstitute of Development Studies

[email protected]@mleach_ids


Addressing global challenges through engaged … Leach IDS Joint NorDev...Addressing global...

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