Governance and policy blog posts

In a recent review of the SDGs, the goal on food security, improved nutrition and sustainable agriculture is a vast improvement over the MDGs, which did not consider agriculture at all. But, the SDGs fail to address important complementarities and tradeoffs among goals and their targets.

It looks like the triple bottom line might be gaining headway in the development sector. Despite the long-standing schism between Wall Street investors and environmental or social activists, the two sides are starting to find common ground at the increasingly popular landscape intersection.

I am a journalist. I flit in and out of places. But I have spoken to enough people at the receiving end of aid to know that what they crave is engagement, time, consistency and above all people who listen and act on what they are told. Not much aid work these days looks like that.

When I first arrived at the CPWF, I was quite surprised at how low in esteem “communication” was perceived within CGIAR and CPWF (unfortunately it still is). This was not communication for development, as the prevailing opinion was that communications was concerned only with public relations.

As our global population concentrates itself in cities, urban areas are becoming increasingly vulnerable from a food security standpoint. Some cities are already sitting on a knife’s edge with regard to food security, with comparatively small stockpiles of locally available food reserves in the event food shipments arriving by road, air, or sea are disrupted unexpectedly.

Widespread consensus exists that the use of research is very important for achieving development goals. But what’s the best strategy for ensuring that research results make it beyond the journal article and into the real world?

Constantly monitoring where and when problems occur allows health professionals to predict potential trouble spots and target their interventions. It is perhaps surprising then, that other challenges to our wellbeing do not always receive such close attention. Take soils for example.

Any day now, a hundred Bangladeshi smallholder farmers will be planting their annual aubergine crop. But this year this select band will not be planting their usual seeds of the crop; these family farmers, chosen by the country’s agricultural researchers, will be growing a genetically modified (GM) variety.

For big decisions, like buying a car, we may do a bit of research; but most of the time, we simply follow our gut feeling as a guide. But do we want those who make decisions on some of the biggest issues in development to also follow their gut instinct? Decision analysis tools can improve the decision making process.

Imagine a workshop where people come together with the stated aim of producing documents to carry forward a body of work ten years in the making. We suggest there are a number of essential ingredients in this currently unorthodox format.

Transboundary cooperation in the Water Sustainable Development Goal can benefit from existing research. Here are six indicators for monitoring transboundary water cooperation for the 6th SDG on integrated water resources management.

What are “wicked problems”, why are they wicked and what does it take to do something about them? These are central issues in our new book, “Water Scarcity, Livelihoods and Food Security: Research and Innovation for Development”, which is based on experiences of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food.