Transforming Social Inequalities through Inclusive Climate Action (TSITICA)

联合国《2030年议程》为社会实现17项可持续发展目标提出了雄心勃勃的挑战。虽然所有可持续发展目标在非洲都很重要，但与贫困（可持续发展目标1,8）、不平等（可持续发展目标5,10）和气候变化（可持续发展目标13,7）相关的目标尤为重要。非洲的贫困率、不平等程度、气候脆弱性和能源供应不足都是全球最高的。要在所有这些可持续发展目标上取得实质性进展，就需要在任何一个可持续发展目标领域采取行动，最大限度地发挥协同效应和共同利益，并尽可能避免负面权衡。目的和目标：我们项目的首要研究问题是：非洲社会如何设计和实施气候行动，以改善可持续生计，减少贫困和不平等？例如，所有非洲国家都需要调整其粮食系统以增强对气候变化的适应能力，但是实现这一目标的途径不同——例如投资大规模工业化农业或支持小农提高气候智能——这可能会给整个社会带来截然不同的生计效益。我们的第二个目标是建立一个非洲-英国研究人员的网络，这些研究人员可以为这个跨学科问题带来深厚的学科专业知识。特别是，我们的项目将两个新成立的ARUA气候变化和不平等卓越中心（CoE）与来自英国的世界领先的专业知识结合在一起，形成这个网络，并在气候变化，不平等和贫困之间的联系上工作。我们的方法：为了解决非洲的气候-贫困-不平等关系，我们创建了一个跨学科的研究团队，他们在发展经济学、生计、贫困和不平等、气候政策和治理、能源和减缓以及适应方面具有专业知识。我们将通过三个国家的比较研究来回答我们的研究问题——加纳、肯尼亚和南非——这将使我们能够综合这些不同背景下的共性和差异。我们的方法是多尺度和多维度的，旨在理解：(1)实现（或阻止）变革性气候行动的政治、经济和政策背景；Ii)社会经济和气候变化政策如何影响社会中不同群体的生计轨迹；Iii)气候变化行动的潜在结果，重点关注这些结果在不同社会群体（尤其是男性和女性）之间的差异，以及教育、收入和土地使用权等社会差异；Iv)现有的气候行动如何（或不）为社区建立可持续的生计轨迹；V)了解不同气候行动在大规模应用时在全国范围内的社会和经济效益。我们的项目将涉及与政策和实践方面的领导者以及社区的密切合作，以便他们的需求和优先事项为我们的研究提供信息，从而使我们的研究反过来改变他们的思维和行动。项目成果：-建立一个完善的泛非研究网络，在该项目中有多个合作，并在该项目中利用新项目。-气候行动、贫困和不平等之间的协同效应和权衡的证据。-关于如何设计具体的国家优先气候行动，为生计和减少贫困和不平等带来共同效益的证据。-最终，气候政策和相关行动在改善生计和福祉、减少贫困和不平等方面具有变革性，而不是在国家和全球政治层面照旧行事。

The Agenda 2030 of the UN sets out ambitious challenges for society to achieve 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While all SDGs are important in Africa, those related to poverty (SDG 1, 8), inequality (SDG 5, 10) and climate change (SDG 13, 7) are especially relevant. Africa has some of the highest global poverty rates, levels of inequality, climate vulnerabilities, and shortfalls in energy access. Making substantial progress on all these SDGs will require action in any single SDG domain that maximises synergies and co-benefits and avoids as much as possible negative trade-offs. Aims and Objectives: Our project's overarching research question is: How do African societies design and implement climate action to improve sustainable livelihoods, and reduce both poverty and inequality? For example, all African countries need to adapt their food systems to be more resilient to climate change, but there are different routes to achieving this - such as investing in large-scale industrialised agriculture or supporting small-scale farmers to be more climate smart - which can result in very different livelihood benefits across society. Our second objective is to build a network of African-UK researchers who can bring deep disciplinary expertise to bear on this interdisciplinary problem. In particular, our project brings together two newly-established ARUA Centres of Excellence (CoE) on climate change and inequalities, with world-leading expertise from the UK, to form this network and to work at the nexus of climate change, inequality and poverty. Our Approach: To address the climate-poverty-inequality nexus in Africa we have created an interdisciplinary research team with expertise in development economics, livelihoods, poverty and inequality, climate policy and governance, energy and mitigation, and adaptation. We will answer our research questions through comparative research across three country settings - Ghana, Kenya and South Africa - that will allow us to synthesise commonalities and differences across these different contexts. Our approach is multi-scale and multi-dimensional, seeking to understand i) the political, economic and policy context within which transformative climate actions are enabled (or prevented); ii) how socio-economic and climate change policies have affected livelihood trajectories of different groups in society; iii) the potential outcomes from climate change actions, with a focus on how these outcomes vary across social groups, especially between men and women, but also social differences such as education, income, and land tenure; iv) how existing climate actions are working (or not) to build sustainable livelihood trajectories for communities; v) understanding the country-wide social and economic benefits of different climate actions, when applied at scale. Our project will involve close collaboration with leaders in policy and practice, and also with communities, so that their needs and priorities inform our research, and so that our research in turn shifts their thinking and actions. Project Outcomes: - A well-established, pan-African research network that has multiple collaborations within this project, and in new projects leveraged out of this project. - Evidence on the synergies and trade-offs between climate action, poverty and inequality. - Evidence on how specific national priority climate actions can be designed to deliver co-benefits for livelihoods and reducing poverty and inequality.- Ultimately, climate policies and associated actions to be transformative in improving livelihoods and well-being, reducing poverty and inequality, rather than business as usual at national and global political levels.