The agricultural sector which contributes between 20-50% of gross domestic product in Africa and employs about 60% of the population is greatly affected by climate change impacts. Agricultural productivity and food prices are expected to rise due to this impact thereby worsening the food insecurity and poor nutritional health conditions in the continent. Incidentally, the capacity in the continent to adapt is very low. Addressing these challenges will therefore require a holistic and integrated adaptation framework hence this study. A total of 360 respondents selected through a multi-stage random sampling technique participated in the study that took place in Southern Nigeria from 2008-2011. Results showed that majority of respondents (84%) were aware that some climate change characteristics such as uncertainties at the onset of farming season, extreme weather events including flooding and droughts, pests, diseases, weed infestation, and land degradation have all been on the increase. The most significant effects of climate change that manifested in the area were declining soil fertility and weed infestation. Some of the adaptation strategies adopted by farmers include increased weeding, changing the timing of farm operations, and processing of crops to reduce post-harvest losses. Although majority of respondents were aware of government policies aimed at protecting the environment, most of them agreed that these policies were not being effectively implemented. A mutually inclusive framework comprising of both indigenous and modern techniques, processes, practices and technologies was then developed from the study in order to guide farmers in adapting to climate change effects/impacts.
Rapid urbanisation is precipitating wide-ranging and often irreversible changes in cities and at the shifting peri-urban areas around the world. As a significant factor of change in the 21 st Century, urbanisation is irreversibly transforming everything on its path-air, land, water, and ecology, including institutions, customs, and lifestyles. The subject scope of urbanisation research is therefore quite wide and diverse. Yet, urbanisation-induced attritions and substitutions of customary tenure practices, coupled with the associated politics and resistances, remain utterly overlooked. Using a mixed method approach (involving desktop research, remote sensing data and stakeholder interviews), this paper examines the clashes between customary tenure regime and statutory practices dictated by urban laws, and how different stakeholders are appropriating them both to promote and resist displacement or eviction. Amidst growing encroachment pressures on peri-urban communities in Nigerian cities, a new imperative for enhanced tenure security and integrated planning approach are proposed.
Forced eviction is unquestionably a global humanitarian crisis. Africa and, particularly, Nigeria bear a major brunt of this 'global epidemic', which carries enormous material and human costs. Yet, eviction is frequently hidden behind forms of displacements which operate within the law, and are justified on the basis of public interest rationales. Drawing on a research project into urban infrastructure-related displacement in Nigeria, , this paper explores the reported incidence, patterns and trends of urban displacements and their impacts in Nigeria over a period of six years (2010 -2016). Through the prism of the holistic approach, it interrogates the conflicting 'publics' and 'interests' in the diverse displacement contexts, and argues that the 'public interest' behind official rationale for displacement is, in reality, a highly contested affair. The paper recommends that displacements, where unavoidable, ought to be planned with a human face.
The displacement of urban households and livelihoods by state institutions is typically justified on the basis of the developmental purposes of land clearance, purportedly in the public interest. However conflicts around such displacement highlight both the contested nature of the 'public interest' and the unequal position that different urban actors are in to shape consensus about what this should constitute. This paper draws on research into the relationship between urban infrastructure development and displacement in Nigeria, to explore how actors negotiate their positions vis a vis displacement through a range of knowledge practices.Displacement and the public interest in Nigeria: Contesting the legitimacy of displacement through knowledge practices.The use of the 'public interest' as a criteria to determine the legitimacy of development induced displacement is widespread, but also problematic in view of both the multiple, and unequally positioned 'publics' involved, and of the contested visions of development which underlie notions of this notion.This tension is thrown into particular relief in the case of Nigeria, where, the notion of the public interest is placed at the heart of the Land Use Act of 1978, which is the chief legal instrument governing compulsory land acquisition (and thus development induced displacement) in the country. However this Act and its associated legal instruments lack clarity on what would constitute the public interest, beyond very broad criteria related to public ownership. This means that in practice the public interest nature of projects causing displacement is debated outside of the legal system, between actors in very different positions to articulate their positions.This paper draws on a research project focused on the linkages between urban infrastructure projects and displacement in Nigeria, to explore how groups involved urban infrastructure projects have used different knowledge practices to promote competing interpretations of the public interest nature of these projects. By 'knowledge practices' we mean the ways in which various actors use, control, and shape different forms of knowledge towards competing outcomes.
The data presented here is related to the research article titled “Evicting the poor in the ‘overriding public interest’: Crisis of rights and interests, and contestations in Nigerian cities” [1] . This data brief presents relevant national and sub-national data on patterns, trends, and impacts of reported urban infrastructure-related displacements in Nigeria between 2010 and 2016. The data of reported cases of displacements in Nigeria are presented in tabular matrix. On the horizontal side are nested rows designated as the six geopolitical zones (South East, South South, South West, North Central, North East, and North West), 36 States of the country, and Abuja Federal Capital Territory. It was also necessary to identify particular local government areas where displacements occurred or were imminent (case locations). On the vertical side, 14 columns itemized diverse variables such as type of infrastructure project, as well as the mode/type, status, and mechanisms of displacement. Other columns include reasons given for displacement, project funder/initiator, number of project affected persons (PAPs), reported social characteristics of PAPs, response of PAPs, actions/outcomes, information sources and link, date(s) of reported displacement in addition to a section for notes. Besides chronicling urban infrastructure-related displacement cases in the period under review, this brief might equally serve as a benchmark for a prospective national displacement register. It will also function as a useful information resource not only for facilitating advocacy and research in built environment disciplines and civil rights campaigns, but also serve to conscientize policy makers and development practitioners on the cumulative cost implications of displacement. Further interpretive insights could be achieved through data mining and cross-tabulation.
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