Vol. 9, Issue 2 (2020)

Author(s):
M Sharath Chandra, RK Naresh, Jakkannagari Chaitanya and GR Charankumar

Abstract:
To meet the challenges of poverty and environmental sustainability, a more integrated approach to research is required. Such an approach must embrace the complexity of systems and redirect research towards the greater inclusion of issues such as participatory approaches, multi-scale analysis and an array of tools for system analysis, information management and impact assessment. Poverty has many faces and poverty reduction many pathways in different contexts. Lack of food and income interact with lack of access to water, energy, protection from floods, voice, rights and recognition. Among the pathways by which agricultural research can increase rural prosperity, integrated natural resource management deals with a complex nexus of issues, with tradeoffs among issues that are in various stages of recognition, innovation, scenario synthesis and creation of platforms for change. Rather than on a portfolio of externally developed ‘solutions’ ready for adoption and use, the concept of sustainable development may primarily hinge on the strengths and weaknesses of local communities to observe, innovate, connect, organize collective action and become part of wider coalitions. ‘Boundary work’ supporting such efforts can help resolve issues in a polycentric governance context, especially where incomplete understanding and knowledge prevent potential win-win alternatives to current lose-lose conflicts to emerge. Integrated research-development approaches deal with context (‘theory of place’) and options (‘theory of change’) in multiple ways that vary from selecting sites for studying pre-defined issues to starting from whatever issue deserves prominence in a given location of interest. A knowledge-to-action linkage typology recognizes situations of increasing complexity. Current impact quantification can deal with the first, is challenged in the second and inadequate in the third case, dealing with complex social-ecological systems.