Addressing Global Challenges Through Engaged Excellence: Pathways and Roadblocks

Addressing global challenges through engaged excellence: Pathways and roadblocks

Professor Melissa Leach Director Institute of Development Studies

Keynote talk, 5th Joint Nordic Development Research Conference Copenhagen 27‐28 June 2019 www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transforming Global development challenges

Epidemics, AMR

Climate change

Risks and uncertainties Urbanisation Short‐term shocks, long‐term stresses Cross‐scale interactions Technical, social and political dimensions Insecurity, extremism, migration www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transforming 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, comparative Many pathways, many roadblocks…….. Engaged Excellence

www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transforming Example 1: Tackling infectious disease threats Global challenge discourses

www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transforming Exploring local disease‐ecosystem dynamics and experiences The Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium

Kenya: Rift Valley Fever Zambia and Zimbabwe: Trypanosomiasis Ghana: henipavirus Sierra Leone: Lassa fever 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. www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transforming Interdisciplinary research

Untangling interactions through new knowledge of environment and ecology; human/animal health and epidemiology; people’s behaviour and understandings Social science as integral, not afterthought Triangulating amongst modelling approaches: pattern‐based, process‐based, participatory Co‐constructing knowledge, transdisciplinary science

DDDAC partners – universities, government agencies – co‐ developed questions, co‐collected data, co‐communicated findings

• IDS/ESRC STEPS Centre, UK • University of Cambridge, UK • Institute of Zoology, UK • University of Edinburgh, UK Co‐constructing knowledge with • University College London (UCL), UK communities – participatory • Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, Ghana • University of Ghana, Ghana research on disease categories, • Department of Veterinary Services, Kenya human‐animal interactions • 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 Mobilising evidence for impact Novel 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 vulnerability eg. 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 Participatory Practical Impact techniques Pathways Analysis (PIPA) Integrated policy interventions

Surveillance approaches

Institutions Mobilising social science evidence in real‐time: Ebola 2014‐16 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 "Wise people" engagement; 20+ published articles help to fight Ebola • Supporting response to be more sensitive, in remote villages Marianne Bayo respectful and community‐engaged ‐ key to Icamano, turning W. African epidemic around, and ‘re‐set’ Guèkuèdou www.ids.ac.ukin DRC Engaging, Learning, Transforminprefecture, Guinea The problems

Exploring diverse concepts, meanings and practices of preparedness 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 Uganda, Sierra Leone

LOCAL, COMMUNITY INTERCONNECTIONS 2 Uganda sites, 2 Sierra Leone sites (village, local government units) Example 2: navigating climate catastrophe

Understanding and engaging with science‐policy‐politics

Finding pathways to mitigate, adapt, live differently 14 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

15 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 Revealed African Dark Earth (AfDE) knowledge, formation and use 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 Soil science reveals high carbon content, analogous to terra preta Indigenous African soil enrichment as climate‐smart sustainable agriculture alternative ) ** ** AfDE -1 AS 500

400

300 ** **

200

100 Total organic carbon content (Mg ha (Mg content carbon organic Total

0 Liberia Ghana

Pathways to impact: Fairhead, James, Solomon, Dawit, Lehmann, Johannes, Fraser, James A, Leach, Melissa, Amanor, Kojo, Frausin, Victoria, Kristianson, Soren M FOSED – sustainable upland farming in Sierra Leone and Millimouno, Dominique (2016) Indigenous African soil enrichment EU BeBi project – locally‐appropriate biochar developments as a climate‐smart sustainable agriculture alternative. Frontiers in Ethiopia – indigenous fertilizers Ecology and the Environment, 14 (2). pp. 71‐76. ISSN 1540‐9309 Reflections on four pillars of engaged excellence

1. High quality research Opportunities Challenges

• Rigorous methodologies • Maintaining rigour in challenging • Diverse and mixed methods – quant, contexts qual, participatory • Bridging differences of concepts, • Multi‐disciplinarity – equity and assumptions, language balance of different perspectives; • Overcoming disciplinary hierarchies richer picture and power relations • Interdisciplinarity – integrated • Institutional and career incentives frameworks and approaches don’t always support • Robust evidence interdisciplinarity www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transforming 2. Co‐constructing knowledge Opportunities Challenges • Involve diverse people and groups in • Time, patience research process – local community • Power relations amongst stakeholders members, practitioners, policymakers, government staff… • Need for effective processes – and facilitation skills • Co‐design of questions and framings • Co‐collection of data • Co‐communication of findings • Contribute to relevance, impacts, cognitive justice

www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transforming 3. Mobilising evidence Opportunities Challenges • Ensuring that evidence shapes • Politics of policy processes – evidence decisions and practices plays situated and sometimes limited • Direct and less direct (shifting the role narrative) • Time and capacity of decision‐makers • Different timeframes – including real‐ to engage time • Hard to shift power‐embedded ideas, • Diverse scales – local, national global concepts, practices • Diverse methods – face to face, online platforms, dialogues, briefings, visual • ‘Post‐truth’ politics and discrediting of and multi‐media expertise

www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transforming 4. Building enduring partnerships Opportunities Challenges • Combining diverse skills, insights, • Overcoming embedded power capabilities relations • Embedding in local and national • Overturning established practices – contexts such as S partners do ‘country’ work, • Bringing comparative learning N partners do global/comparative • Equitable partnerships – for practical • Capacities very different and take and normative reasons effort to build • Mutual learning and capacity‐ • Trust is key – takes time and strengthening interpersonal relationships to build

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

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

Professor Melissa Leach Director Institute of Development Studies

[email protected] @mleach_ids