Addressing global challenges through engaged excellence: Pathways and roadblocks Professor Melissa Leach Director Institute of Development Studies m.leach@ids.ac.uk @mleach_ids 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 Urbanisation Risks and uncertainties 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 Co‐constructing knowledge with • University of Edinburgh, UK communities – participatory • University College London (UCL), UK • Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, Ghana research on disease categories, • University of Ghana, Ghana human‐animal interactions • 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
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 in remote villages • Supporting response to be more sensitive, Marianne Bayo respectful and community‐engaged ‐ key to Icamano, turning W. African epidemic around, and ‘re‐set’ Guèkuèdou www.ids.ac.uk Engaging, Learning, Transformin in DRC prefecture, 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 INTERCONNECTIONS REGIONAL NATIONAL Uganda, Sierra Leone LOCAL, COMMUNITY 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 14 differently
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
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