NEXUS: Governing the nexus in Southern Africa
Lead Research Organisation:
Institute of Development Studies
Department Name: Research Department
Abstract
Building on extensive collaboration between IDS/STEPS, PLAAS and ACTS over 20 years, this partnership grant will help develop new research and policy influencing activities around the governance of the land-water-environment nexus in southern Africa.
As questions of land and water access rise up the policy agenda in southern Africa, a critical social science perspective is crucial to ask questions about how the nexus is governed. A focus on the politics of access will illuminate how different state, market and civil society actions can contribute to more effective access for the widest number of people.
This is a crucial question for development, making this proposal firmly 'ODA compliant'. Resource scarcities can act to exclude certain groups - including the poor, women and others - from vital resources for livelihoods. Conflicts over resources may emerge when more powerful groups grab land and water in the pursuit of the commercialisation of agriculture, energy or environmental services. Thus understanding the relationships between changing capitalist relations in the context of development and resources is essential if pro-poor, development oriented orientations for environmental sustainability are to emerge in policy.
In this project, we will examine the politics of access around the large-scale commercialisation of agriculture, water projects, including hydropower dams, and biodiversity conservation and forest carbon projects, where market offset mechanisms are applied. In each case our studies will examine the nexus between sectors, examining how relations between land, water and environment are negotiated in different governance frameworks.
The partnership will be facilitated through a combination of staff and student exchanges, joint scoping activities and project proposal development, a small grants programme for students, and an international conference that will bring together academics, policymakers and activists working on 'nexus' themes.
As questions of land and water access rise up the policy agenda in southern Africa, a critical social science perspective is crucial to ask questions about how the nexus is governed. A focus on the politics of access will illuminate how different state, market and civil society actions can contribute to more effective access for the widest number of people.
This is a crucial question for development, making this proposal firmly 'ODA compliant'. Resource scarcities can act to exclude certain groups - including the poor, women and others - from vital resources for livelihoods. Conflicts over resources may emerge when more powerful groups grab land and water in the pursuit of the commercialisation of agriculture, energy or environmental services. Thus understanding the relationships between changing capitalist relations in the context of development and resources is essential if pro-poor, development oriented orientations for environmental sustainability are to emerge in policy.
In this project, we will examine the politics of access around the large-scale commercialisation of agriculture, water projects, including hydropower dams, and biodiversity conservation and forest carbon projects, where market offset mechanisms are applied. In each case our studies will examine the nexus between sectors, examining how relations between land, water and environment are negotiated in different governance frameworks.
The partnership will be facilitated through a combination of staff and student exchanges, joint scoping activities and project proposal development, a small grants programme for students, and an international conference that will bring together academics, policymakers and activists working on 'nexus' themes.
Planned Impact
This work will build on a long track record of engaged research in southern Africa by all applicants. A joint IDS-PLAAS project has been chosen as a winner of the ESRC's 2015 'Outstanding International Impact' award. All partner institutions have a strong communications and impact engagement capacity, and excellent web profiles and social media connections. The communications professionals IDS, PLAAS and ACTS already work together, and this partnership grant will foster this international impact and engagement capacity, linking the UK with Africa.
In developing the partnership we will carry out a Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA), an approach used at the STEPS Centre (Ely and Oxley 2014), as well as in PLAAS and ACTS. This will help us identify the key target groups for our engagement around different themes. We will then tailor communications activities to these groups, and involve them in the discussions about future research proposals (during scoping studies) and in the Nexus conference.
Our aim is to generate useful evidence that is policy relevant, and that will make a difference in addressing complex nexus governance challenges. While this project is not carrying out research, its aims include generating new questions, and identifying key challenges. Involving users in this process is essential. All project partners have excellent contacts, across policy domains (land, water, environment) and in international organisations, among national policy makers, in business, and within civil society. For example, we will work closely with the Department of Rural Development and Land Affairs as well as the Department of Environmental Affairs in South Africa, as well as regional bodies, such as SADC and the African Union, and link with international organisations such as the UN bodies, FAO and UNEP.
As part of the PIPA exercise, we will map these actors around three overlapping domains (land, water and environment). We will focus on South Africa, but aim to link to the wider region, where important lessons, and cross-border policy questions arise. Through the regional mapping process, we will identify key partners for joint, co-produced work as part of our network. Our key outputs - including the scoping studies, new project proposals, small grant reports and the final conference - will emerge from this conversation with diverse users - not all of whom will agree with our approach and analysis, but we hope will engage in a spirit of open, and challenging, debate. This engagement will start at the beginning of our work, at the proposed partner inception and planning workshop.
In developing the partnership we will carry out a Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA), an approach used at the STEPS Centre (Ely and Oxley 2014), as well as in PLAAS and ACTS. This will help us identify the key target groups for our engagement around different themes. We will then tailor communications activities to these groups, and involve them in the discussions about future research proposals (during scoping studies) and in the Nexus conference.
Our aim is to generate useful evidence that is policy relevant, and that will make a difference in addressing complex nexus governance challenges. While this project is not carrying out research, its aims include generating new questions, and identifying key challenges. Involving users in this process is essential. All project partners have excellent contacts, across policy domains (land, water, environment) and in international organisations, among national policy makers, in business, and within civil society. For example, we will work closely with the Department of Rural Development and Land Affairs as well as the Department of Environmental Affairs in South Africa, as well as regional bodies, such as SADC and the African Union, and link with international organisations such as the UN bodies, FAO and UNEP.
As part of the PIPA exercise, we will map these actors around three overlapping domains (land, water and environment). We will focus on South Africa, but aim to link to the wider region, where important lessons, and cross-border policy questions arise. Through the regional mapping process, we will identify key partners for joint, co-produced work as part of our network. Our key outputs - including the scoping studies, new project proposals, small grant reports and the final conference - will emerge from this conversation with diverse users - not all of whom will agree with our approach and analysis, but we hope will engage in a spirit of open, and challenging, debate. This engagement will start at the beginning of our work, at the proposed partner inception and planning workshop.
Publications
Huff A
(2017)
Black sands, green plans and vernacular (in)securities in the contested margins of south-western Madagascar
in Peacebuilding
Bukhi Mabele, M.
(2019)
Green Transformations, Charcoal and Social Justice in Rural East-Central Tanzania
Scheba S
(2018)
Spotlight on: Crisis Temporalities: Intersections Between Infrastructure and Inequality in the Cape Town Water Crisis
in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
| Description | This project brought together a partnership for understanding politics, institutional dynamics and sustainability challenges at the intersection of land, water and environmental governance in southern and eastern Africa. Climate change, loss of biodiversity, increasing land shortages, and limited water availability for crops, livestock and people in drought-stressed stressed regions mean that governing resources at the land-water-environment nexus is crucial, and a major challenge for policymakers, businesses and local people alike. Understanding governance challenges means moving beyond simplistic top-down solutions that too often fail, towards recognition of the politics of negotiating pathways to sustainability in complex resource systems. The overarching objective of this project has been to refine a framework for thinking about 'governing the nexus' for sustainable development and poverty reduction, drawing on long standing research, new evidence from southern and eastern Africa, and engagement with policy issues at different scales. This means that in developing our integrative nexus framework we were challenged to expand our horizons beyond the very real and substantial technical challenges of managing environmental change to ask key questions about the social and political dimensions of environmental change and resource governance that are too often left out of the equation. In recent years, various conceptualizations of the resource 'nexus' have been proposed to inform better resource governance that takes into account the fact that dependencies and relationships exist across conventional sectoral divides. Nexus thinking has become prominent in debates about how to improve everything from local livelihoods to resource efficiency to resource security to achieving sustainable development goals. The nexus concept originated to address the very important idea of interdependency - that actions or activities in any single area or sector often entail effects, synergies and trade-offs and decision-making processes that affect other areas or sectors in important ways. However, our findings problematize a number of tendencies that are common in mainstream nexus approaches: apolitical and ahistorical framings of resource claims, sustainability problems and resource settings; a dominant focus on material relations among resources, and a tendency to privilege top-down and 'expert' approaches to resource governance. A 'resource nexus' is a set of material and social relationships that comes about in the context of production / use. The ways in which it comes about is always contingent on (1) the objectives, characteristics, resource intensity and scale (spatial as well as temporal) of a productive activity or bricolage of activities; (2) situated ecological dynamics (including human-ecological relationships and landscape histories); and (3) formal and informal institutional arrangements that govern aspects of production, allocate property rights, access, and responsibilities of different groups in relation to particular resources. Based on collaborative analyses at different geographic scales, we have found that a relational conceptualization of the 'resource nexus' that centres around dynamics of and contestations between different production scenarios, in context, is a productive entry-point for analysis. Once competing production scenarios are identified and mapped across a particular resource complex, the dynamics of formal and informal institutions in resource governance can be assessed. The 'nexus' can then be described, mapped and conceptualized in terms of the co-production of overlapping material-ecological, ecological-social and social-technical relationships that comprise a given resource complex. In addition, because land, water and environment are claimed for different ends by different stakeholders with different endowments of social, economic and political power, mapping the relational nexus in relation to competing production scenarios offers a new lens through which to analyse the dynamics of conflicts that involve natural resources. In refining our analytic framework, the partnership used evidence from a variety of different cases to extend and clarify approaches to understanding nexus governance issues in southern Africa. Across diverse contexts, different governance styles - what might be classified as technocratic, market-driven, state-led or diverse customary governance arrangements - are, as we hypothesized, associated with different types of actors, mechanisms of governance, and different narratives that explain problems. These narratives heavily shape the decisions that stakeholders make about courses of action that are meant to resolve problems, through trade-offs or other means. Likewise, these narratives, because they identify different sources of causation for resource problems, carry different implications for poverty reduction, conflict, inequalities and sustainable development. They also do not operate in isolation from one another. We were particularly interested in the combination of institutions - formal and informal - and associated governance styles that influence access to resources, and the range of mechanisms that can help create more sustainable solutions. More often than not, governance styles in practice defy discrete categorization, and are rather manifest or evolve into hybrid or 'negotiated' arrangements in practice. Different governance styles - and institutions - overlap and combine in different ways in different contexts along key axes of politics related to knowledge and evidence, institutions, social difference and ecology. Our most significant finding in relation to how different governance regimes are associated with decision-making at different levels relates to how the structuring of knowledge in formal governance institutions can hinder broader thinking about complex resource challenges. Even though nexus ideas are very compelling, researchers, policymakers and professionals in southern and eastern Africa continue to find it difficult to put nexus ideas into practice because sectoral and disciplinary siloing continues to constrain creative cross-sectoral or cross-disciplinary decision-making about sustainability problems, which in turn inhibits the sorts of collaborative and transdisciplinary thinking needed in the face of nexus complexities and challenges. In part, this is a result of the dominance of technical approaches to and economistic conceptualizations of resource management problems, which tend to be specific to different sectors, which in turn constrains cross-disciplinary 'translation' and dialogue among planners and practitioners. Second, it leads to hierarchical and top-down approaches to understanding and addressing resource problems based on an inherent bias towards 'expert' knowledge that can omit due consideration or attention to the importance of local knowledge, dynamics of livelihoods, historical experience and the particularities of social and ecological dynamics and contestation among different possible production regimes in different resource environments. Rather than focusing on issues of translating knowledge and logics across sectors, which then generate top-down nexus management plans, our framework begins with a focus on 'actually existing' nexus relations and contestations, situated in particular institutional, socio-ecological, technical and political relations on the ground. |
| Exploitation Route | Our findings and framework provide detailed information on nexus dynamics in particular contexts, as well as a broader theoretical intervention with academic and practical research applications. The partnership has received many requests from donors, policymakers, practitioners and private sector groups for evidence-based advice on nexus governance issues. |
| Sectors | Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| URL | https://steps-centre.org/project/nexus-in-southern-africa/ |
| Description | The Governing the Nexus in Southern and East Africa (GNSEA) project aimed primarily to build partnerships and define the agendas for future work. At the same time, it was a richly collaborative project that strengthened relationships between UK and international research organizations. The project contributed to capacity building in partner countries by supporting training, professionalization and research capacities of students and early career researchers based in southern and eastern Africa; generated socially and policy relevant evidence on how land, water and environment resources are governed, including areas of conflict; worked to refine a novel research framework that centred issues of politics and contestation at the heart of the resource nexus and demonstrated the value of integrative and transdisciplinary approaches to decision-making for supporting more effective and equitable governance of so-called 'nexus' resources in Southern and East Africa. Despite some setbacks which led us to request a no-cost extension and to adjust some our specific project activities, the GNSEA project has fulfilled its main objectives by bringing together members of partnership organizations in collaboration through visiting fellowships and exchanges, supporting training for over a dozen PhD and early career researchers; facilitating a diverse body of research by junior scholars working on Nexus project themes in a variety of settings throughout Southern and Eastern Africa and convening spaces for collaborative regional and cross-regional analysis, theory-building and multi-stakeholder dialogue and engagement. The project provided funding for field research on Nexus themes to fifteen (eight in 2016 and seven in 2017) MA and PhD students and recent postdocs conducting research in Southern and Eastern Africa. Thirteen of the fifteen were awarded to students based at institutions in located in Southern or Eastern Africa. Details about the recipients and their projects can be found on the STEPS Centre web site and outputs have been reported on Researchfish. Seven visiting fellowships / partnership exchanges have taken place between partnership organisations. A number of collaborative activities have been involved in these, including grant proposals, working papers and journal articles. The project supported participation of fourteen PhD and early career researchers from Southern and East Africa in the annual ESRC STEPS Centre Summer School on 'Pathways to Sustainability' between 2016 and 2019. The partnership has received many requests from donors, policymakers, practitioners and private sector groups for evidence-based advice on nexus governance issues. |
| Description | Partnership with the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) |
| Organisation | African Centre for Technology Studies |
| Country | Kenya |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | In this project, STEPS leads a partnership for understanding politics, institutional dynamics and challenges at the intersection of land, water and environmental governance in southern African contexts. STEPS provides overall project coordination, student mentoring and assistance organizing events. |
| Collaborator Contribution | ACTS provides in-country project coordination, student mentoring and support organizing events. |
| Impact | A number of blog outputs and seminars are associated with this partnership. These are reported in relevant sections of this form. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Partnership with the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) |
| Organisation | Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies |
| Country | South Africa |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | In this project, STEPS leads a partnership for understanding politics, institutional dynamics and challenges at the intersection of land, water and environmental governance in southern African contexts. STEPS provides overall project coordination, student mentoring and assistance organizing events. |
| Collaborator Contribution | PLAAS provides in-country project coordination, student mentoring and assistance organizing events. |
| Impact | A number of blogs and working papers are resulting from this partnership, and they are detailed in the relevant portions of this form. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Beyond Policy Statements: How Politics and Ecology Combine in Land, Water and Forests |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Blog by project partner Joanes Atlela on key Governing the Nexus project themes |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://steps-centre.org/blog/beyond-policy-statements-politics-ecology-combine-land-water-forests/ |
| Description | Divergent Dairy: Comparing Pathways in India and South Africa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This blog detailed results of fieldwork undertaken by the author and supported by the Governing the Nexus project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://steps-centre.org/general/divergent-dairy-comparing-pathways-in-india-and-south-africa/ |
| Description | From remunicipalization to reprivatisation of water? The case of Mozambique |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Chris Büscher highlights key finings from his fieldwork on the Governing the Nexus project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://steps-centre.org/blog/from-remunicipalisation-to-reprivatisation-of-water-the-case-of-mozamb... |
| Description | GOVERNING THE LAND-WATER-ENVIRONMENT NEXUS: GRANT AWARDEES 2017-2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Annoucing researchers that have received grants for 2017-2018 for research under the project Governing the Land-Water-Environment Nexus in Southern Africa. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | How water became a casualty of Mozambique's debt crisis |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A blog by Chris Büscher highlighting key themes related to water governance in Mozambique for the Governing the Nexus project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://steps-centre.org/general/water-mozambique-debt-crisis/ |
| Description | IN SOUTH AFRICA'S LAND REFORM, CLASS MATTERS |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Blog post by Brittany Bunce |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Interdisciplinary workshop, 'The Micropolitics of green extraction in southern Madagascar' Liege, Belgium |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Amber Huff and Yvonne Orengo presented a talk entitled 'The Micropolitics of green extraction in southern Madagascar' at the international workshop, 'The Micropolitics of Mining Capitalism' convened my members of the ERC supported WorkInMining project in Liege, Belgium. The talk generated lively debate among audience members, who included interdisciplinary scholars and professional development practitioners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Livelihoods and the political economy of dairy in India and South Africa |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This blog post by Brittany Bunce focuses on the dairy sector in India and South Africa, as part of research from the Governing the Nexus in Southern Africa project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://steps-centre.org/general/livelihoods-political-economy-of-dairy-india-south-africa/ |
| Description | Multistakeholder workshop: Environment and Climate Change Governing the Nexus Workshop, Nairobi |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This multi-stakeholder workshop organised by the African Sustainability Hub- a collaborative platform bringing together the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) the STEPS Centre (University of Sussex), Institute for Climate Change Adaptation (ICCA)-University of Nairobi (UoN) with support from the ESRC funded Governing the Nexus project. This workshop was both an opportunity for cross-case analysis of work from the project as well as part of a series of sustainability dialogues aimed at linking empirical research evidence to policy through a dialogue process that brings together researchers and policy makers as well as practitioners within natural resource sectors and climate change. The findings on "Governing the Nexus" research conducted on climate change, land, forest and governance were presented with the targeted proof of concept being that governance of environment (water, land, climate natural resources) and climate change involves both formal and informal institutions with cross sectoral coherence and interlocks. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Panel discussion: Can mining contribute to sustainable development in Madagascar? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Convened on 13 March, 2019 by the Ango-Malagasy Society in London, UK, this panel discussion explored case studies of mining in Madagascar, including Rio Tinto and Toliara Sands, which are part of the 'Seeing Conflicts' project and both of which have been part of 'Governing the Nexus' research. The panel discussed pressing social and environmental challenges that extractives projects present to the island and its citizens, including enquiry around the regulatory, legal and economic frameworks and how these support or undermine the value of the extractive industries' contribution to the public purse and the realisation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Project members Gregg Smith (research officer, Governing the Nexus in Southern Africa fellow) and Yvonne Orengo ('Seeing Conflicts' project advisory group) participated in the panel. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://www.anglo-malagasysociety.co.uk/programme.html |
| Description | Presentation: ACTS - 'Black sands, green plans and the mining-conservation-conflict nexus in southern Madagascar' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Research presentation to demonstrate the nexus approach based on 2 case studies, highlighting policy implications and resource relationships in the context of extractive investment in Africa. No known impacts yet |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Presentation: PLAAS - 'Black sands, green plans and the mining-conservation-conflict nexus in southern Madagascar' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Research presentation to demonstrate the nexus approach based on 2 case studies, highlighting policy implications and resource relationships in the context of extractive investment in Africa. No known impacts yet |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Project workshop: The Politics of Resource Governance and Agrarian Change, Cape Town, ZA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The Politics of Resource Governance and Agrarian Change in Southern Africa Workshop will brought together student researchers, senior members of partner organizations and other key experts to present, discuss and synthesize findings from the project, and identify questions for future research and collaboration. This was a unique opportunity for Southern and Northern, junior and senior researchers in political ecology and critical agrarian studies to collaborate toward a conceptualization of the resource 'nexus' that is situated in the multi-scalar politics of the environment and spatialities of resource control, and opens analytic space for addressing complex questions about the interplay of knowledge, power, representation and technologies of governance in processes of 21st century agrarian change. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | State-Corporate Alliances and Spaces for Resistance on the Extractive Frontier in Southeastern Madagascar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation at the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative conference, Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World, convened at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, Netherlands, March 2018. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.iss.nl/en/authoritarian-populism-and-rural-world |