In Defence of Lives and Livelihoods: Co-creating Pathways towards Peace and Prosperity for the Lake Chad Region [DEFENCE]

和平与繁荣是可持续发展目标(SDGs)成功的基础：从减少极端贫困和暴力冲突到确保和平与包容的社会。但现在世界各地的冲突比过去20年中的任何时候都多，导致数百万人大规模流离失所，加剧了萨赫勒等地的生计斗争，并减少了社会凝聚力和经济发展的机会。许多冲突是极端贫困造成的，特别是在乍得湖地区，那里有3000多万人处于贫困之中，几乎每个家庭都受到生计不安全的威胁。如果不采取协调一致的合作行动来促进世界各地的和平与繁荣，到2030年，暴力可能会使1亿人陷入贫困。这项研究是对这一担忧的直接回应。它将在乍得、尼日尔和尼日利亚三个脆弱和受冲突影响的乍得湖地区开展工作，研究和共同创建当地有效、当地拥有和当地持续的和平与繁荣道路，作为决策支持工具，在脆弱的环境中促进可持续和包容性的发展规划。追求和平与繁荣可能涉及相互关联的社会、经济、生态和治理挑战，这些挑战相互关联，相互冲突的利益、规范、价值观、优先事项和对历史过去的记忆相互交织。因此，对和平与繁荣道路的研究必须纳入各种观点、世界观和知识体系。这项研究将与乍得湖地区的合作伙伴(包括差异大学、恩贾梅纳大学、迈杜古里大学和乍得湖盆地委员会)合作，(以跨界公民学习联盟的形式)创建一个相互关联的研究和学习空间系统，揭示公民对社会经济发展(“繁荣”)和有意义的非暴力互动(“和平”)偏好和战略的基础。它将采用一系列跨学科、多尺度的混合方法(包括青年公民小组、参与性情景预测和回溯)，这些方法以知识共同创造的原则为基础(例如，对社会视角的定位、对复杂背景和行为者集合的认识、基于背景充分性的评估和迭代反馈循环)。这项研究以一种互惠有益的方式将科学和社会结合在一起，以推动知识共同创造和变革的创新方法。虽然它借鉴了冲突、和平、环境、发展和人种学等相关学科的相关研究，但关注共同创造和利用和平繁荣路径来重新聚焦发展实践--特别是在乍得湖地区--是一项新的创新。在乍得湖地区实现和平与繁荣的目标对英国具有巨大的经济和政治意义(例如，该地区持续的暴力有可能在较长期内引发英国青年移民的威胁)。这项研究将产生新的知识、联盟和工具，以促进该地区和其他地区的可持续和平与繁荣。关于和平-繁荣的层面和途径的新知识将促进在实现可持续发展目标1(减贫)和16(和平和包容的社会)方面取得进展；所有这些都有助于改善公民的生活和生计机会。其他影响将包括：开发可在脆弱环境中应用的新的知识共同创造方法；以及新一代青年学者在冲突、和平与发展研究方面的能力建设。

Peace and prosperity underpin the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): from reducing extreme poverty and violent conflicts to ensuring peaceful and inclusive societies. But there are now more conflicts worldwide than at any time in the past 20 years, spurring massive displacement of millions of people, intensifying livelihood struggles in places such as the Sahel, and reducing opportunities for social cohesion and economic development. Many conflicts are a result of extreme poverty, especially in the Lake Chad region where over 30 million people are in poverty and almost every family is threatened by livelihood insecurity. Without concerted, collaborative action to promote peace and prosperity across the world, violence could drive 100 million people into poverty by 2030. This research is a direct response to this concern. Working in three fragile and conflict-affected Lake Chad territories in Chad, Niger and Nigeria, it will research and co-create locally valid, locally owned and locally sustained peace and prosperity pathways that will serve as decision-support tools to foster sustainable and inclusive development planning in fragile environments.The pursuit of peace and prosperity can involve interconnected social, economic, ecological and governance challenges that entangle competing interests, norms, values, priorities and memories of historical past. As such, research on peace and prosperity pathways must incorporate a diversity of perspectives, worldviews and knowledge systems. Working with partners across the Lake Chad region (which include the University of Differ, University of N'Djamena, University of Maiduguri, and the Lake Chad Basin Commission), the research will (collaboratively) create a system of interlinked research and learning spaces (in the form of Transboundary Citizens Learning Alliances) to reveal the foundations of citizens' preferences and strategies for both socio-economic development ('prosperity') and meaningful and non-violent interactions ('peace'). It will employ a range of interdisciplinary, multi-scale, mixed method approaches (including young citizens panels, participatory scenario-based forecasting and backcasting) underpinned by the principles of knowledge co-creation (such as orientation on societal perspectives, acknowledgement of complex contexts and set of actors, and evaluation on the basis of contextual adequacy with iterative feedback loops).The research brings together science and society in a reciprocally useful way to advance an innovative approach to knowledge co-creation and change-making. While it draws on pertinent research from relevant disciplines, such as conflict, peace, environment, development and ethnography, the focus on co-creation and use of peace-prosperity pathways to refocus development practice - notably in the Lake Chad region - represents a new innovation.The goal of achieving peace and prosperity in the Lake Chad region has enormous economic and political significance for the UK (e.g. continued violence in the region has the potential to trigger youth migration threats in the UK in the longer-term). The research will generate new knowledge, alliances and tools that will foster sustainable peace and prosperity in the region and beyond. New knowledge on the dimensions of, and pathways towards, peace-prosperity will enhance progress towards SDG 1 (poverty reduction) and 16 (peaceful and inclusive societies); all leading to improved lives and livelihood opportunities for citizens. Additional impact will include: development of new knowledge co-creation approaches that can be applied in fragile settings; as well as capacity building of a new generation of young academics in conflict, peace and development research.