Johan Bastiaensen

Citizen science in hydrology and water resources: opportunities for knowledge generation, ecosystem service management, and sustainable development

The participation of the general public in the research design, data collection and interpretation process together with scientists is often referred to as citizen science. While citizen science itself has existed since the start of scientific practice, developments in sensing technology, data processing and visualisation, and communication of ideas and results, are creating a wide range of new opportunities for public participation in scientific research. This paper reviews the state of citizen science in a hydrological context and explores the potential of citizen science to complement more traditional ways of scientific data collection and knowledge generation for hydrological sciences and water resources management. Although hydrological data collection often involves advanced technology, the advent of robust, cheap and low-maintenance sensing equipment provides unprecedented opportunities for data collection in a citizen science context. These data have a significant potential to create new hydrological knowledge, especially in relation to the characterisation of process heterogeneity, remote regions, and human impacts on the water cycle. However, the nature and quality of data collected in citizen science experiments is potentially very different from those of traditional monitoring networks. This poses challenges in terms of their processing, interpretation, and use, especially with regard to assimilation of traditional knowledge, the quantification of uncertainties, and their role in decision support. It also requires care in designing citizen science projects such that the generated data complement optimally other available knowledge. Lastly, we reflect on the challenges and opportunities in the integration of hydrologically-oriented citizen science in water resources management, the role of scientific knowledge in the decision-making process, and the potential contestation to established community institutions posed by co-generation of new knowledge.

Aid as an encounter at the interface: the complexity of the global fight against poverty

International development discourse has recently shifted its focus from top‐down economic adjustment to participative anti‐poverty policy. This shift hints at an acknowledgement of the local complexities within the poverty process and at a need to listen to and develop actions with the ‘poor’. But, whereas the mainstream argument remains couched in a technical framework, we argue that the fight against poverty is inevitably political. Conceptualising the aid industry as a set of global–local interfaces, it follows that a closer look at ‘participation’ in anti‐poverty interventions is needed to come to grips with the political issues involved. Four issues are discussed: the complexity of local ‘participation’, given the ‘polycephalous’ character of third world societies; the power biases in the aid chain; the potential problem of ‘false consciousness’; and the ambiguities of the role of local development brokers. We conclude that anti‐poverty policy is in need of ‘interface experts’, who, through ‘provocation’ can beget ‘participation’.

The effects of microcredit on women's control over household spending in developing countries : a systematic review and meta-analysis

The main objective of this campbell systematic review was to provide a systematic review of the evidence on the effects of microcredit on womens control over household spending in developing countries. More specifically, we aimed to answer two related research questions: 1) what does the impact evaluative evidence say about the causal relationship between microcredit and specific dimensions of womens empowerment (womens control over household spending); and 2) what are the mechanisms which mediate this relationship. We prioritise depth of analysis over breadth, thus the scope of this review is narrower than previous systematic reviews on microfinance (stewart et al., 2010; duvendack et al. 2011; stewart et al., 2012). We focused on specific aspects of womens empowerment which allowed us to combine statistical meta-analysis and realist (context-mechanism-outcome) synthesis. From the different searches we identified an initial number of 310 papers that were selected for full text examination. Eventually, 29 papers were retained for further analysis, corresponding to 25 unique studies. In line with three recent other reviews on microfinance (stewart et al., 2010; duvendack et al., 2011; stewart et al. 2012) we found that the microcredit evidence base is extensive, yet most studies are weak methodologically. From those studies deemed comparable and of minimum acceptable quality, we concluded that overall there is no evidence for an effect of microcredit on womens control over household spending.

Co-optation, Cooperation or Competition? Microfinance and the new left in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua

Abstract The past decade has been marked by the resurgence of leftist political movements across Latin America. The rise of the ‘new left’ masks the ambivalent relationships these movements have with broader society, and their struggle to find an alternative to the prevailing development model. Filling the void left by failed public banks, the microfinance sector has grown significantly across the continent in an increasingly commercial form. Analysis of Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia reveals that their new governments share a common distrust of microfinance. Yet, in the absence of viable alternatives for financial service provision, governments and microfinance stakeholders are forced to coexist. The environment in which they do so varies greatly, depending on local political and institutional factors. Some common trends can nevertheless be discerned. Paradoxically, the sector seems to be polarised into two competing approaches which reinforce the most commercially oriented institutions on the one hand, and the most subsidised on the other, gradually eliminating the economically viable microfinance institutions which have tried to strike a balance between social objectives and the market.

A critical review of CGAP-IADB policies inspired by the Fondo de Desarrollo Local, Nicaragua

In 2005, the Fondo de Desarrollo Local (FDL) gained the international Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) prize for the best non-regulated microfinance institution in Latin America. A year later, in 2006, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) selected the FDL from 78 Central American MFIs as the winner of its Award for Excellence in Microfinance Management. Its leadership in the Latin American Rural Microfinance Association (FOROLAC), its exceptional outreach to rural producers and its development orientation, coupled with entrepreneurial viability and extraordinary sustainability, contributed with these recognitions. Nevertheless, analysing the incentives and pressures emanating from the current mainstreaming microfinance paradigm, this article expresses deep concerns about the anti-rural and anti-agricultural bias of international microfinance policies and the negative effects that they engender for the further growth of microfinance for a more dynamic and socially inclusive agric...

Protocol for synthetic review of the impact of microcredit

This paper is the protocol for a synthetic review of microfinance. The protocol describes the objectives and scope of the review, the search strategy, inclusion criteria, coding, and synthesis options.

Questioning the “Regulatory Approach” to Large-Scale Agricultural Land Transfers in Ethiopia: A Legal Pluralistic Perspective

Abstract Until now, most policy recommendations put forward to deal with the possible negative impacts of large-scale land acquisitions are either directed towards the legal recognition and formalization of land rights in order to secure the rights of historical land holders or the design and implementation of “voluntary” guidelines and codes of conduct that promote positive development outcomes of large-scale land investments. This paper argues that these types of recommendations tend to depoliticize the debate around access to land and natural resources, whether at local, national and international levels. This paper looks to bring this political dimension back by proposing an analytical framework in line with the legal pluralist tradition. From a legal pluralistic analysis of the process of land deals in Ethiopia, this paper finds out that socio-cultural identity and power structures, rather than market and regulatory failure alone, play a fundamental role in redirecting negotiations and determining losers and winners from such deals. With the above finding, this paper finally suggests that blueprint international standards or investment regulatory measures cannot be used as a panacea and that solutions need to be more profound than such conventional approach.

Towards an Institutional Approach to Payments for Ecosystem Services: Perspectives from Two Nicaraguan Cases

Based on empirical evidence from two Nicaraguan case studies, we scrutinise the PES approach from both a supply and a demand-side perspective. First, our analysis of a silvopastoral PES project suggests that a combination of economic and non-economic factors motivated farmers to adopt the envisaged practices. The second case study assesses local willingness to pay for watershed services. Despite the existence of a demand for improved water services and a consciousness of upstream-downstream interdependencies, the feasibility of a locally financed PES system is undermined by local perceptions of agricultural externalities and entitlements. We conclude that a narrow market-based approach to PES may not adequately explain the typically complex dynamics operating in the field. A more flexible approach recognising the complex outcomes of institutional interplay may be more appropriate.

Gender bias in dairy value chains in Nicaragua

Within the context of a buoyant cattle sector in Nicaragua, industrial upgrading of the dairy value chain is widely considered as a positive contribution to growth and equity. That view, however, is based on a genderblind assessment of value chain dynamics. This article presents a gendered analysis of two dairy value chains in Nicaragua. The first is a more locally oriented, urban-based, semi-industrial chain with ample participation of small-scale family businesses; the second an export-oriented, upgraded industrial chain, where associative enterprises are the main players. Our analysis shows that industrial upgrading comes at the cost of reduced female participation. Remedial action to counteract this gender bias is required.

Household-microenterprise – the missing link in gendered value chain analysis: lessons from an analysis of dairy chains in Nicaragua

In Nicaragua, gender analysis in value chains is usually restricted to a study of men and women as producers or workers within the chain itself. This overlooks many relevant dimensions of gender struggles. We therefore propose a gender analysis in value chains that pays attention to the interrelation of the value chain with intra-household dynamics in microenterprises and the broader community. We apply our approach to two dairy chains, not to compare which is better for women producers but to show the gender complexity in both that needs to be considered in value chain analyses. Based on case studies, we identify gender differentiation overlapping with conflictual-cooperative relations between men and women within the sphere of economic and family relations in the two dairy chains.