International assessments: critical features for success

Bothina Osama
Middle East & North Africa regional news editor , SciDev.Net

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Good science is essential for informed public policy formulation and implementation. But it’s not sufficient — many other bodies and sources have to be engaged, and one of these sources is national and international scientific, technical, and economical assessments.

Robert Watson, Professor of Environmental Sciences at East Anglia University pointed out in his presentation enttitled “International assessments: how effectively do they inform policy and practice?” that an assessment is a critical evaluation of information, for purposes of guiding decisions on a complex, public issue.

But the effectiveness of a range of assessments in influencing the international agenda, or providing lessons for informing new initiatives, has varied considerably, according to Watson.

He argued that a more synthetic approach to international assessments is needed. The biology–related conventions need a regular international assessment process, but with the near-term focus being on sub–global assessments.

Tools need to be developed to help decision makers interpret and use the findings of  international assessments — especially sub –global assessments, to make an informed decision. And the scientific research base in developing countries needs to be strengthened to ease the path towards successful national and international assessments.

This blog post is part of our Planet Under Pressure 2012 coverage — which takes place 26–29 March 2012. To read news and analysis from the conference please visit our website.

Eye on Earth Summit Wrap

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SCIDEV.NET CONFERENCE SERVICE PRODUCTION

This blog article has been produced for Eye on Earth Summit 2011 by SciDev.Net Conference Service, which maintains all editorial independence.

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Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre/ Flickr

The Arab world has always been renowned for two of humanity’s greatest qualities — modesty and hospitality. At the Eye on Earth Summit, in Abu Dhabi (12–15 December), these two qualities have been present in abundance.

Modesty, in the gentle urging of UN nation states to come together to share environmental data through the Eye in Earth Declaration, announced on 15 December, and now being taken forward to Rio+20 summit; and hospitality in that the world’s environmental data should be hosted on an open source internet platform — data available for all to use to help understand the state of the planet and planetary resources and to help predict future scenarios of sustainability or environmental disaster.

Almost every session at the summit brought together existing data sets. Marton–Lefavre, director general IUCN, Sylvia Earle, oceanographer, explorer, CEO Mission Blue, and Jane Goodall, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, talked of the shocking status of biodiversity and eco-system decline on both land and sea.

Mathis Wackernagel, president of Global Footprint Network talked about declining global resources and the impacts on the world economy, and Najib Saab, a publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia (Environment & Development) talked about the state of water resources in the Middle East and public access to information.

But, a loud statement came from many of the sessions at the summit on our current knowledge of environmental data and protesting our lack of action by governments in light of it, eloquently expressed by Sylvia Earle: “I can forgive ignorance but not with our eyes wide open … the science is new, and the policy hasn’t been done yet.”

If the UN nation states do decide to share environmental data, as urged by the summit, then we will eventually begin to fill in the gaps in unknown global information on biological and physical resources and of earth systems, but will we do anything about avoiding the potentially disastrous scenarios of the future? And who will police the use and misuse of this evidence and the predicted scenarios that result?

Calls for a World Environment Organisation (WEO) that can administer, have oversight over and mitigate environmental impacts of world trade are on the Agenda for Rio+20. The evidence is clear we are at the ‘turning point’, what governments decide today will impact on humanity’s long term future. Another theme that came through at the summit was that of environmental data and the role of global business, in particular Google’s and Microsoft’s involvement in the environmental data revolution. As Ed Parson from Google stated: “From the earliest days of Google Earth back in 2005 we have been very interested in making environmental information more accessible which is what is behind Eye on Earth.” Over one billion people have downloaded Google Earth, so that now people can even access environmental information in their bedrooms. Likewise, Stephen Emmott from Microsoft talked about their development of new tools to analyse and enable action in relation to huge existing data sets.

One wonders whether caution needs to be considered in relation to business and access to global environmental datasets. When I talked about the conference with a fellow passenger on my way home from the conference, he pointed out if big business can access the data, they may also be able to abuse it. He pointed out that we might give industrial fishing companies access to where the global hotspots for marine biodiversity are, or pharmaceutical companies access to important but critically endangered species — indeed business could continue to take Sterns “business as usual approach” once the global data is available. One wonders whether global business needs a declaration of responsible action for sustainability, similar to that being devised by the International Council of Mining and Metal.

Tracy Irvine

Mega-programme whistle-stop tour

GCARD (credit: GCARD)

The CGIAR presented a draft version of its long-awaited mega-programmes, or thematic areas of work (TAWs) as they’re now being called, to GCARD this morning.

There are 8 TAWs and 3 ‘cross-cutting platforms’ that will be integral to all programmes—but the final numbers of both these may change.

TAW1: Agricultural systems for the poor and vulnerable

This will focus on ‘poverty hotspots’, looking at sustainable agriculture and food security, among other things. TAW1 is expected to improve the lives of more than 250 million poor people, with production increases of at least 10% over 10 years.

TAW2: Enabling agricultural incomes for the poor

The policies, institutions and markets required to boost rural incomes. TAW2 is expected to reduce the cost of taking goods to market by at least 20%.

TAW3: Sustainable crop increases for global food security

This will research options for increasing productivity of the three main cereal crops including identifying genes, accelerating the development of new varieties, improving crop management and supporting pro-poor policies.  CGIAR estimates it will affect three billion people.

Gender is one of the cross-cutting platforms (credit: USAID)

TAW4: Agriculture, nutrition and health

This is expected to reduce malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and foodborne disease.

TAW5: Water, soils and ecosystems

This is expected to improve access to water for productive purposes for 200 million people within 20 years; boost ecosystem resilience and reverse trends of water degradation.

TAW6: Forests and trees

This includes objectives such as harnessing forest ecosystem services for the poor. TAW6 should help reduce deforestation by 10% by 2030; reduce carbon emissions and increase the planting of tree genetic resources on 50,000 square kilometres of agricultural and degraded lands by 2030.

TAW7: Climate change and agriculture

This  is expected to produce science-based vulnerability assessments and lead to better national and global policies for accessing and using adaptation and mitigation technologies.

TAW8: Mobilising agricultural biodiversity for food security and resilience

Research will include creating a broader range of tools in molecular characterisation and boosting the use of genetic diversity, among others. TAW8 is expected to increase agricultural productivity, broaden the coverage of gene collections and safeguard biodiversity.

CGIAR is also proposing three ‘cross-cutting platforms’ in:

1. gender in agriculture

2. capacity strengthening to promote learning and knowledge sharing; and

3. Strategic planning and intelligence

Sian Lewis
Commisioning editor, SciDev.Net

Communication counts

My editor, David Dickson, has previously highlighted the importance of effectively communicating the value of biodiversity to policymakers and the public (see Biodiversity loss matters and communication is crucial).

It seems like the world of agricultural biodiversity has cottoned on to the fact too. Delegates at the agricultural biodiversity GCARD session this morning stressed the importance of good advocacy and communication in influencing policy and convincing politicians and society that genetic resources and biodiversity are something worth saving.

delegates at agricultural biodiversity session (credit: GCARD)

Helga Rodriguez, a coffee grower in Costa Rica, said we need to increase this kind of awareness among all sectors of society.

In some instances this includes small farmers. Emile Frison, director general of Biodiversity International, said that most small farmers are well aware of the need to protect agricultural biodiversity. But, according to one delegate from Morocco, the same is not true when it comes to protecting wild species.

“At the end of the day,” said one CGIAR stakeholder, “we need a value proposition for farmers”.

But, according to Priscilla Henriquez from the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation, the priority should be creating a strategy to reach the more influential policymakers.

“We need a strategy to talk to the politicians in charge of allocating money to genebanks,” she said.

“We must talk their language,” she added. Henriquez explained that this essentially means talking about genetic resources in terms of the issues that they care about—food security, nutrition, climate change and health.

I, for one, couldn’t agree more—science communication for development is, after all, what SciDev.Net is all about.

Sian Lewis
Commisioning editor, SciDev.Net

A turn for the better

In Montpellier, blue skies have given way to grey drizzle, but inside the Corum Centre, GCARD has taken a turn for the better. If this morning’s session on agricultural biodiversity is anything to go by, concerns that farmers are not being given a chance to contribute will be yesterday’s news.

“I’ve been trying to interact since yesterday and today I got the opportunity to do so”, said one Indian delegate.

The session saw lively discussion (credit:GCARD)

The session saw some lively discussion from farmers, nongovernmental organisations, researchers and policymakers, among others, on what the CGIAR’s agricultural biodiversity mega-programme should look like.

The session was led by Kwesi Atta-Krah, deputy director general of Biodiversity International.

A key message from the delegates was well summarised by Atta-Krah: “We need to stop talking about linking to farmers and start talking about involving farmers”.

This means ensuring that farmers take part in every step of the research process—from setting research agendas to monitoring the effectiveness of their results.

The same is true for CGIAR’s development partners. “What is the real role of development partners? They are not really partners—they are there to disseminate your products but they are not involved in all stages of research and development”, said Neth Daño, programme manager for the etc group in the Philippines.

Atta-Krah threw the question back on the delegates, inviting concrete proposals for addressing the issue.

A myriad of suggestions emerged, from creating advisory panels to getting involved in private extension services to setting up virtual consulting centres. One coffee-grower from Costa Rica suggested simply sending researchers out to get their hands dirty alongside farmers. “By the end of one day they will know what the problems are”.

Atta-Krah seemed dedicated to using the session to get a list of concrete actions to feed in to the agricultural biodiversity mega-programme.

What happens beyond that remains to be seen.

Sian Lewis
Commisioning editor, SciDev.Net