Novel application of technology to strengthen governance of a pastoral food system and attract commercial investment.
Principal Investigator: Dr Thomas Currie, Associate Professor in Cultural Evolution, Department of Biosciences; and Co-investigator: Dr Lindsay Walker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Biosciences (July 20 – Mar 21).
Background
Pastoralism in East Africa is a way of life based on the extensive grazing of domestic livestock. When practiced sustainably, pastoralism helps create healthy grasslands that provide ecosystem services (such as capturing carbon) and supports wildlife habitat.
Through co-existence with wildlife, pastoralism also provides economic incentives from wildlife tourism. However, climate change and other recent social, economic, and ecological changes are undermining pastoral ways of life. These challenges also negatively impact the ecosystems that tourism is based on, thereby undermining the potential for commercial investment. In recent years, pastoralists have sought to establish community conservancies with the aim of enabling communities to develop more sustainable livestock practices, restore degraded land, and ultimately increase food security. As these measures also improve conditions for wildlife, conservancies have an important role in biodiversity conservation.
This project focused on community conservancies in northern Kenya that are members of the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT; see below for information on our project partner). Kenya ranks 142 out of 189 countries in the 2017 UNDP Human Development Index (HDI), with 36.1% living below the poverty line. A 2014 IUCN report highlighted that the areas dominated by pastoralists in Kenya had lower HDI and higher poverty levels relative to the national figure. Conservancies provide a means to improving people’s livelihoods. For example, NRT-supported conservancies generated Ksh.133 million (US$ 1.3 million) in tourism income in 2019 and have leveraged US$ 1.6 million of County Government investment since 2014.
Underpinning the effectiveness of conservancies to meet the needs of their members is good governance. Communities have established rules and structures that help organise their conservancies. Our wider collaboration with the NRT is to work together to understand the factors that might help or hinder good governance in community conservancies. NRT and member conservancies have systems for monitoring and evaluating how well conservancies are doing, which provides valuable information that can be used to improve conservancy functioning. However, collecting information on the ground through face-to-face interviews can be expensive and time-consuming. Furthermore, the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted how necessary data collection activities can be interrupted when there are restrictions on movement. This is also potentially an issue when there are security threats that can inhibit travel to certain regions. Therefore, there is potentially great value in developing more remote systems of data collection that leverage technologies already available to people in Northern Kenya. This project aimed to implement a proof-of-concept pilot for utilising mobile phone technology as a tool to collect data.
About the Project
We used a mobile phone platform to trial sending people a series of questions as messages that they respond to for free.
If proven to be successful, this method could facilitate several benefits for NGO’s, researchers and other organisations that work with people and data. For example, it could allow potentially large datasets to be collected at relatively minimal cost, as well as minimising Covid-19 risks to both participants and data collectors.
Additionally, it has the potential to offer different groups of people a more equal opportunity to be heard (assuming equality in access to technology). For example, using mobile phones allows people to provide survey responses without being visible or vocal. This could be important in societies where women or other groups do not feel able to voice their opinions in front of others.
Key aims of the Project
This project implemented a proof-of-concept trial to test whether people would respond to messages. In collaboration with our partners the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) and Converge, who have worked with communities in northern Kenya for many years, a trial of a mobile phone technology was implemented to test three key aims.
01.
The project explored the logistics of using this novel application, including what was required to setup using this technology.
02.
The project trialled the engagement rate of responses, including exploring if there were differences between demographic groups or geographic areas. This is important to understand whether the method could provide a representative and robust sample.
03.
The project trialled the use of interactive voice recordings of the questions so to be inclusive of people who may be illiterate.
Gender
Women are thought to have a key role in maintaining the productivity of the aquaculture industry, accounting for 60% of the workforce, however this is often not represented in official statistics and their working conditions, pay and hours are significantly worse than men.
This is largely driven by socio-cultural factors, notably attitudes towards gender equality in the family and society. In this project, we will ensure female representation amongst stakeholders when collecting data for the situational analysis and in the dissemination of outputs.
We will ensure that women are included in community workshops and that their voice is heard when discussing future interventions to promote prudent pharmaceutical usage. We will invite gender equality experts (e.g. from international development organisations such as BRAC [Building Resources Across Communities]) to our stakeholder workshop, to ensure that our follow-on study actively promotes and supports gender equality.
About the Project partners
The NRT is a membership organisation based in Kenya that is owned and led by the community conservancies it serves in northern and coastal Kenya. It was established as a shared resource to help build and develop community conservancies, which are best positioned to enhance people’s lives, build peace and conserve the natural environment.
Converge is a global impact catalyst company that uses data to tackle complex problems and help organisations scale up their positive impact. It is based in Kenya.
Key activities which took place
The trial involved sending an initial ‘intake’ survey to mobile phone numbers of community members to understand who might respond to such a data collection method. Once the owner of the mobile phone number consented to receiving the survey, a series of questions around demographics were sent as text messages and / or as interactive voice messages.
People could choose whether to respond or not. If they did want to respond, then people responded to the question by pressing a number on their phone dial pad that corresponded with the answer. For example, if the question asked “What is your main livelihood? 1 – Pastoralist, 2 – Farmer, 3 – Business owner”, then pressing the number “1” would record the response as pastoralist.
If proven to be successful, this mobile phone tool could be embedded into NRT’s own monitoring programmes and / or future collaborative research projects as a way to collect data that could help strengthen governance in conservancies. This could be a powerful tool to reach many people given that NRT supports community conservancies in 10 different counties in Kenya, encompassing more than 400,000 people.
Outcomes and impact
01. Carried out a situational analysis of the value chain and stakeholder networks underpinning pharmaceutical usage in aquaculture in the Mymensingh region of Bangladesh.
The situational analysis of the Bangladesh aquaculture pharmaceutical value chain has produced very interesting and novel data on the heavy influence of the private sector and limited provision of independent advice within the value chain. The main factors enabling this were i) the novelty of the transdisciplinary, participatory approach, and ii) the pre-established relationship between the UK and Bangladeshi partners and experience of working in this region, which enabled us to co-develop a context-specific project plan, identify appropriate stakeholders to engage with, and the most effective way of doing this.
02. Conducted a review of global interventions aimed at promoting the prudent and safer use of pharmaceuticals in rural communities in other low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
This will be used to inform the workshops where we discuss interventions, and will be incorporated into the manuscript for submission.
03. Engaged value chain stakeholders.
a) Focus groups facilitated inclusive discussion between different stakeholder groups, ensuring that each could participate free of intimidation or other social pressures. Mixed focus group discussions were held, with groups working together on separate tables; this worked very well in giving each group a voice in the discussion, with an open and amicable environment. Encouraging women’s participation in the workshops was very difficult since the industry is so male-dominated and we had to minimise the number of focus group participants due to Covid-19 restrictions. b) Dissemination workshops: Four workshops were held (instead of the one originally planned). One was held on the campus of our collaborators at Bangladesh Agricultural University and consisted of representatives from the Government (Fisheries Officer / Farm Managers, Local Extension Fisheries Agents), Pharmaceutical Shop Owners and other relevant stakeholders (NGOs, Social Leaders, etc). The other three workshops were held in the local communities where we have been collecting data, and consisted of farmers and local pharmaceutical company agents. Participants were presented with the project outputs, and discussed and gave feedback about how representative these findings were of the wider community. We also presented potential intervention strategies, and facilitated a discussion on the accessibility and acceptability of these across all stakeholders groups.
04. Additional outcomes.
New data highlights the urgent need for independent information on pharmaceutical sales / usage for farmers and shop owners. The project will produce a manuscript and (if time and resources allow) a policy brief recommending government officials be allowed to provide independent advice on all pharmaceuticals; currently they are only permitted to provide prescriptions on antibiotics, which means that they cannot prescribe other, possibly more appropriate treatments, and provides an opening for non-independent sources (i.e. pharmaceutical companies) to dominate this field.
Caption?
Lessons learned and next steps
Although the potential for using mobile phone messaging as a tool for data collection is great, the project identified several barriers to being implemented as part of a robust data collection programme.
For example, the trial showed a low overall response rate to participate, a gender bias in those who did participate (men were more likely to respond), and uneven participation across locations. This would not provide a robust and representative sample in the current format. This trial highlighted the need for sensitisation in the community prior to deployment. For example, test surveys could be conducted during community meetings to demonstrate how these platforms work and re-affirm that they are free to use. If conducted before a data collection programme, this could in theory increase participation rates.
As a result of this work the NRT have learned that mobile phone messaging is not currently a suitable means for collecting information that can help in understanding community perceptions and informing governance practices. It may be possible that refinements to the process and increased education and awareness about the project may improve response rates and the quality of information gathered. However, the project would need further financial support to explore this, e.g. examining the potential for community meetings to exhibit the technology, and further trial deployment would be required to assess if this were to be effective.
Lessons learned and next steps
As previously reported, the most significant challenge throughout this project has been the time needed for Dr Thornber to run the project, which far exceeded the time covered.
Furthermore, maintaining a social media presence was key to making new contacts. The University of Exeter and Plymouth Marine Laboratory were asked to join Sargasso Sea Commission following an article in the Guardian. Writing, blogs / interviews / stories for the PhycoMex website on our interactions gave people a voice which we believe they felt empowered by. By ensuring our interactions were a two-way process, people felt they became a part of our community.
The key barriers and challenge to progress the project are around further funding availability. However, we are engaging with a variety of stakeholders including Innovate UK, Venture Philanthropists, Philanthropists, Governmental Organisations, Digital Technologists to drive this research forwards. One ambitious step we are pursuing is to create a seaweed focused Doctoral Training Program (at least 30 PhD students working on multiple aspects of the problem / opportunity) with a unique applied focus and unique cooperative commercialisation model.
This project has also led to interest and funding from the Newton Fund. Arturo Mendoza, Head of NF in Mexico will present Allen’s plans to develop a sustainable process for remediation of problematic Sargassum biomass to SENER (Minister of Energy), Nayeli Mayorga working on the Policy for Climate and Energy issues at the Mexican Embassy, Ministry of Tourism and Mexican Navy in Mexico in April.
Although going forward there may be competition for biomass from plastics manufacturers and mass carbon capture and sequestration activities as more people are moving into the field of identifying uses for macroalgae. Thankfully, Sargassum is a plentiful biomass source and we expect the innovation in this space to continue.
Biorganix will continue testing the extracts provided by the partners on small scale field trials during 2022.
Key activities which took place
IOV Microcredit Scheme
During the project an opportunity to scale up areas of IOV's work through the form of a micro-credit scheme became a viable option for this project. The aim of the microcredit scheme is to help IOV scale up their operations in order to meet the high demand from farmers wishing to set up and/or expand AF and SPS in the Mato Grosso region. The resilient AF and SPS created by the farmers with IOV’s specialist advice, expertise and assistance will enable rural communities to benefit from reduced poverty, improved food security and reduced pressure on natural vegetation and biodiversity, in times of climatic change and population growth.
“Pull out or photo?”
Links / sharing capability
There are currently three manuscripts in preparation from our work on this project: Thierry Tonon, Carla Botelho Machado, Mona Webber, Deanna Webber, James Smith, Amy Pilsbury, Felix Ciceron, Leopoldo Herrera-Rodriguez, Eduardo Mora Jimenez, Julio V Suarez, Michael Ahearn, Frederick Gonzalez, Michael J Allen. (2022) Biochemical and elemental composition of pelagic Sargassum biomass harvested across the Caribbean. Phycology Beacham T, Cole I, DeDross L, Raikova S, Chuck C, Macdonald J, Allen M. (2019). Analysis of Seaweeds from South West England as a Biorefinery Feedstock. Applied Sciences, (20), doi: 10.3390/app9204456 Jones E, Raikova S, Ebrahim S, Parsons S, Allen M, Chuck C. (2020). Saltwater based fractionation and valorisation of macroalgae. Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology, (8), doi: 10.1002/jctb.6443 Mayers J, Landels A, Allen M, Albers E. (2020). An energy and resource efficient alkaline flocculation and sedimentation process for harvesting of Chromochloris zofingiensis biomass. Bioresource Technology Reports, doi: 10.1016/j.biteb.2019.100358
Parsons S, Allen MJ, Chuck CJ. (2020). Coproducts of algae and yeast-derived single cell oils: A critical review of their role in improving biorefinery sustainability. Bioresource Technology, 303, pp. 122862. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2020.122862 Atlantic Sargassum Belt – Algae Workshops https://www.visitexeter.com/whats-on/fertile-thinking-seaweed-in-science-and-art-p2791023 Blog | PhycoMExUK PhycoMExUK (@PhycoMExUK) / Twitter How do you deal with 9m tonnes of suffocating seaweed? | Oceans | The Guardian https://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/sustainthis and Biome Algae: The Regenerative Power of Seaweed –Vivobarefoot SUSTAIN THIS? Podcast on Spotify The seaweed bloom that covered an ocean – BBC Future
