Locally led adaptation: Promise, pitfalls, and possibilities.

Locally led adaptation (LLA) has recently gained importance against top-down planning practices that often exclude the lived realities and priorities of local communities and create injustices at the local level. The promise of LLA is that adaptation would be defined, prioritised, designed, monitored, and evaluated by local communities themselves, enabling a shift in power to local stakeholders, resulting in more effective adaptation interventions. Critical reflections on the intersections of power and justice in LLA are, however, lacking. This article offers a nuanced understanding of the power and justice considerations required to make LLA useful for local communities and institutions, and to resolve the tensions between LLA and other development priorities. It also contributes to a further refinement of LLA methodologies and practices to better realise its promises. Ultimately, we argue that the utility of the LLA framing in promoting climate justice and empowering local actors needs to be tested empirically.

How are Research for Development Programmes Implementing and Evaluating Equitable Partnerships to Address Power Asymmetries?

The complexity of issues addressed by research for development (R4D) requires collaborations between partners from a range of disciplines and cultural contexts. Power asymmetries within such partnerships may obstruct the fair distribution of resources, responsibilities and benefits across all partners. This paper presents a cross-case analysis of five R4D partnership evaluations, their methods and how they unearthed and addressed power asymmetries. It contributes to the field of R4D partnership evaluations by detailing approaches and methods employed to evaluate these partnerships. Theory-based evaluations deepened understandings of how equitable partnerships contribute to R4D generating impact and centring the relational side of R4D. Participatory approaches that involved all partners in developing and evaluating partnership principles ensured contextually appropriate definitions and a focus on what partners value. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41287-023-00578-w.

Finally, centring reflexivity within a learning oriented approach ensured that partnership evaluation findings were used to adapt and improve the way R4D programmes operate. La complexité des enjeux abordés par la recherche pour le développement (R4D) nécessite des collaborations entre des partenaires de disciplines et de contextes culturels variés. Les asymétries de pouvoir au sein d'un tel partenariat peuvent entraver la répartition équitable des ressources, des responsabilités et des avantages entre tous les partenaires. Cet article présente une analyse croisée de cinq évaluations de partenariats R4D, leurs méthodes et la manière dont elles ont mis au jour et traité les asymétries de pouvoir. Cet article contribue au domaine des évaluations de partenariats R4D en décrivant de façon détaillée les approches et les méthodes employées pour évaluer ces partenariats. Les évaluations basées sur la théorie ont permis d'approfondir la compréhension de la manière dont les partenariats équitables contribuent à l'impact de la R4D et à mettre au centre l'aspect relationnel de la R4D. Les approches participatives impliquant tous les partenaires dans l'élaboration et l'évaluation des principes du partenariat ont permis de garantir des définitions adaptées au contexte et de faire en sorte que les évaluations se penchent sur ce qui est jugé important pour tous les partenaires. Enfin, le fait de mettre la réflexivité au cœur de l'analyse dans une approche axée sur l'apprentissage a permis d'utiliser les résultats de l'évaluation du partenariat pour adapter et améliorer le fonctionnement des programmes de R4D.

University-Based Researchers as Knowledge Brokers for Climate Policies and Action.

Responding effectively to climate crisis requires strong science-policy links to be put in place. Past research on the research-policy interface indicates longstanding challenges that have become more acute in the case of climate science, since this requires multi-disciplinary approaches and faces distinctive political challenges in linking knowledge with policy. What can be learned from the experiences of university-based researchers seeking to influence policy as they try to operate in the brokering space? With this in mind, an empirical study was designed to capture the detailed views and experiences of forty researchers in four universities across four countries-Bangladesh, Germany, Uganda and UK. It found a wide range of different researcher attitudes to policy engagement, diverse methods of engaging, a preference for working with government and civil society over private sector policy actors, and a perceived need for more university support. The findings suggest a need to rethink conditions for engagement to create spaces for knowledge exchange and cooperation that can contribute to policies for societal transformation. More attention also needs to be paid to interdisciplinary research approaches, improving research connections with private sector actors, and strengthening university research links with local communities. Finally, the position of university based researchers in the Global South will require strengthening to improve North-South knowledge exchange, capacity development, and incentives for policy engagement.

Afin de répondre efficacement à la crise climatique, il est nécessaire de mettre en place des liens solides entre la science et la politique. Les recherches antérieures sur l'interface recherche-politique indiquent des défis de longue date qui sont devenus plus aigus en ce qui concerne la science du climat, car cela nécessite d'adopter des approches pluridisciplinaires et de faire face à des défis politiques bien distincts pour faire le lien entre les connaissances et les politiques. Que peut-on apprendre des expériences des chercheurs et chercheuses universitaires qui cherchent à influencer les politiques tout en essayant d'entrer en négociation ? Dans cette optique, une étude empirique a été conçue pour recueillir les points de vue et les expériences détaillés de quarante chercheur·euse·s de quatre universités réparties dans quatre pays - le Bangladesh, l'Allemagne, l'Ouganda et le Royaume-Uni. L'étude a détecté un large éventail d'attitudes différentes des chercheur·euse·s à l'égard de l'engagement politique, diverses méthodes d'engagement, une préférence pour le travail avec le gouvernement et la société civile par rapport aux acteurs politiques du secteur privé, et un besoin perçu de plus de soutien universitaire. Les résultats suggèrent la nécessité de repenser les conditions d'engagement afin de créer des espaces d'échange de connaissances et de coopération qui peuvent contribuer aux politiques de transformation sociétale. Il faut également accorder une plus grande attention aux approches de recherche interdisciplinaires, à l'amélioration des liens entre la recherche et les acteurs du secteur privé et au renforcement des liens entre la recherche universitaire et les communautés locales. Enfin, la position des chercheur·euse·s universitaires dans les pays du Sud devra être renforcée pour améliorer l'échange de connaissances Nord-Sud, le développement des capacités et la motivation à l'engagement politique.

Ion-Exchange Treatment of Perfluorinated Carboxylic Acids in Water: Comparison of Polystyrenic and Polyacrylic Resin Structures and Impact of Sulfate on Their Performance.

The removal of three perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCAs)-PFHpA, PFOA, and PFNA-in ultrapure and river water was evaluated using two anion-exchange resins-previously unreported macroporous polystyrenic A-500P and a more widely studied macroporous polyacrylic A-860. Both resins had similar properties, allowing direct comparison of PFCA removal performance between the two resin structures/matrices. This study also presents a new gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) method developed for PFCA analysis in water. In ultrapure water, A-500P exhibited higher removal capacity and faster removal compared to A-860, suggesting greater effectiveness of the polystyrenic structure compared to the polyacrylic structure. In the Grand River water, the target PFCAs were well removed by A-500P but not A-860. However, both resins achieved similarly high overall reductions of dissolved organic carbon (∼75%), suggesting, later confirmed in ultrapure water experiments, that inorganic anions (sulfate particularly) were the dominant competitors for the A-860 resin. The uncharged styrenic and acrylic beads (base materials) of the two tested resins were unable to remove PFOA, implying that the dominant removal mechanism involves charge interactions between the negatively charged PFCA and the positively charged anion-exchange functional groups.

Contextualizing the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on food security in two small cities in Bangladesh.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an evolving urban crisis. This research paper assesses impacts of the lockdown on food security and associated coping mechanisms in two small cities in Bangladesh (Mongla and Noapara) during March to May 2020. Due to restrictions during the prolonged lockdown, residents (in particular low-income groups) had limited access to livelihood opportunities and experienced significant or complete loss of income. This affected both the quantity and quality of food consumed. Coping strategies reported include curtailing consumption, relying on inexpensive starchy staples, increasing the share of total expenditure allocated to food, taking out loans and accessing relief. The pandemic has exacerbated the precariousness of existing food and nutrition security in these cities, although residents with guaranteed incomes and adequate savings did not suffer significantly during lockdown. While coping strategies and the importance of social capital are similar in small and large cities, food procurement and relationships with local governments show differences.

Previously unrecognized potential threat to children from manganese in groundwater in rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

The forced displacement of over 700,000 Rohingyas from Myanmar to Bangladesh since the crackdown in August 2017 has resulted in a critical humanitarian and environmental crisis. Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water in the camps that were constructed to provide shelter for the refugee population. The current study explores occurrence of Mn in groundwater in the Rohingya camps and adjacent areas. A total of 52 groundwater samples were collected between August and October 2018 from different camps sites and the adjacent host area. It was found that 64% exceeded the Bangladesh standard (100 µg/L) suggesting the presence of elevated concentrations of Mn in some groundwater aquifers in the camp sites. Mn is a neurotoxicant and previous studies have reported intellectual impairment in children exposed to Mn levels similar to those detected in groundwater in the camp sites. Nearly 450,000 migrant and new-born children live in the camps in already stressed conditions. The occurrence of elevated Mn concentrations in groundwater in the camps and their adjacent areas is likely an additional stressor exposing these children to an increased risk of neurotoxicity. Based on the results of this small-scale study, we recommend undertaking an in-depth study on the occurrence of Mn in groundwater in the camps to come up with appropriate strategies to minimise exposure. In addition, we recommend conducting a systematic epidemiological study on potential impacts of manganese in drinking water on neurological development of the Rohingya children in the camps.