Pathways to Sustainability:

Meeting the challenges

Melissa Leach

International conference on ‘Pathways to Sustainability in a Changing China’

Beijing Normal University

20 April 2015

Sustainability challenges

in dynamic contexts

• Environmental change, rapid and complex dynamics,

impending threats and thresholds

• Technological change – opportunities, threats

• Social, economic and political change and instabilities;

shifting geographies of power and privilege, emergent

social hierarchies

• Poverty, inequity, (in)justice

• Scientific, policy and public concern – and politicisation

How might pathways to sustainability – that link technology and environmental integrity with social justice – be conceptualised and built – in a complex, dynamic world?

The STEPS Centre’s ‘pathways approach’ Pathways approach - a guide to thinking and action

Building pathways to sustainability, integrating:

• Ecological integrity

• Human wellbeing

• Social justice

Working across disciplines and sectors

• Development studies, Science and Technology Studies • Social sciences (anthropology, sociology, political science, economics) and natural sciences (medicine, ecology, climate science, hydrology, engineering, others…) • Food and Agriculture, Health and Disease, Water and

Sanitation, Energy and Climate

Pathways and the politics of knowledge under-determined realities

‘scope’

‘system’ ‘focus’

picture of the world –

stylised representation

of a system

‘cause’

Pathways and the politics of knowledge

‘effect’

under-determined realities

System: social,

ecological and

technological

elements

interacting in

dynamic ways

environment ‘scope’

‘system’ ‘focus’

picture of the world reflexive framing

Pathways and the politics of knowledge

‘effect’

under-determined realities

‘cause’ local people

environment

‘system’

under-determined realities diverse pictures plural frames

Pathways and the politics of knowledge

‘effect’

‘cause’

local people

‘scope’

‘focus’

plural frames

‘system’

‘cause’

‘effect’

under-determined realities

local people

Pathways and the Politics of Knowledge diverse pictures

‘scope’

‘focus’

Narratives

Framings often become part of narratives – underlying storylines

• Produced by people and institutions

• Beginning – a system, framed

• Middle – a set of envisaged actions

• Construction of publics – who will act, who will change their behaviour, respond

• Towards particular futures (desired, averting what is feared, possibilities, values, goals?) and ends – catastrophe averted, outcome achieved, ‘sustainability’ enhanced

environment

plural frames

Pathways and the Politics of Knowledge

‘system’

under-determined realities

local people

time

‘effect’

‘cause’

diverse pictures

‘scope’

‘focus’ ‘pathway’

Pathways and power

• Some narratives justify and become interlocked with powerful pathways – particular directions in which systems change over time

• Alternative narratives, hidden narratives, exclusions….

• Power relations and governance shape which pathways come to dominate, and which remain marginalised or excluded

• Challenge dominant pathways, open up appreciation of alternatives

Agriculture in East Africa

‘Growing food deficits require

massive boosts to agricultural productivity – modern plant breeding and genetic engineering can deliver solutions which need to be rolled out at scale’

‘Food insecurities are shaped by local ecological, social and institutional contexts, requiring socio-technical solutions centred on farmer knowledge and local

innovations’

Climate change, drought and maize in Kenya

• Understanding and challenging ‘lock in’ to the dominant pathway – breeding and commercialization of drought-tolerant maize, geared to ‘resilience in the seed’, towards farm and national food security goals

• Opening up to alternative pathways – especially for ‘low potential’ areas (e.g. Sakai), geared to resilience of farming livelihoods

Multiple pathways – in and out of maize

• Local maize varieties predominate and are highly valued

• Important but under-recognised role of seed selectors

• In future – some farmers want drought tolerant maize varieties

• But many farmers are trying to move out of maize and into other crops – dryland staples and horticultural crops

Social innovation • Innovations and new

technologies - critical roles in meeting sustainability challenges

• Problems of mainstream approaches to innovation

• Do inclusive and grassroots innovation approaches offer better prospects, especially for people marginalised by mainstream growth?

• What are the opportunities and challenges for ‘niche’ innovations to inform more powerful pathways to sustainability and justice?

• Historical and comparative research

shows different encounters with policy in India and Latin America

• In some cases a politics of instrumentality sees the grassroots innovation movement inserted into formal policy programmes, often reducing empowerment aspects

• In others, broad mobilisation through the grassroots innovation movement can act as a force to open up formal innovation systems to support more diverse and empowering activities

Grassroots Innovation movements

Tackling epidemics

‘Outbreaks are threatening humanity.

They need to be controlled through effective surveillance and large-scale roll out of singular technological solutions’

‘Underlying causes need to be tackled,

requiring a rethink of surveillance and diverse social, cultural ecological and technological responses’

The Ebola crisis in West Africa

Pathways of structural violence

•The crisis (rapid spread of disease, resistance to outbreak control efforts) reflects longer-term pathways of political-economic change and ‘development’ • Causal dynamics include failures of global health governance and health systems; conflict; ecology; mining; urbanisation; gender inequalities; poor community engagement

Community logics, institutions and learning

• Role of local social and cultural practices in Ebola transmission – caring for the sick, funerals

• Understanding cultural logics and local institutions (gender, chieftaincy, initiation societies)

• Importance of community learning, adaptation and innovation – key to turning the epidemic around

• Building resilient, community-embedded health systems

Integrating understanding with action

Opening up, building new pathways

• Methodologies and methods for appreciating alternative pathways

• Fostering and supporting deliberative fora – bringing different actors and perspectives together

• Influencing policy processes and effecting policy change

• Supporting and informing mobilisation processes

• Building networks and alliances

Integrating understanding with action International policy engagement

Pathways to Sustainability Global Consortium

China’s key role

• Scale

• Diversity

• Growing international role

• Rapid change in all domains – agriculture, urbanisation, energy, health….

• Valuable experience of managing change at national and sub-national levels

• Opportunities for mutual learning around pathways to sustainability

• Links with IDS-based Centre for Rising Powers and Global Development, and growing importance of China-UK partnership in international development

Conference aims

• Sharing research, ideas, examples around innovation and pathways to sustainability

• Informal networking – laying the grounds for stronger, broader collaboration

• Planning for the future

Enjoy the debate!