A cultural landscape approach to improve governance of pastoral food systems in East Africa and Beyond
Lead Research Organisation:
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Department Name: Geography
Abstract
Cultural beliefs and practices associated with extensive mobile pastoralism enable people to live in arid regions. In East Africa modernization and increasing population densities combined with national economic policies have caused fragmentation of rangelands and soil degradation, and thus broader economic and ecological problems. Community-based rangeland conservancies provide a potential solution to these challenges and address several Sustainable Development Goals by providing food security and improved nutrition; restoring degraded land; conserving ecosystems and their services; and establishing more inclusive forms of governance that incorporate previously under-represented groups, such as women or young, unmarried men.
Despite some successes, there is a great deal of variation both in the willingness of pastoral groups to establish conservancies, and in the effectiveness and inclusiveness of governance in those conservancies that have been established. Relationships between different conservancies in challenging times have also shown the limitations of an approach based on the functioning of single conservancies. A greater understanding of how to manage rangelands more effectively and improve pastoral food systems can come from understand the landscape of different levels and scales at play in the rangelands, and the diverse cultures and institutions for managing these resources. Attempts to establish new models of community governance and rangeland management, as envisaged by the conservancy model, need to be taken up and accepted by communities, and therefore need to be suited and adapted to the different cultural and ecological situations that make up the landscape.
In this partnership we will bring together a network of researchers from economics, anthropology, behavioural ecology, and psychology with policy makers in order to understand how contextually-driven policies can be developed that effectively promote sustainable and inclusive systems of pastoral food production in a way that respects and leverages the traditions and culture of pastoralist communities, and takes into account the interactions between different levels of these systems.
The project will involve meetings between researchers and policy makers, and participatory workshops with local communities in order to co-design research activities and future research applications that both meet the needs of communities and are directed towards shaping policy in an evidence-based manner. We will conduct pilot fieldwork in collaboration with local communities that will involve 3 different strands: 1) A Photovoice approach that will document the stories of local communities in producing food, their experiences of governance, and their interactions with other communities, 2) Collecting information on community governance and inclusivity, and relationships with other communities via Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussions, 3) Conducting questionnaires that will aim to elucidate the social psychological factors that either facilitate or inhibit adoption of inclusive and sustainable rangeland governance practices.
The project will result in the establishment of knowledge-exchange network with the immediate outputs from the project being a photovoice exhibit, community reports, open access academic papers, a project website and associated social media, and policy briefing documents.
Longer term this novel interdisciplinary collaboration will help highlight the challenges pastoralists face, understand the ways in which community-based inclusive forms of sustainable rangeland governance can be established, and improve the capacity to develop more contextually-driven and culture-focused policy relating to sustainable pastoralist food systems. We will explore how approaches to establishing inclusive and sustainable governance of food systems can be adapted and applied to enhance pastoralist and other food production systems beyond East Africa.
Despite some successes, there is a great deal of variation both in the willingness of pastoral groups to establish conservancies, and in the effectiveness and inclusiveness of governance in those conservancies that have been established. Relationships between different conservancies in challenging times have also shown the limitations of an approach based on the functioning of single conservancies. A greater understanding of how to manage rangelands more effectively and improve pastoral food systems can come from understand the landscape of different levels and scales at play in the rangelands, and the diverse cultures and institutions for managing these resources. Attempts to establish new models of community governance and rangeland management, as envisaged by the conservancy model, need to be taken up and accepted by communities, and therefore need to be suited and adapted to the different cultural and ecological situations that make up the landscape.
In this partnership we will bring together a network of researchers from economics, anthropology, behavioural ecology, and psychology with policy makers in order to understand how contextually-driven policies can be developed that effectively promote sustainable and inclusive systems of pastoral food production in a way that respects and leverages the traditions and culture of pastoralist communities, and takes into account the interactions between different levels of these systems.
The project will involve meetings between researchers and policy makers, and participatory workshops with local communities in order to co-design research activities and future research applications that both meet the needs of communities and are directed towards shaping policy in an evidence-based manner. We will conduct pilot fieldwork in collaboration with local communities that will involve 3 different strands: 1) A Photovoice approach that will document the stories of local communities in producing food, their experiences of governance, and their interactions with other communities, 2) Collecting information on community governance and inclusivity, and relationships with other communities via Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussions, 3) Conducting questionnaires that will aim to elucidate the social psychological factors that either facilitate or inhibit adoption of inclusive and sustainable rangeland governance practices.
The project will result in the establishment of knowledge-exchange network with the immediate outputs from the project being a photovoice exhibit, community reports, open access academic papers, a project website and associated social media, and policy briefing documents.
Longer term this novel interdisciplinary collaboration will help highlight the challenges pastoralists face, understand the ways in which community-based inclusive forms of sustainable rangeland governance can be established, and improve the capacity to develop more contextually-driven and culture-focused policy relating to sustainable pastoralist food systems. We will explore how approaches to establishing inclusive and sustainable governance of food systems can be adapted and applied to enhance pastoralist and other food production systems beyond East Africa.
Planned Impact
Who might benefit from this research?
This project will enhance the way UK-funded research is conducted in partnership with ODA countries by ensuring the research is (i) informed by the needs of key beneficiaries, and (ii) adapted to local context. Co-designing research to meet the local socio-economic and political culture has been shown to increase the uptake of research findings - this is firmly at the heart of our project. This will be achieved through extensive and tailored two-way engagement with the following direct beneficiaries:
1. Pastoralist communities, who have traditionally been marginalised from policy decision-making and thus have suffered systemic mal- and low-investment from inappropriate policies.
2. Community-based conservancies. Despite the success of some conservancies, there is a great deal of variation both in the willingness of pastoral groups to establish conservancies, and in the effectiveness and inclusiveness of governance in those conservancies that have been established.
3. Policymakers in the East African region with substantial pastoralist populations. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires research evidence to be integrated with policy decision-making. Community-based conservancies address several key targets across SDGs. However, knowledge networks that span the research-policy divide remain in their infancy.
4. Stakeholders from development policy & practitioner communities. Such organisations have vast experience with on-the-ground development interventions, yet frequently limited access to and involvement with cutting-edge primary evidence of 'what works' and why.
How might they benefit from this research?
The above 4 key beneficiaries will benefit from this research in the following ways:
1. Pastoralist communities: giving voice to be heard by researchers and policymakers in a safe-guarded way; increase ability to leverage more economic benefits from their land; more context-driven and therefore more appropriate policy interventions relating to their way of life.
2. Community conservancies will benefit by being provided with actionable recommendations for more effective rangeland management that will aim to: increase ability to leverage economic benefits through ecotourism; increase inclusiveness; incorporate traditional pastoral culture practices more effectively; and promote positive behaviour change.
3. Policymakers: increase the policymakers' understanding of pastoralist culture and traditions; contribute to a shared interdisciplinary research agenda; framework to develop more context-driven policy that will be (i) appropriate for pastoralist's culture, (ii) informed by evidence, and (ii) meet several targets of SDGs.
4. Development stakeholders: access to primary research and policymakers; opportunity to develop evidence-informed interventions; contribute to a shared interdisciplinary research agenda.
These benefits will be realised by working together with beneficiaries to co-develop the following outputs:
1. Policy briefing on land use policy in East African region
2. Two briefing notes on our knowledge exchange network discussions
3. Community reports for each pastoralist community that engages with the research to outline key findings
4. 'Photovoice' narratives that outline what the community themselves identify as challenges to their culture and traditions via photography
5. Co-designed research plans and future large funding bids to ensure research meets the needs of pastoralists, policymakers and development stakeholders
6. Four academic articles outlining research findings including our interdisciplinary approach to understand how ecological processes, cultural norms and institutions shape sustainable pastoral food systems
This project will enhance the way UK-funded research is conducted in partnership with ODA countries by ensuring the research is (i) informed by the needs of key beneficiaries, and (ii) adapted to local context. Co-designing research to meet the local socio-economic and political culture has been shown to increase the uptake of research findings - this is firmly at the heart of our project. This will be achieved through extensive and tailored two-way engagement with the following direct beneficiaries:
1. Pastoralist communities, who have traditionally been marginalised from policy decision-making and thus have suffered systemic mal- and low-investment from inappropriate policies.
2. Community-based conservancies. Despite the success of some conservancies, there is a great deal of variation both in the willingness of pastoral groups to establish conservancies, and in the effectiveness and inclusiveness of governance in those conservancies that have been established.
3. Policymakers in the East African region with substantial pastoralist populations. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires research evidence to be integrated with policy decision-making. Community-based conservancies address several key targets across SDGs. However, knowledge networks that span the research-policy divide remain in their infancy.
4. Stakeholders from development policy & practitioner communities. Such organisations have vast experience with on-the-ground development interventions, yet frequently limited access to and involvement with cutting-edge primary evidence of 'what works' and why.
How might they benefit from this research?
The above 4 key beneficiaries will benefit from this research in the following ways:
1. Pastoralist communities: giving voice to be heard by researchers and policymakers in a safe-guarded way; increase ability to leverage more economic benefits from their land; more context-driven and therefore more appropriate policy interventions relating to their way of life.
2. Community conservancies will benefit by being provided with actionable recommendations for more effective rangeland management that will aim to: increase ability to leverage economic benefits through ecotourism; increase inclusiveness; incorporate traditional pastoral culture practices more effectively; and promote positive behaviour change.
3. Policymakers: increase the policymakers' understanding of pastoralist culture and traditions; contribute to a shared interdisciplinary research agenda; framework to develop more context-driven policy that will be (i) appropriate for pastoralist's culture, (ii) informed by evidence, and (ii) meet several targets of SDGs.
4. Development stakeholders: access to primary research and policymakers; opportunity to develop evidence-informed interventions; contribute to a shared interdisciplinary research agenda.
These benefits will be realised by working together with beneficiaries to co-develop the following outputs:
1. Policy briefing on land use policy in East African region
2. Two briefing notes on our knowledge exchange network discussions
3. Community reports for each pastoralist community that engages with the research to outline key findings
4. 'Photovoice' narratives that outline what the community themselves identify as challenges to their culture and traditions via photography
5. Co-designed research plans and future large funding bids to ensure research meets the needs of pastoralists, policymakers and development stakeholders
6. Four academic articles outlining research findings including our interdisciplinary approach to understand how ecological processes, cultural norms and institutions shape sustainable pastoral food systems
Publications
Currie TE
(2021)
The cultural evolution and ecology of institutions.
in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
Rabinovich A
(2023)
Willingness to cooperate in shared natural resource management is linked to group identification through perceived efficacy and group norms
in Environmental Research Letters
| Description | We have undertaken an analysis of poverty amongst the communities with which we are working in Northern Kenya based on existing data. We took the Multidimensional Poverty index, which is used in development research around the world, but has been produced with a focus on settled agricultural communities. We therefore adapted it for use in the kind of pastoralist communities with whom we are working. The new index takes into account livestock owned and was able to incorporate the information we have on assets, education, and health measures. Our analyses suggest extreme poverty is very high in many communities but that there is also substantial variation across communities, We are assessing the accuracy of this model and the underlying data and are working with partners in Kenya to improve it. A report based on this work was written and shared with the NRT. We were also able to hold initial meetings with communities in Northern Kenya in January 2020 to hear from them the challenges they are facing. We have produced reports of these meetings that we shared with the communities. We have collated data on governance and a household survey conducted by the NRT. We have created an improved governance score that is a) based on more objective criteria, and b) connects more closely to previously published theory about effective governance of natural resources. Our analyses indicate that governance in conservancies showed and overall improvement in the period 2014-2017. We have used the household survey to construct a measure of social satisfaction indicating how satisfied people are with their conservancies. We then used statistical analyses to assess whether variation in satisfaction can be explained by various factors. The results show that satisfaction is predicted by the effective of governance (measured by our governance score) and feelings of safety. We have written-up the results of these analyses as paper that was sent to the journal "People & Nature" where it was reviewed and asked to revise and re-submit. We are now responding to the reviewer and editor comments and will resubmit the revised version soon. We were able to conduct focus group surveys in six conservancies in summer 2021 about how well they feel conservancies are working to support their way of life. We conducted separate focus groups with men, women, young people, and elders in order to understand variation within communities and hear more from unrepresented groups in these societies (i.e. women and young people). These discussions are being transcribed, translated, and analysed, and a draft has been written which we are working on finalizing to submit to the journal Sustainable Development in the near future. We also conducted focus groups and households surveys relating to feelings of social identification with conservancies. These results were transcribed, translated, and analysed, and were written up for publication. We sent the manuscript to the journal Environmental Research Letters and received a "revise & resubmit" verdict. We made the required amendments and resubmitted the paper and are now awaiting the verdict of the journal |
| Exploitation Route | The findings from the various activities will be used by the umbrella support organization the Northern Rangelands Trust in assessing how well communities are doing and developing strategies to help communities. Our work with the NRT has been mentioned in reports and our ability to provide research capacity and expertise has been flagged up as being beneficial to informing decisions about conservancies. The work we will publish in the academic literature can inform researchers and others about how to measure economic outcomes and poverty in pastoralist societies, how effective governance can be measured, and how multiple aspects of communities and their landscapes may affect success of food systems |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Communities and Social Services/Policy,Environment |
| Description | We reported our findings from the social psychology work back to NRT and associated communities in August 2022. The findings have helped inform NRT about some community feelings towards their conservancy governance and their sense of identification with conservancies. This information is helping conservancy management teams identify where they might take steps to improve the connection between the conservancy and the community - although there is no specific change in approach that we can point to in this regard. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Environment |
| Impact Types | Societal |