No abstract
Novel gene-editing (GE) technologies provide promising opportunities to increase livestock productivity and to tackle several global livestock production sustainability and food security challenges. However, these technologies, as with previous genetic modification technologies in food production, are very likely to generate social controversy and opposition toward their use in the meat industry. Here, we explored public attitudes and consumption predisposition toward gene-edited meat products and their potential added benefits to livestock farming. Our results show that societal perception currently comes as a package, where the use of gene-editing technology acts as an extrinsic cue of meat products quality, and is used to make a range of inferences about all quality facets at once. Although consumers with anti-GE attitudinal positions generally were not sensitive to price discounts or added benefits, added benefits increased the consumption predisposition of most moderate and pro-GE consumers, where benefits related to animal welfare had larger effects than those relating to the environment or human health issues.
Discussions on African responses to Covid‐19 have focused on the state and its international backers. Far less is known about a wider range of public authorities, including chiefs, humanitarians, criminal gangs, and armed groups. This paper investigates how the pandemic provided opportunities for claims to and contests over power in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan. Ethnographic research is used to contend that local forms of public authority can be akin to miniature sovereigns, able to interpret dictates, policies, and advice as required. Alongside coping with existing complex protracted emergencies, many try to advance their own agendas and secure benefits. Those they seek to govern, though, do not passively accept the new normal, instead often challenging those in positions of influence. This paper assesses which of these actions and reactions will have lasting effects on local notions of statehood and argues for a public authorities lens in times of crisis.
For many observers, state-building in Timor-Leste has overlooked and undermined local norms and governance practices, resulting in a potentially destabilising distance between citizens and the state. The emerging state justice system has been singled out for imposing inaccessible and alien institutions onto a population that has historically fought to retain its identity. Nonetheless, viewing access to justice as central to development and peace, local and international organisations continue to work to aid the equitable and swift resolution of disputes. Drawing upon qualitative fieldwork that examined a recent legal aid and paralegal programme, this article argues that some of these efforts are addressing earlier criticisms through the creation of practical hybrids; practices that use both imported and existing social norms to fulfil their clients’ needs. However, the article concludes that such programmes should identify opportunities to introduce checks and balances that can further protect the vulnerable groups.
This chapter illustrates the nature of current wars and armed conflicts and explores contemporary responses to them. Whatever criteria are used for war or armed conflict, it is clear that large numbers of people are impoverished by them, and globally the numbers of those affected is not declining. There are characteristics of contemporary wars and armed conflicts that make non-combatants especially vulnerable. Since the end of the Cold War, there have been important initiatives aimed at controlling wars, and at alleviating their effects, but the effects have been limited, and controversial. Particularly since 2001, there are has been a marked tendency for high levels of insecurity to spread across borders and take on global dynamics. In large parts of the world, enhancing security remains a key challenge in alleviating poverty and is a prerequisite for achieving development goals.
This chapter evaluates agencies of development, which can be split into three broad categories: state, societal, and international actors and organizations. These categories should be understood to be overlapping and fluid. Indeed, few actors or organizations can be said to be purely international, of the state or society. Instead, most belong to and operate across multiple spheres of activity. Moreover, this boundary crossing is increasingly a requirement to get things done. Accordingly, the chapter pays attention to how different agencies interact with one another, legitimizing and delegitimizing different understandings of development in the process. It also shows how development is often driven by broad coalitions of actors and organizations working together, however contentiously, towards collective goals. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of emerging ways of understanding and doing development that acknowledge and incorporate this approach.
Motivation: This article explores adaptive approaches to development programmes that aim at improving service provision in underperforming sectors in fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS). It does this through a case study of the IMAGINE (Integrated Maji Infrastructure and Governance Initiative for Eastern Congo) public-private partnership model for water provision in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Purpose: The processes and decisions that culminated in the model used for IMAGINE emphasize the need for programming that is culturally and politically aware, responsive to events, learns in real-time, is entrepreneurial, and works with the grain of local institutions to support change. Detailed case studies of such ways of working are crucial for programmes that seek to challenge and reform the status quo in FCAS. Methods and approach: The article is based on 42 semi-structured interviews conducted in the summers of 2019 and 2020. They reflect the broad spectrum of actorsindividuals, public authorities, and organizations-involved in IMAGINE's evolution.Findings: The narrative focuses on IMAGINE's attempts to professionalize and commercialize Goma's water sector.
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