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

从减少极端贫困和暴力冲突到确保和平与包容社会，和平与繁荣是可持续发展目标成功实现的基础。但是，现在世界范围内的冲突比过去20年中的任何时候都要多，导致数百万人大规模流离失所，加剧了萨赫勒等地区的生计斗争，减少了社会凝聚力和经济发展的机会。许多冲突都是极端贫困的结果，特别是在乍得湖地区，那里有3000多万人处于贫困状态，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。这项研究是对这种担忧的直接回应。在乍得、尼日尔和尼日利亚这三个脆弱且受冲突影响的乍得湖地区开展工作，研究并共同创造当地有效、当地拥有和当地可持续的和平与繁荣之路，作为决策支持工具，在脆弱环境中促进可持续和包容性发展规划。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，这些挑战涉及相互竞争的利益、规范、价值观、优先事项和历史记忆。因此，对和平与繁荣之路的研究必须纳入多种观点、世界观和知识体系。与乍得湖地区的合作伙伴（包括迪尤大学、恩贾梅纳大学、迈杜古里大学和乍得湖盆地委员会）合作，该研究将（合作）创建一个相互关联的研究和学习空间系统（以跨境公民学习联盟的形式），以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”）的偏好和策略的基础。它将采用一系列跨学科、多尺度、混合方法方法（包括青年公民小组、参与式基于场景的预测和回溯），以知识共同创造原则为基础（例如，以社会视角为导向，承认复杂的背景和行为者，以及基于迭代反馈循环的背景充分性进行评估）。这项研究以一种互惠的方式将科学和社会结合在一起，以推进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，但侧重于共同创造和利用和平繁荣途径来重新确定发展实践的重点- -特别是在乍得湖地区- -是一种新的创新。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引发英国长期的青年移民威胁）。这项研究将产生新的知识、联盟和工具，促进该地区及其他地区的可持续和平与繁荣。关于和平繁荣的维度和途径的新知识将促进实现可持续发展目标1（减贫）和16（和平与包容社会）的进展；所有这些都是为了改善公民的生活和谋生机会。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；以及在冲突、和平与发展研究领域培养新一代年轻学者的能力建设。

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.