Gov-Adapt: Adapting Governance to Build Inclusive Climate Resilience
Gov-Adapt Dialogue II
24 May 2022
To join the Dialogue, please register here.
Climate change has now been accepted as a major crisis facing humanity and the planet. However, a lot of current responses are technical in nature, overlooking the politics and governance dimensions.
Building on the recent critical social science literature and drawing on stories from practice, this two-part Dialogue series highlights the political nature of climate adaptation and resilience.
This Dialogue Series is part of a collaborative initiative of Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and IFSD under a research project funded by Swedish Research Council (Conflict, Violence and Environmental Change: Investigating resource governance and legitimacy in transitional societies). It is hosted by Hemant Ojha, Andrea Nightingale and Jeff Camkin as a partnership initiative between Institute for Study and Development Worldwide (IFSD) and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and University of Oslo.
The first episode of Gov-Adapt Dialogue was held on 14 April 2022. That event demonstrated that while adaptation is often seen as a technical quick fix, it really is a political process, and there is a need for re-politicization of adaptation. You can click here for a brief report of Dialogue I.
The second episode of the Dialogue is planned for 24 May 2022. It will focus on how we can achieve the re-politicisation of adaptation, through creating space for dialogue, recognition of broader knowledge and transformational community resistance.
The second Dialogue will also be moderated by Prof Jeff Camkin, and will feature the following speakers:
- Shabhaz Khan, Director of UNESCO Beijing and Representative to China, DPRK, Japan, Mongolia and Republic of Korea
- Kalpana Giri, Social Environment Specialist, Thailand
- Francess Awunor, Convenor, African Youth Development, Nigeria
- Mizan R. Khan, Deputy Director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), Bangladesh
Brief Speaker Profile:
Shahbaz Khan. Dr Shahbaz Khan is the current Director of the UNESCO office in Beijing and UNESCO representative to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, Mongolia, People’s Republic of China, and the Republic of Korea. His key leadership and management areas at UNESCO include science capacity building and policy advice across the region. For the past 30 years, he has devoted his career to civil engineering, hydrology, environmental law and economics through various research, consultancy, and policy positions. Some of the major programs he has coordinated include the Water Education for Sustainable Development, Hydrology for Environment, Life and Policy (HELP), Ecohydrology, and man and the biosphere programme (MAB). His work has been widely recognized e.g.: 2019 China Friendship Award and Great Wall Friendship Award China 2017.
Kalpana Giri. Dr. Kalpana Giri is a trained forester and action researcher by practice with substantive knowledge and experience in developing gender and socially inclusive policies and practices. During her time as the Senior Program Officer at RECOFTC, she designed and implemented the Weaving Leadership for Gender Equality (WAVES) initiative by partnering with sectoral ministries, private sector, women and indigenous groups to promote gender equality in the governance, management, and use of forest landscape and their resources in the Asia-Pacific region. Her work on building sectoral partnerships has been successful in establishing a network of “Gender Champions” that is influencing gender equality in more than 20 key climate change, REDD+, FLEGT policies and processes in six countries in the Asia-Pacific. Currently, she is the Senior Manager in the World Resources Insitute’s – Global Restoration Initiative helping expand WRI’s ambitions on social equity by research and equity-integrated programming.
Mizan R. Khan. Prof Mizan R. Khan is Deputy Director at the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and Programme Director of Least Developed Countries University Consortium on Climate Change (LUCCC) at ICCCAD. He has worked in academia as a Professor for more than 18 years along with working closely with the Government and the development sector of Bangladesh and beyond. As a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he also attends UNFCCC negotiations as the lead negotiator on climate finance with the Bangladesh delegation since 2001. Prof Khan is the Focal Point of the Nairobi Work Program of the UNFCCC representing the Academia in Bangladesh and attends global meetings on climate change as an invited speaker .
Ms Francess Awunor. Ms. Awunor is a water policy and climate change professional with interests in water policy and governance, ocean conservation, environment law, and human rights. Previously as an environmental lawyer, her research focused on maritime pollution, water policy, and law. With a passion to drive Africa’s development she founded the African Conservation Series, a platform for young Africans across the continent and in the diaspora, to apply individual expertise to continental development. She is also the co-founder of the Rural Water Filtration Kit – RUWAFIKI, a social innovative enterprise with the goal to improve global health through safe drinking water. The solution is an affordable water filtration kit that uses natural materials such as moringa and activated carbon to treat domestic water to WHO standards.
Relevant resources
- Policy Diagnostics for Paksitan’s water security challenge, by Shahbaz Khan
- Gender equality and social inclusion in community forestry: by Kalpana Giri et al
- Saleemul Huq on climate change politics, Loss and Damage, and adpatation & development
- Youth leadership in Africa’s development with Francess Awunor
- Power and politics in climate change adpatation by Andrea Nightingale
- Policy without politics by Hemant Ojha and co-authors
- Critical action intellectuals and transforming governance by Hemant Ojha and co-authors
- From Climate adaptation to climate justice by Ritodhi Chakraborty and co-authors
- A plural climate studies framework for the Himalayas by Ritodhi Chakraborty and co-authors
- Legal first climate case filed against water plan by Emma Carmody
- The future of water reform in Australia by Emma Carmody
For information about the Dialogue, please contact Dr Hemant Ojha at Hemant.ojha@ifsd.com.au
Gov-Adapt Dialogue I
14 April 2022
To join the Dialogue, please register here.
Climate change has now been accepted as a major crisis facing humanity and the planet. However, a lot of current responses are technical in nature, overlooking the politics and governance dimensions.
Building on the recent critical social science literature and drawing on stories from practice, this two-part webinar series highlights the political nature of climate adaptation and resilience.
To register, scan this QR code.
The first dialogue aims to demonstrate that while adaptation is often seen as a technical quick fix, it really is a political process, and there is a need for re-politicization of adaptation. The second dialogue is about how we can achieve the re-politicisation of adaptation, through creating space for dialogue, recognition of broader knowledge and transformational community resistance.
Scholars, practitioners and policy actors who share the view that current climate resilience work needs to take account of the underlying politics will find these dialogues engaging.
This dialogues will be moderated by Prof Jeff Camkin. The four speakers include:
- Andrea Nightingale (SLU Sweden and University of Oslo, Norway)
- Hemant Ojha (IFSD Sydney and University of Canberra, Australia)
- Ritodhi Chakraborty (University of Canterbury, New Zealand)
- Emma Carmody (EDO, Sydney, Australia)
Speaker profile and questions
Andrea nightingale (10-12 mins)
You have done some pioneering work on power and politics in climate change adaptation, with a strong regional focus on developing countries. What motivated you to focus on this work? What is your key argument? Where do you think we need more research and analysis?
Ritodhi Chakraborty (10-12 mins)
In your recent work, you have argued that current climate science, including the work of IPCC, does not do justice to many others forms of knowledge and ways of understanding climate and society. How do you think the regime of climate knowledge should be changed for more democratic and inclusive adaptation practices?
Hemant Ojha (10-12 mins)
You have consistently advocated for engaged science of sustainability as a basis for improving governance. From your perspective, how can critical, locally engaged, and collaborative research practices and coalition building can trigger democratic and inclusive shifts in adaptation governance?
Emma Carmody (10-12 mins)
You have demonstrated through your legal activism that environmental governance cannot be democratic and fair without the work of legal challenge and mobilisation of judiciary. From your experience, how can community voices, environmental research and legal activism be combined to make climate adaptation governance more inclusive and fairer for both vulnerable communities and ecosystems at risks?
Moderated session using questions from participants by Jeff Camkin (30-40 mins)
To join the Dialogue, please register here.
This Dialogue Series is part of a collaborative initiative of Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and IFSD under a research project funded by Swedish Research Council (Conflict, Violence and Environmental Change: Investigating resource governance and legitimacy in transitional societies).
Relevant resources of the panelists:
- Power and politics in climate change adpatation by Andrea Nightingale
- Policy without politics by Hemant Ojha and co-authors
- Critical action intellectuals and transforming governance by Hemant Ojha and co-authors
- From Climate adaptation to climate justice by Ritodhi Chakraborty and co-authors
- A plural climate studies framework for the Himalayas by Ritodhi Chakraborty and co-authors
- Legal first climate case filed against water plan by Emma Carmody
- The future of water reform in Australia by Emma Carmody
Brief speaker profile:
Andrea Nightingale. Professor Nightingale’s academic interests span political ecology, socionatures, critical development studies, feminist theory, and methodological work on mixing methods across the social and natural sciences. Andrea feels passionately about theorizing new understandings of the society-environment nexus to account for power and politics within dynamic and unpredictable environmental change. She use in-depth, fieldwork-based studies combined with interdisciplinary theorizing to work with ontological and methodological pluralism. Her scholarship has contributed to debates in feminist political ecology on theorising social justice, nature, commoning and environmental governance. Her work political economy o climate change is well recognised globally.
Emma Carmody. Dr Emma Carmody is an environmental lawyer with particular expertise in water law and policy and international environmental law. She has spent the last 15 years advising a broad range of clients including international organisations, government ministries, NGOs, First Peoples, farmers and community groups. Emma is listed in Best Lawyers in Australia in the Planning and Environmental Law and Water Law categories, respectively. In 2018, she was awarded the Dunphy Award for most outstanding effort by an individual at the New South Wales Environment Awards for her work as a water lawyer, which has driven considerable reform in relation to compliance and enforcement.
Hemant Ojha. Associate Professor Hemant Ojha works partly with University of Canberra and IFSD Sydney. His work integrates applied research, policy analysis, community empowerment, and social entrepreneurship with a holistic view of change. He set up two influential think thanks and nurtured a community of action researchers who contributed to community based natural resources management in Nepal. He has advised international development agencies on community-based programs design. He divides his time between the academia (University of Canberra) and a research and development consulting firm Institute for Study and Development Worldwide (IFSD) in Sydney. He is currently developing a Policy and Practice Lab methodology that can assist development professionals and action researchers to effectively use evidence, interactive learning, and community empowerment to influence development policy and practice.
Jeff Camkin. Jeff Camkin has 30 years’ experience in water, fisheries and agriculture governance, resource allocation, stakeholder engagement, research, and education. He is presently Adj. Prof. at UWA’s Institute of Agriculture and Griffith University’s International Water Centre, honorary lecturer at the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany) and University of Algarve (Portugal), and an international water and sustainability consultant. With qualifications in applied science and natural resources law, roles in government, academia, NGOs, and the private sector, along with experience in Asia, Africa, Europe, America, and the Pacific, Jeff has a well-rounded understanding of natural resources and sustainable development. He founded World Water Policy Journal and he remains Editor-in-Chief.
Ritodhi Chakraborty. Dr Chakraborty is interested in working with grassroots climate change adaptation initiatives, climate/environmental justice, ecosystem services, social-ecological systems research, indigenous knowledge and masculinity/gender subjectivities. Ritodhi has worked in the Himalayan region ( India, Bhutan, China) and in Aotearoa NZ over a decade, have native fluency in some of the languages spoken there and am currently involved with multiple projects in the region researching agricultural change on various scales due to various social and ecological transformations including change in climate change caused precipitation variance and youth migration, as well as modeling possible vulnerabilities using ethnographic agent based models. He has also been an environmental educator for the past 3 years and have extensive experience living and working with agrarian communities, civil society and research institutes in South Asia. He also has an experience managing a Non-profit, as well as working in think tanks in India, USA and China.
For information about the Dialogue, please contact Dr Hemant Ojha at Hemant.ojha@ifsd.com.au
Why Policy Makers Ignore Research Report
Nowhere research has failed so miserably to influence policy than in the sphere of international development. This is the domain where researchers and professionals from developed countries support or undertake ‘research for development’, with the hope that developing country policy makers use internationally supported research to make or improve policies.
Summary for policy makers
It’s been over three decades since researchers seriously began to write policy briefs in the sphere of international development. After producing large volumes of research reports that have been shelved without much impact, they realised the need to write a short summary of their research, outlining key policy related messages and recommendations.
Now this tradition is epitomised by the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publishing ‘summary for policy makers’ after global scientific assessments. As a result of such policy message turn in research for development, researchers and Think Tanks from across the world have produced a plethora of policy briefs based on policy research. These cover every sector and topic of development, from health to environment. But are policy makers really reading and responding to all those policy reports meant to help them? Obviously, not to the extent expected.
Continuing divide between research and policy
My experience shows short policy briefs produced by research organisations are still too technical and presented in the language and framework of the research. There is still a huge gap between the ways policy makers harness knowledge and researchers think policy reports should be crafted.
There is a huge difference between the ways researchers and policy makers think about and frame socio-environmental problems. Researchers emphasise questioning assumptions and generating new justified beliefs. Unlike research, policy makers look for ideas and solutions that can help them make decisions. Researchers’s messages in policy briefs are often framed as ‘policy implications’ of their research findings.
This means policy makers find research reports treating decision problems as after-thoughts, and hence not helpful in solving problems. There is a clear disconnect between policy actors’ expectations and the content offered by researchers for the benefit of policy makers.
Many researchers are aware of this problem. I am intrigued to see a lack of innovation on how research findings could be crafted better as policy messages. In the entire industry of knowledge, either researchers or policy makers dominate. There is no established role for knowledge brokers yet. El Gore’s work to communicate IPCC findings is one innovative example of communicating science to the wider public.
Don’t leave the job to intermediaries alone
There is a role for boundary workers but I think researchers should also become more policy smart in communicating their work. They have greater authenticity to get their research message heard.
Of course, not every research has an aim to contribute to policy – so not all researchers need to think about communicating research to the policy community. But a large majority of research does have a goal to contribute to innovation and development, which can not be achieved without influencing policy in some way.
Confronting this challenge, IFSD team is researching how policy messages could be crafted better. We are hoping to suggest some generic strategies for better crafting policy briefs or summary for policy makers. IFSD is putting some efforts into it because if we find ways to present the research message rightly, policy makers are likely to buy-in the message to decisions and then through implementation.
After all, policy makers have the power to make a difference, which researchers do not have. Any powers researchers have is mostly through their ability to influence policies and practices. So why not we put some thinking into this? And why not we attempt to write for impact and not just for self-promotion?
Spring revival project offers hope amid climate change in the Himalayas
By Manya Singh
A woman fetches water from a spring at Tula Kote village in the Kumaon hills, Uttarakhand (Image: Fernando Quevedo de Oliveira / Alamy)
Spring 2020 had just begun in the Himalayas but for Kamla Devi, 36, a resident of Nathuakhan village, in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand, the changing of the seasons was different. The water level of the local spring had remained unusually low compared with previous years. Devi said, “Summers are the hardest, our spring dries up and we are required to fetch water from far-off places.” But as the winter snow melts water is usually plentiful. This was not the case last year, she said.
Springs, rivulets and ponds are the veins of the Himalayas’ water system and are fundamental for sustaining livelihoods, and supporting the cultural heritage and collective well-being of mountain communities. Like Kamla Devi, many people in the Himalayan region are experiencing climate change impacts such as an increase in extreme precipitation events and longer drought periods.
Climate change continues to impact the availability, quality and accessibility of potable water resources in the Himalayas, as confirmed by the Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme (HIMAP) report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). Studies quoted in ICIMOD’s assessment found that almost 50% of perennial springs in the Indian Himalayas, including in Uttarakhand, have dried up or become seasonal because of climate change and unplanned urbanisation in the region.
According to a 2018 report by the Indian government, less than 50% of Uttarakhand’s population has access to adequate quantities of safe drinking water. As a result, the call to revive springs in the mountains is becoming louder and more urgent. In Uttarakhand, the Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHIRAG) and other prominent civil society organisations are working to empower local communities to take up sustainable land management and rejuvenate their springs.
Reviving Uttarakhand springs to avert a water crisis
To achieve measurable and replicable results, CHIRAG has deployed a practical method, originally inspired by a more technical process designed by the Pune-based Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (ACWADAM).
Researchers teach local communities about mountain geology and explain how water flows beneath the rocks, to help them understand how rivulets form and travel underground before reaching the surface. They involve residents in creating recharge structures such as contour trenches, deep pits and percolation pits, which in turn help revive the springs. Rainwater collects in these pits during the monsoon, and between late June and early September soaks into the aquifer, rather than running off the land. This process also helps protect the local vegetation, preserving soil integrity.
Locals carry out shramdaan (voluntary physical work) to dig deep recharge pits (Image: Riyan Habeeb)
The Centre for Ecology Development and Research (CEDAR, a research-based NGO in Uttarakhand) is studying the health of springs in Nainital, the district where Devi’s village Nathuakhan is located. CEDAR is also gauging the participation of local residents as citizen scientists through field visits. The ongoing project, led by CEDAR in partnership with CHIRAG, started in late 2019. By 2021, it was showing results.
During a visit by the CEDAR research team, we encountered Vimla Bisht, a resident of Nathuakhan, as she pruned small pine trees with other women in one of the critical ‘recharge zones’ where rainwater naturally collects and percolates into the aquifer. The 38-year-old told us that pruning trees and removing invasive weeds helps preserve the vegetation growing in recharge areas, as well as creating space to plant more trees. The branches cut by the women can be used at home for various purposes, she added.
Vimla Bisht and her friends after pruning trees in the ‘recharge zone’ (Image: Manya Singh)
After testing their method on more than 400 springs in the lower Himalayan Kumaon region (one of the two divisions of Uttarakhand state, a region of rich biodiversity), CHIRAG researchers found that the method is both effective and replicable in a wide range of natural settings. Surendra Negi, a team leader at CHIRAG, said, “This springwater-revival method resonated with locals.” One doesn’t need to be a scientist to understand the science behind the rejuvenation process, Negi explained. An intermediate level of education is enough to engage with the scheme, something that is crucial to its success. “Community engagement,” he added, “is the backbone [of the project’s] replicability in Uttarakhand.”
The method
Vimla Bisht’s community has emerged as an agent of change through their efforts to rejuvenate the Mandir Naula, or Temple Spring, in Nathuakhan which was becoming water-scarce.
Villagers are working with CHIRAG to collect data on geology, water quality, quantity and resource use. Using Google Earth and the open source geographic information system QGIS, the community creates a treatment area map which is used for various spring-recharge activities such as building recharge structures, plantation drives and removal of invasive species.
CHIRAG team members Bishan Raikwal and Hema Bisht say that this method largely relies on community engagement. This takes the form of shramdaan (voluntary contribution of time and labour), offering private lands for constructing recharge systems and contributions to the Operation and Maintenance Funds (about 20 Indian rupees per year per beneficiary household) to pay for maintaining the structures, planting vegetation and caretaking activities.
Community participation in CHIRAG-CEDAR project
The work is implemented through a water user committee, a democratic body locally referred to as ‘Jal Upbhokta Samiti’ that is tasked with the management of local springsheds. Its members develop scientific skills that they then apply to spring data management and recharge operations, also liaising with a village-level government body (gram panchayat) for land clearance to conduct recharge activities.
The members are trained as para-hydrogeologists who help identify a geological recharge area map followed by a geological survey. CHIRAG weaved these steps into a training module that can be applied to spring areas across Uttarakhand. “We function on a rotational basis in which two-three members from a household join for shramdaan, volunteer help and contribution,” resident Dikar Singh explained.
An orientation meeting for the water user committee at Nathuakhan (Image: CHIRAG)
Another member of CHIRAG, Vikram Raikwal, demonstrated his flair with a spade. On a heavily inclined slope, he dug a cubical percolation pit. “The water running off from the hilltop will be trapped in this pit,” he said. “In turn, a network of interconnected trenches feeds a number of deep recharge pits.” These, he explained, will hold water and recharge the groundwater aquifer through infiltration.
One major challenge to the successful implementation of this method is acquiring land identified by the treatment area map from private owners, van panchayats (village-level forest institutions) and the forest department. Other than this, maintaining the body of scientific knowledge among the community which produces timely data from the ground is a challenge in itself.
Committee members monitor the Mandir Naula spring’s discharge (Image: CHIRAG)
Empowering women
Water insecurity is felt differently by men and women. Since water management is traditionally a woman’s duty, women face unique physical challenges due to the long hours they invest in fetching water, often from distant locations. Involving rural women in livelihood initiatives has been the core strength of CHIRAG, which has created a space for better gender representation.
Still, despite being involved in the spring-rejuvenation programme, women tend to take up fewer decision-making roles. Only a few villages have shown unexpectedly high female participation, and traditional patriarchal rules remain a challenge to this shift.
Spring rejuvenation is already showing its potential to mitigate, and in some cases reverse, the growing issue of water scarcity affecting the region. Between last spring and this summer, Kamla Devi went from walking two-three hours a day to collect water, to just 10 minutes. After the springshed treatment, the Mandir Naula brims with water again. Devi, an active member of the water user committee, is hopeful that after the rejuvenation process her local spring will stay healthy for years to come.
Manya is a researcher at the Centre for Ecology Development and Research (CEDAR) , a Dehradun-based not-for-profit organisation.
This article was originally published on The Third Pole under a Creative Commons licence.
IFSD Global Climate Policy and Practice Champions Network
We are pleased to welcome Dr. Radha Wagle in our policy champions network. She has agreed to serve as a co-chair of Global Climate Policy and Practice Champions Network.
Dr Wagle is working as a Joint Secretary and Chief of Climate Change Management Division in the Ministry of Forests and Environment, Nepal. Dr. Wagle has more than 20 years of experiences in the field of forestry, biodiversity and climate change, more specifically in community forestry, REDD+, sustainable forest management, protected area management and gender equality and social inclusion in forestry and climate change sector. She did Doctoral research on Women Inclusion in Forest Bureaucracy from Monash University, Australia.
Upon her completion of Mater’s degree, she joined this Ministry as a Planning Officer in the then Planning Division and Foreign Aid Coordination Division, where her support in designing Multistakeholder Forestry Program and drafting Forestry Sector Strategy was tremendous. As reward to her work in the Ministry, government nominated her to participate in Australia Awards Scholarship for her further study in which she was selected by the Australian Government and pursued her PhD from Monash University (2013-16). Her PhD thesis has been crucial to analyze Nepal’s environment sector from gender and social inclusion perspectives.
She recently completed her tenure as the chief and National Coordinator of REDD+ in Nepal (2018-2019), during which she was successfully engaged in negotiation with the World Bank to sell Nepal’s forest carbon equivalent to 9 million metric ton at a price of US$5 per metric ton by 2025. During this time, she worked heavily in finalizing National REDD+ Strategy, Emission Reduction Program Document, Environmental and Social Safeguards Framework and Gender Action Plan for REDD+ all as a pre-condition for the carbon trade negotiation with the World Bank. During this time, she also served as the Executive Board member of UN-REDD and Bureau Member of Carbon Fund of the World Bank from Asia Pacific region. As a part of her responsibilities, she lobbied for the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, women and farmers of Nepal by which they have been recognized as parties to receive carbon benefits under approved Benefit-Sharing Plan.
During September 2019-September 2020, she was selected as the Secretary to the newly formed Ministry of Industry, Tourism, Forests and Environment for Nepal’s Lumbini Province. In this province level Ministry, she led to formulate a number of laws, regulations and new policies related to industries, commerce, tourism, forests, agriculture, environment, culture and gender integration in natural resources. In her role in the province, she supported programs and activities in 8 districts particularly in fruit farming, agro-forestry, community forestry, leasehold forestry for the ultra-poor and cultivation of non-timber forest products.
Dr. Wagle is talking several initiatives for women empowerment in forestry sector. She is providing leadership role in coaching and empowering women in natural resource, agriculture and forestry sectors and has been appreciated by various international partners, other Ministries and non-government actors including British Ambassador to Nepal and British Minister. She has been taking leadership for inclusive and gender responsive forest policy formation.
Dr Wagle is also a leader in the area of gender justice. An informal network ‘Female Foresters Network” has been formed under her leadership in Nepal. This Network is working to create safe working environment for women in the forestry and environmental sectors, demonstrating transformational pathways to achieve gender justice in workplace and professional communities. This network has mobilised more than 1500 forestry professionals to challenge every day issues women face (from sexual harassment to gender based discrimination in organisational representation), as well as advance the professional agenda of women working in the forestry and environment sectors.
New Internship Opportunities at IFSD
Download the internship flyer here for more information.
The pandemic as well as other global drivers are impacting economy and job markets. Traditional skills and past degrees may not be adequate for fresh graduates and even the early career professionals.
IFSD draws from its large pool of experts and project portfolio to host a number of interns in this round. You can choose from a number of thematic areas and industry sectors – from content writing to environmental management.
All internship positions will commence 15th June 2021 and will go for 6 months. All positions are unpaid.
The internship streams are as follows:
- Content writer and social media marketing intern
- Water management and policy intern
- Himalayan sustainable development intern
- Climate change adaptation intern
- Agriculture and food security intern
- Forest landscapes restoration and management intern
- Food-water-energy nexus intern
- Gender, social inclusion and disability studies intern
- Graphics design and copy editing intern
- Pacific resilience science and policy intern
These internship positions are virtual and will involve delivering actual policy and practical outputs in real time basis, under the guidance of the highly experienced and qualified experts.
Mentorship is offered through emails and online platforms such as Microsoft Teams and MS Office 365. Interns are expected to deliver a webinar at the end of the internship.
A certificate of completion will be issued to interns delivering reports and a webinar.
If you are interested, please submit your application via this online form.
Selected participants submitting applications by 15 May 2021 will be notified by 30 May 2021.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work as a policy intern at the Institute for Study and Development Worldwide(IFSD), Australia. The experts are incredibly proficient with an enthusiasm to guide and support interns by passing on their experience. It has been a fantastic journey, and I have gained valuable insights in the area of my highest interest. Also, I am very thankful for guidance to produce the publication, and this means a lot to me.
Deliberative Science to Tackle Wicked Environmental Problems
Hemant Ojha
Himalayan environmental crisis of the 70s was one of the critical environmental challenges the planet has ever faced. This is also an issue receiving serious efforts of research and development have in the past 50 years.
I grew up in the region and confronted the environmental degradation first hand. As a boy, I had to travel farther and farther away to collect fuel wood with my mother. I also remember the long queue in the community tap used by over 50 families in the village. That time I did not know the bigger environmental crisis ravaging the Himalayas – I was only experiencing it as a small boy in everyday life.
Later, I became a researcher on environmental issues in the Himalayas. I then began to confront the challenge intellectually. Over the years, science-politics interface has become an intriguing topic.
I worked with colleagues on various aspects of this topic, and one of papers (full details given below) presents a deliberative approach to doing science in a politically contested situation of resource management.
In this article, we identify how different aspects of managerialist, techno-bureaucratic domination (legitimated by principles of positivist science) are deliberatively challenged by local people, civil society activists, and action researchers to improve governance practices.
We also identify situations and deliberative processes through which forest managers themselves begin to realize the limits of an anti deliberative scientific approach, and apply more reflexive and deliberative approaches to knowledge and decision-making in forest management. In doing so, we eschew taking an absolute position for or against indigenous knowledge or scientific enterprise, but seek to demonstrate that neither technocratic prescription nor reliance on local knowledge alone is adequate for sustainable management of forests. What is needed is a deliberative engagement between the claims to knowledge by both scientists and citizens.
In our experience, this deliberative experiment led to less constrained dialogues, greater collaboration, and mutual learning in the direction of more evidence- based decision-making and social learning.
This approach is however not free from challenges related to power and techno-bureaucratic control, where more work is needed.
Community Forestry in Changing Context
By Hemant Ojha
Two days ago, Nepal’s most popular Nepali broadsheet published an editorial on Community Forestry (CF), lamenting the Government’s plan to introduce a new forest legislation that will curtail some of the fundamental rights of local communities over forest areas.
Formally started over four decades ago in the aftermath of Himalayan degradation crisis, Nepal’s CF system has truly come of age. With over 22,000 community forestry user groups (CFUGs) and nearly 2 million hectares of forests under community management, this system has become the country’s largest platform of civic engagement as well as a solid foundation of local democracy. This was made possible by the enactment of 1993 Forest Act, which is seen as the global best practice in granting secure tenurial rights over public forests. CF development is also positively correlated with the increase in forest cover to 44%, as some remote sensing studies show.
Kantipur report demonstrates that the new law may not fully respect the CF system the way it evolved. Should this time-tested and flagship development success of Nepal need to undergo a fundamental change at this stage? How should legislative reform be pursued to move ahead and not return back to the difficult past? In proposing a new legislation to regulate Nepal CF, a few dimensions need a closer look.
Resource ownership: Nepal’s public forest are regarded as ‘national forests’ as per the current law. Community forest is a part of national forest formally handed over to CFUG registered with the government Forest Office. The current Forest Act 1993 allows communities to enjoy perpetual rights over community forests once handed over to them. The government can suspend a CFUG in case of blatant mismanagement of community forests, but there is a compulsory legal provision to re-transfer the right to CFUG by reorganising the group. Such a perpetual and sustained rights of access to forest has been the key foundation for the success of community forestry in Nepal, and deviation from this foundational legal arrangement can jeopardy the achievements made to date.
Who regulates CFGUs? With federal constitution and the election of three layers of the government – federal, provincial, and local – the question of who will regulate the community forestry system should be explored in the new light. The pre-federal arrangement is that District Forest Office, a district level unit of the national government Department of Forest, is authorised to legally register the CFUG as an institution to manage CF. This office is also legally empowered to transfer a part of national forest to a CFUG as per a forest operational plan, which forms a part of the contract between the CFUG and the government regarding the management and utilisation of community forests. No local or subnational government arrangements are part of CF governance.
Now in the new federal system, there is a strong and enlarged system of local government, with much greater powers to govern, as defined in the new constitution itself. Forest is also in the concurrent list of the constitution, with community forestry related matters being the responsibility of local and provincial governments. Given this situation, it is prudent to offer local governments the power to register CFUGs and regulate their institutional aspects. The new Divisional Forest Office, under the new provincial government, could be authorised to approve forest operational plans of CFUGs and then to transfer the forest rights to CFUGs. Any matters related to large wild animals, which are not common in community forestry but in national parks and conservation areas, remain the responsibility of the federal government.
Revenue sharing: Recently, Local Government Operations Act has been promulgated by the Parliament and this has also touched on the subject of revenue sharing in community forestry system. It has required CFUG to pay 10% tax to local government on the sale of forest products by CFUGs to markets. Instead of revenue sharing arrangement, it would be better to have taxation arrangements based on financial transactions and profits. In time to come, CFUGs are likely to take more commercial path, and like other business, taxation policy for CFUGs can also be made similar to other businesses.
As a matter of principle, taxes from community forestry should be shared among governments proportionately to the regulatory burden, in addition to the base tax levied by the federal government. An expert team can calculate figures through an assessment of constitutionally prescribed roles of the three layers of government, which can then be discussed with representatives of key stakeholders. A proposal for CFUG to pay taxes to local and provincial government may sound upraising to CFUGs, but it is important to reposition community groups in the new federal, democratic system of governance.
Service delivery: One of the critical aspects of community forestry development in Nepal has been how technical and institutional development services are managed. Nepal’s forest governance history as well as the Forest Act 1993 has authorised the government Department of Forest as not only the regulator of community forestry, but also the provider of technical services – such as those related to forest assessment, planning, and management. While this practice has allowed communities to seek technical service from the government when there is limited alternative service outside, this arrangement has problematically mixed up regulatory/monitoring role and service delivery role, creating conditions for rent seeking and the lack of responsiveness in the delivery of service itself.
Based on this lesson, and also recognising the principal of separation of technical service delivery and regulatory roles, CFUGs’s institutional autonomy should be respected and strengthened when it comes to identifying and choosing technical and institutional development service from the wider service industry. Indeed, there is a need to provide a clear and enabling regulatory arrangement for the registration and operation of service providers outside of the government system, while new Divisional Forest Office retains the power to monitor the quality and regulate the technical service. Technical and regulatory roles thus must be de-coupled.
Monitoring and regulatory compliance: CFUG have developed excellent institutional capacity for self-governance, and have functioned well even without active monitoring from the government. Internal democratic practice and accountability procedures have evolved to underpin the institutional capacity of CFUGs. Yet, community system of governance cannot remain isolated from the larger system of governance, in which democratic oversight and regulatory compliance are essential aspects of forest governance.
Until now, the national Department of Forest, through its DFO, has retained the legal responsibility to monitor the performance of CFUGs. CFUGs are required to submit annual report covering institutional and forest related activities of the fiscal year. In the new federal system, it is prudent to have multi-level monitoring and compliance mechanisms, assigning complimentary and clear roles to different levels of governments. Local governments should be authorised to monitor CFUG institutional practices – such as periodic general assembly, social inclusion, fairness in benefit distribution and so on. Reporting of these aspects should be done in an annual basis. The provincial government should monitor forest management related practices of the CFUGs, through less burdensome and less frequent reporting, perhaps three yearly reporting of forest management and condition.
Tackling Water Insecurity in South Asia
By Hemant Ojha
Water security in South Asia has been worsening due to climate change and rapid rate urbanization. There is also general rise in the demand for water as economies grow rapidly in the region. While South Asia is known for its strong community based water management and supply institutions, these local systems of water management are feeling the pressure of increasing demand and technical efficiency. In response, large scale government projects are being installed, while also encouraging partnership with the private sector. It is crucial to adopt such large scale solutions, but building on the capacity of local communities should be part of the larger effort to ensure sustainable water security in the region.
Extremes in climate change and urbanization key drivers of water insecurity
Water insecurity has become an everyday reality in India. There are a number of recent media reports highlighting groundwater being dried out leading to severe water scarcity. The government Think Tank called NITI Aayog has even warned of severe water crisis in almost all major Indian cities. Several factors are driving it, climate change being the leading one. South Asia is undergoing longer-term trends of warming along with Himalayas experiencing higher temperatures than the global average.
South Asia is also the most rapidly urbanizing region in the world with emerging small and medium sized towns driving demand. Until just before the advent of COVID-19, the region is also the fastest growing sub-region in the world, with an average annual growth of 7%, according to the Asian Development Bank. This creates tension between those rapidly urbanizing communities and the neighboring agricultural areas; a fact that has been documented in various case studies.
Historically, water management in South Asia has been successful in cases of community based water delivery systems. However, these days those systems are experiencing stress due to the pressure to scale up both the quantity and quality of water.
Governance should be factored in when strengthening water security measures
Despite water availability in towns and settlements, the capability at the local level to manage the water is limited, which is largely a governance issue. In countries like India and Nepal, there are too many institutions developed historically to take care of diverse aspects of water supply management. Lack of coordination and system-wide coherence is one of the critical governance challenges in this region. Technological initiatives that have been implemented so far to meet the high demand go beyond the expertise of those operating it at a local level. The system ultimately caters to expanding urban areas, which require not only water for household use but also for large industrial complexes and infrastructures.
Most cities rely on water from upstream water shed areas. Cities tend to extract water from surrounding highlands which are areas that are put under protected land allowing them to store water in the catchment and draw water to supply to cities. While water management in the upstream areas is important, it is equally vital to improve governance of entire water supply system in both rural and urban areas.
To support local communities, governments and international support agencies like the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are attempting to scale up community institutions. This is done so that the water supply system can meet the needs of expanding urban communities. However, that may destabilize mechanisms that have been effective so far. Large scale initiatives should build on the existing capacity of local communities but also include new elements that can deliver larger quantity and better quality of water.
Stakeholder participation can catalyze governance
While high-tech solutions that are implemented may look good, there has to be an element of participation from stakeholders. Recently, we conducted a water forum in four cities, a discussion included researchers, local city level water managers, planners, policy makers, communities and various agencies involving water management. A public forum provided opportunity for different kind of stakeholders to identify problems by using evidence and analysis. This kind of reflective, interactive and research based discussion platforms are important especially in India where there are too many institutions in the water sector. The issue largely stems from confusion of roles and responsibilities within existing institutions. To tackle this, the institutional architecture needs to be changed.
Water management practices succeed with both local and higher level government intervention
Good practices are emerging in different parts of the world. They can be examined in different contexts; one is large cities like Delhi, followed by medium and smaller size cities and finally the rural areas. In bigger cities, the one challenge in large scale delivery of water, like in the case of Gurgaon, is that a lot of water recharging areas are being developed to cater to high-rise buildings. The challenge lies in creating a balance between managing water and simultaneously supporting urban development.
Our research team has formulated a concept called Critical Urban Water Zones to analyse the extent to which a city can be water secure in future. Cities that extract water from a small number of water supplying areas are under huge pressure from urban expansion. Those selected areas are cordoned off in order to be protected and managed. We are also developing water policy lab methodology to foster co-production of knowledge and rules in urban water governance.
In a small town like Mussoorie for example, they face a very different set of issues. Mussoorie depends on water that is drawn from lower level streams because there is not enough water in the geographic or gravitational catchment above the city. This has birthed on-going debate about whether a large scale project like pumping water from Yamuna River into Mussoorie is suitable for a smaller city. However, to meet needs for a smaller city, a disproportionately large scale project might be unsustainable. This can end up creating more vulnerability. Hence, the better solution for cities like Mussoorie is to manage those small streams/catchments to ensure they have enough infiltration and conservation of water.
In the city of Dhulikhel, Nepal there is a very interesting case of community based water management system operating for the last 35-40 years partly because of strong and well-organized community leadership. They have been able to secure water from sources that are 12km away from the city. Supply systems have to also be more effective by controlling leakages (i.e. non-revenue water).
Thus, while best practices are out there but what is needed is a combination of community-based systems and municipalities mixed with intervention from higher level government, wherein the respective government body could take appropriate role depending on the scale of the project.
A previous version of this was first published at Sustainability Outlook.
Pursuing a Policy Relevant Science
We are entering a new era when it comes to doing science
When 11,000 scientists recently issued a warning that the planet is experiencing climate emergency, they also declared, albeit implicitly, the coming of a new paradigm of science. The new paradigm can be summarised in this way:
If problems around us are becoming catastrophic, scientists do not have the luxury of just measuring problems and explaining why problems are occurring. Anyone who claims to be doing a science is also in need of becoming part of the solution to the societal problems.
However, there is no single approach to engage with society while doing science. Climate scientists look at problems of planetary scale, while a number of local and regional scale problems need more intimate involvement of research community, not only in defining the problems but also in co-producing solutions. In a recent paper published in Forest Policy and Economics, we outline one experimental work about policy lab methodology which we developed and used to improve community forestry practices in Nepal hills.
A new experiment from Nepal
Nepal’s community forestry has come a long way since 70s when it was instituted in the aftermath of Himalayan degradation. In the last five decades since then, the community forestry system has evolved as a global innovation in community based environmental management.
However, a number of second and third generation issues have emerged haunting communities, the government and the research groups: forests not used actively and equitably, regulatory procedures not supportive of marketing surplus and marketable products, decision making systems captured by local elites, and the poor and marginalised groups not directly and fairly getting the dividends from forests to name a few. To get thing worse, Nepal was struck by two deadly earthquakes in 2015 the middle of our work (2013-2019), and the community forestry system was not prepared to support rehabilitation of homes and schools devastated by the natural disaster.
Nepal had a strong body of research on community forestry but much this does not finds its way into the policy room. Numerous policy decisions on forest and environment have not benefitted from emerging and potential contributions science could make. Research community lack a strategy to engage with the policy world and the affected community. The research community often finds itself frustrated over the continued neglect of research evidence by policy makers. At the same time, policy makers see researchers as addressing their own questions of curiosity, and not those of concern to policy makers.
Methodology to foster coproduction between science and policy
The policy lab methodology involved tackling the gap between research and policy making.
To achieve the above-mentioned objectives, we then formulated the following principles to design the EPL methodology:
1. Ensuring collaborative inquiry between researchers and policy actors by maintaining effective interaction between the two groups;
2. Ensuring a balance between problem analysis and solution search – exploring diverse views and generating evidence (rather than advocating a policy point of view);
3. Treating evidence broadly – evidence as lived memory, arguments and stories as well as numbers, research-generated ‘facts’ and other quantitative materials;
4. Simultaneous engagement in policy discourse alongside policy practice – thus creating a space for dialogue between the practical and the conceptual world views; and
5. Being opportunistic and willing to intervene when a policy agenda or issue becomes live and open to contribution.
Positive feedback
It was not possible to solve all the identified policy problems but definitely the methodology created new moments to foster co-inquiry to understand and tackle the problems. “This provided a very useful forum for us to voice our concerns and the environment was such that policy makers were prepared to listen to us”, a former chair of the national federation of community forestry said to the research team when asked to comment on the methodology. A senior government official found the methodology as creating reflective and col-learning moments on often contested policy issues.
Moving forward: Messages
As researchers and scientists, we do not have the luxury of just diagnosing problems – we should be part of testing solutions in the real world. Or engaging otherwise with the society. Policy makers should not just say all science is too ‘academic’ – they can challenge scientists with their policy questions, and be prepared to be challenged by scientists too. Such moments of ‘dialectical reasoning’ between policy makers scientists could help find new and actionable solutions to both old and emerging socio-environmental problems.