How do we build an aquaculture sector that is serious about SDGs

By SalM on March 31, 2021 in News Articles

he development of global aquaculture over the course of the next 20 years must be more focused on helping to reduce poverty and hunger – the first two, and most important, of the UN’s sustainable development goals.

So argued Jim Leape, co-director of Stanfod’s Centre for Ocean Solutions, summing up a thought-provoking webinar this week, titled ‘Is Aquaculture Breaking Into the Global Food System?’, which was and was co-hosted Stirling’s Institute of Aquaculture and the Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE).

Background

Twenty years ago, a highly influential review was published in Nature, under the title Effect of Aquaculture on World Fish Supplies. The review outlined aquaculture as a possible solution, and a contributing factor, to the decline in fisheries stocks worldwide. The webinar looked back at 20 years of aquaculture, reviewed how things have changed since the release of the review and ventured a number of points on how it was likely to evolve.

Fittingly it was opened by Dr Roz Naylor, from the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University – the lead author of the original paper on fish supplies, and the lead author of A 20-year retrospective review of global aquaculture, which was published in Nature last week.

Progress, but more must be done

As Leape observed: “20 years ago the paper that Roz [Naylor] led in Nature, highlighted the daunting sustainability challenges facing the aquaculture sector – you see from the comments from Jose [Villalon, corporate sustainability director at Nutreco] and Ling [Cao, from Shanghai Jiao Tong University], in particular, that huge progress has been made in the last 20 years to tackle those fundamental sustainability challenges.

“But what strikes me now are the comments that Pip [Cohen, of WorldFish] made – what are the central challenges going forward and how do we build an aquaculture sector that is serous about SDGs 1 and 2? About cracking hunger and about cracking poverty. And what are the innovations needed to meet those challenges? And how do we create the investment vehicles that allow us to do that because the market won’t do it on its own? How do we create the governance structures that foster the kind of production that is good for livelihoods, that’s good for nutrition, that’s good for equity?” Leape pondered.

“I think that’s a really interesting set of problems for us to be focused on now, as we think about what have we learned and how do we apply that energy and creativity to building the aquaculture sector that we need?” he added.

One project Leape flagged up, that is currently looking to address the questions is the Blue Food Assessment, convened by Stanford and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and is currently looking at the challenges and opportunities offered by aquaculture and “to provide the scientific foundation for bringing aquaculture fully into discussions about the future of food”.

Source: https://thefishsite.com/

 

Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance

By SalM on March 31, 2021 in News Articles

Bibliographic Reference

Handbook of Democratic Innovation and Governance. Edited by Stephen Elstub and Oliver Escobar. Edward Elgar Publishing. Dec 2019.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786433862

Summary of Content

Democratic innovations are proliferating in politics, governance, policy, and public administration. These new processes of public participation are reimagining the relationship between citizens and institutions. This Handbook advances understanding of democratic innovations, in theory and practice, by critically reviewing their importance throughout the world.

The overarching themes are a focus on citizens and their relationship to these innovations, and the resulting effects on political equality. The Handbook therefore offers a definitive overview of existing research on democratic innovations, while also setting the agenda for future research and practice

Contents

SECTION I – TYPES OF DEMOCRATIC INNOVATION

  • 1. Defining and typologising democratic innovations | Stephen Elstub and Oliver Escobar (FREE ACCESS)
  • 2. Democratic innovations and theories of democracy | Ian O’Flynn
  • 3. Mini-publics: design choices and legitimacy | Clodagh Harris
  • 4. Collaborative governance: between invited and invented spaces | Sonia Bussu
  • 5. The long journey of participatory budgeting | Ernesto Ganuza and Gianpaolo Baiocchi
  • 6. Referendums and citizens’ initiatives | Maija Jäske and Maija Setälä
  • 7. Digital participation | Hollie Russon Gilman and Tiago Carneiro Peixoto

SECTION II – DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS AND THE DEMOCRATIC MALAISE

  • 8. Does political trust matter? | Gerry Stoker and Mark Evans
  • 9. Accountability and democratic innovations | Albert Weale
  • 10. Anti-politics and democratic innovation | Matthew Flinders, Matthew Wood and Jack Corbett
  • 11. The impact of democratic innovations on citizens’ efficacy | Paolo Spada

SECTION III – ACTORS IN DEMOCRATIC INNOVATION

  • 12. Facilitators: the micropolitics of public participation and deliberation | Oliver Escobar
  • 13. Consultants: the emerging participation industry | Laurence Bherer and Caroline W. Lee
  • 14. Public servants in innovative democratic governance | Wieke Blijleven, Merlijn van Hulst and Frank Hendriks
  • 15. Experts: the politics of evidence and expertise in democratic innovation | Ruth Lightbody and Jennifer J. Roberts
  • 16. Advocates: interest groups, civil society organisations and democratic innovation | Carolyn M. Hendriks
  • 17. The role of elected representatives in democratic innovations | Nivek Thompson
  • 18. Journalists: the role of the media in democratic innovation | Gianfranco Pomatto

SECTION IV – DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS IN POLICY AND GOVERNANCE

  • 19. Democratic innovations and the policy process | Adrian Bua
  • 20. Democratic innovation in science and technology | Sarah R. Davies
  • 21. Democratic innovation in social policy | Rikki Dean
  • 22. Democratic innovation and environmental governance | Jens Newig, Edward Challies and Nicolas W. Jager
  • 23. Democratic innovation in constitutional reform | Ron Levy
  • 24. Democratic innovation in transnational and global governance | Mikko Rask, Bjørn Bedsted, Edward Andersson and Liisa Kallio

SECTION V – DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS AROUND THE WORLD

  • 25. Democratic innovations in North America | Christopher F. Karpowitz and Chad Raphael
  • 26. Democratic innovations in Latin America | Thamy Pogrebinschi and Melisa Ross
  • 27. Democratic innovations in Europe | Brigitte Geissel
  • 28. Trends in democratic innovation in Asia | Naoyuki Mikami
  • 29. Democratic innovation in Australasia | Lucy Parry, Jane Alver and Nivek Thompson
  • 30. Local democratic innovations in Africa | Isabel Ferreira and Giovanni Allegretti

SECTION VI – RESEARCH METHODS FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRATIC INNOVATIONS

  • 31. Quantitative methods in democratic innovation research | Simon Beste and Dominik Wyss
  • 32. Qualitative approaches to democratic innovations | Julien Talpin
  • 33. Mixed methods research in democratic innovation | Oliver Escobar and Andrew Thompson
  • 34. Using experiments to study democratic innovations | Kimmo Grönlund and Kaisa Herne
  • 35. From discourse quality index to deliberative transformative moments | Maria Clara Jaramillo and Jürg Steiner
  • 36. Analysing deliberative transformation: a multi-level approach incorporating Q methodology | Simon Niemeyer
  • 37. Comparative approaches to the study of democratic innovation | Matt Ryan

CONCLUDING CHAPTER

  • 38. Reflections on the theory and practice of democratic innovations | Graham Smith