Enhancing Water for Food: poverty reduction through improved management of ecosystem services for sustainable food production in sub-Saharan Africa

增加粮食生产被广泛认为是减少撒哈拉以南非洲贫困的根本步骤。尽管农业部门占劳动力的三分之二，但在20世纪后半叶，南沙群岛是世界上人均粮食产量下降的唯一地区。它仍然非常容易受到极端气候变化和未来气候变化的影响，因为几乎所有(95%)粮食生产都是靠雨水喂养的。因此，增加灌溉农业的呼声日益高涨，以努力改善粮食生产、生计以及对气候多变和变化的适应能力。然而，非洲大部分地区的实地现实是复杂的。目前尚不清楚是否有足够的水来支持灌溉农业的大幅增加，特别是在环境迅速变化的时代。还必须确保这种发展不会对贫穷的非洲生产者所依赖的生态系统服务产生负面影响，特别是在对有限水资源的竞争加剧的情况下。也不清楚仅投资于灌溉发展就会自动减少贫困，因为穷人得不到足够的水的主要原因在于未能获得应有的权利，而不是水资源稀缺或服务(市场失灵)效率低下。这从根本上讲是一个政治、地方治理和分配的问题，因此，需要对问题框架和政策回应进行更复杂的分析。因此，我们需要确保农业发展和水资源政策考虑到小农在各种易受风险的环境中面临的许多生物物理和社会政治挑战，以及南沙地区粮食生产的低效率和低产量的根本原因。有鉴于此，我们寻求开发创新方法，以解决非洲粮食和水方面的可持续性和贫困等复杂问题。具体地说，我们将建立一个新的研究联盟，成员包括SSA和英国的顶尖物理和社会科学家，以及政府部委和国际组织(如IUCN)的合作伙伴，以创建一支真正的跨学科研究团队。该小组将通过埃塞俄比亚、乌干达和坦桑尼亚的流域管理组织和用水者协会的会议，与小规模农民和其他主要利益攸关方进行沟通。这将使该联盟能够与小规模农民和生态系统其他最终用户的明确需求和优先事项进行互动，并从中得到信息。除其他外，这项活动的直接成果将包括为一家国际公认的跨学科期刊撰写一篇关于社会经济和环境科学在通过改进灌溉用水减少贫困方面面临的主要挑战的审查论文、一份工作论文、一个专门的网页和以适当的当地语言进行的若干政策简报。最重要的成果将是ESPA联合体项目的完整提案，该项目旨在开发一套综合的建模工具，既包括实物过程，也包括社会经济过程，并通过对当地条件和知识的详细了解来了解情况。至关重要的是，我们将使用与当地相关的信息来改进这些模型，以便在一致的框架内将水文气候过程与社会经济驱动因素联系起来。因此，它们将允许对气候变化和发展情景(例如，土地利用、作物类型、水分配、人口和生计做法的变化)进行跨学科分析。

Increased food production is widely considered to be a fundamental step toward the reduction of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Although the agricultural sector account for two-thirds of the labour force, SSA is the only region in the world where per capita food production declined over the latter half of the 20th century. It also remains highly vulnerable to extreme climate variability and future climate change as almost all (>95%) food production is rain-fed. Consequently, calls for increases in irrigated agriculture have intensified in an effort to improve food production, livelihoods and resilience to climate variability and change. However, the reality on the ground in most parts of Africa is complex. It is not clear if there is sufficient water available to support significant increases in irrigated agriculture especially in an era of rapid environment change. It is also vital to ensure that such developments do not have a negative impact on the ecosystem services on which poor African producers depend, especially as competition for limited water resources intensifies. Nor is it clear that investments in irrigation development alone will automatically lead to reduced poverty since the principle reason poor people do not have adequate access to water lies in entitlement failures, not water resource scarcity or inefficient service (market failures) delivery. This is fundamentally an issue of politics, local governance and distribution and, therefore, requires a more sophisticated analysis of the problem framing and policy response. Therefore, we need to ensure that policies in agricultural development and water resources take into account the many biophysical and socio-political challenges faced by small-scale farmers in diverse, risk-prone environments and the root causes of inefficiencies and low yields that characterise food production in SSA. Given this context, we seek to develop innovative ways to address the complex questions of sustainability and poverty around food and water in Africa. Specifically, we will establish a new research consortium involving leading physical and social scientists in SSA and the UK, and partners in government ministries and international organisations (e.g. IUCN) to create a truly interdisciplinary research team. The team will communicate with small-scale farmers and other key stakeholders through meetings of basin management organisations and water user associations in Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. This will allow the consortium to interact with and be informed by the expressed needs and priorities of small-scale farmers and other end-users of the ecosystems. Among other things, direct outputs of this activity will include a review paper for an internationally recognised interdisciplinary journal on the key challenges facing socio-economic and environmental science in reducing poverty through improved use of water for irrigation, a working paper, a dedicated webpage and a number of policy briefings in appropriate local languages. The most important output will be a full proposal for an ESPA consortium project which would aim to develop an integrated suite of modelling tools that incorporate both physical and socio-economic processes and are informed by a detailed understanding of local conditions and knowledge sets. Crucially, we will enhance these models with locally relevant information in order to contextualise hydro-climatic processes with socio-economic drivers within a consistent framework. Thus, they will allow interdisciplinary analysis of both climate change and development scenarios (e.g. changes in land use, crop types, water allocation, population and livelihood practices).