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- Dickin, Sarah, et al.
(author)
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Understanding sustained use of ecological sanitation in rural Burkina Faso
- 2018
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In: Science of the Total Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 613, s. 140-148
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Access to safe sanitation services is fundamental for healthy and productive lives, but in rural Burkina Faso only around 7% of the population uses improved sanitation. Ecological sanitation (ecosan) systems that allow safe agricultural reuse of nutrients in human waste have been promoted in these areas, as a way to meet sanitation needs while contributing to food security. However, little is known about the success of these interventions in terms of both sustained use of the toilet and safe excreta reuse practices. We assessed the use of ecosan systems in 44 rural communities where such interventions had taken place. Structured interviews and observations conducted at 520 randomly selected concessions (residential properties), suggested a large-scale shift from open defecation to ecosan toilet use. However, only 58% of surveyed concessions reported ever emptying the ecosan toilet vault, which is required for optimal long-term functioning. Concessions that received ecosan training programmes with a greater emphasis on agricultural reuse were more strongly associated with toilet use and emptying than those that whose training focused more on sanitation access and health benefits. The findings suggest that the safe agricultural reuse of nutrients can provide a strong motivation for long-term adoption of improved sanitation among rural smallholders.
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- Järnberg, Linn, et al.
(author)
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Green niche actors navigating an opaque opportunity context : Prospects for a sustainable transformation of Ethiopian agriculture
- 2018
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In: Land use policy. - : Elsevier BV. - 0264-8377 .- 1873-5754. ; 71, s. 409-421
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Identifying trajectories of agricultural development that enable substantial increases in food production is of prime importance for food security and human development in Sub-Saharan Africa in general, and Ethiopia in particular. To ensure long-term welfare for people and landscapes, it is imperative that such agricultural transformations sustain and enhance the natural resource base upon which agriculture depends. To understand the prospects for a sustainable transformation of Ethiopian agriculture we develop a new conceptual framework for sustainability transformations that combines insights from the social-ecological transformations literature with research on socio-technical transitions and institutional entrepreneurship. Using this framework, we analyse the agricultural development trajectory currently envisaged by the government, as expressed in policy narratives and public institutions. We also explore the opportunity context facing non-state actors who promote sustainable intensification (referred to as green niche actors), as well as the strategies they employ to navigate this context and lever change in the direction they perceive as desirable. We find that current policies for agricultural development are primarily dominated by a narrative of Agriculture as an engine for growth, which focuses on the role of external inputs and commercialisation in boosting agricultural production so as to drive economic growth. While another narrative of Natural resource rehabilitation exists in policy, it sees natural resource management as a means of reducing degradation rather than a crucial component of enhanced and sustainable agricultural production, and the policies largely decouple issues of natural resources from issues of agricultural production. Institutional structures in the agricultural sector are found to reflect these discursive patterns. Further, the general institutional context in the country is characterised by strong government domination and rigid structures, which indicates an opaque opportunity context with limited opportunities for niche actors to have an impact. Given these challenging conditions, green niche actors adapt their strategies to fit the existing opportunity context and choose to collaborate closely with the government and the extension system. While this strategy offers the possibility of a direct impact at potentially large scale, it also leads to a range of trade-offs for the green niche actors and ultimately reduces the prospects for a sustainable agricultural transformation. In conclusion, an adaptation of the regime's proposed development trajectory for Ethiopian agriculture is, under current conditions, a more likely scenario than a more fundamental sustainability transformation, although options remain for more transformative action. Through the case of Ethiopian agriculture, this study adds insights into how transformation processes could play out in non-Western contexts where a strong state plays a dominant role, thus broadening the scope of empirical applications of the emerging research field on social-ecological transformations. We also demonstrate how the multilevel perspective from the transition literature and the concepts of opportunity context and situated agency from the literature on institutional entrepreneurship can be fruitfully merged with the social-ecological transformations literature, thereby moving towards a more comprehensive conceptual framework for analysing sustainability transformations.
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