SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Centre for Development, Environment and Policy (CeDEP)

CeDEP Research

The Centre for Development, Environment and Policy brings together staff with strong but diverse specialist skills. The team is experienced in, and committed to, working to promote effective and sustainable development, policy and environmental management.

The research interests and expertise of those in the Centre focus, in particular, on issues of rural development; agricultural economics; food policy; supply chains; water resource management and economics; and environmental management.

The causes of poverty; the processes of development and poverty reduction; and policy management are complex and multi-dimensional. They require integrated and in-depth understanding that spans a wide range of disciplines.

All CeDEP academic team members are actively involved in research: overseeing and/or participating in various projects; collaborating with a range of national and international partners; and publishing extensively. Research is conducted in a wide range of countries in Latin America, Africa, South and East Asia, and Europe.

Major research themes

• Socio-economic, technical and institutional opportunities and constraints for agricultural and rural development, food systems and poverty reduction in poor areas
• Development and application of new institutional economics in guiding agricultural development and natural resource management policy and interventions by national governments, donors, NGOs and the private sector
• Approaches for sustainable development and environmental management, particularly relating to the atmosphere, water resources, and the environmental and developmental impacts of intensive agriculture
• Development of distance learning techniques and pedagogic methods taking advantage of changing access to new information and communication technologies in developing countries

Publications

Recent publications by academic staff can be found listed on their respective staff pages.

Current and/or recent projects

CeDEP staff are involved in a diverse array of projects, further details of which can be found on their respective staff pages. Examples of recent and current projects include:

• Evaluation of the Agricultural Input Subsidy in Malawi, for the Malawi Government. Involves working with colleagues from the University of Malawi, Overseas Development Institute, and Michigan State University. This is a long running piece of work (from 2006) and is associated with wider consideration of the roles and implementation of agricultural subsidy programmes in promoting food security, general economic growth, and poverty reduction, with recent papers for the FAO, IFAD, World Bank and UK Government Foresight project on Food and Farming Futures.
  This research is funded by DFID Malawi and by the Future Agricultures Consortium.
  CeDEP staff member involved: Andrew Dorward
• Development of the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research in Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH) – a new initiative tacking a neglected topic of increasingly recognised global importance (see new website due soon should be www.lcirah.ac.uk– current website http://www.lidc.org.uk/pages.php?page=57).
  CeDEP staff member involved: Andrew Dorward
• Examination of changes in real food prices in poorer and richer economies for poorer and richer people, questions long run historical declines in real food prices when considering poorer nations and people
  CeDEP staff member involved: Andrew Dorward
• Human Adaption to BioDiversity Change is a research project involving interdisciplinary building and testing of concepts, methods, and tools for understanding and supporting autonomous adaptation to biodiversity change, a critical but little researched and understood topic. Andrew Dorward will provide inputs on the role of biodiversity in rural livelihoods and on processes of livelihood change, working alongside anthropologists, ecologists and modellers from the Universities of Kent and Oxford  in the UK, Rhodes University in South Africa and the University of Agriculture in Bangalore, South India.
  CeDEP staff member involved: Andrew Dorward
• The Millennium Development Goals: A Cross-sectoral Analysis and Principles for Goal Setting Post-2015. Under the leadership of the London International Development Centre (LIDC), An interdisciplinary and intersectoral team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the Institute of Education (IoE) and SOAS has been commissioned by Lancet (the world’s leading general medical journal) to produce a paper setting out lessons learned from the MDGs and ways forward, ahead of world leaders gathering to discuss these challenges at a summit at the United Nations in New York from 20-22 September
  CeDEP staff members involved: Andrew Dorward and Colin Poulton
• Involvement in the Future Agricultures Consortium, which aims to encourage debate and policy dialogue on the future of agriculture in Africa. The particular focus of work by CeDEP staff is social  protection and agricultural growth (Andrew Dorward) and policy processes (Colin Poulton) working principally in Malawi and Kenya respectively.
  CeDEP staff members involved: Andrew Dorward and Colin Poulton
• Developing guidance on improving water quality by reducing rural diffuse pollution, and identifying the governance arrangements that would be necessary to achieve this. The research involves a detailed comparative analysis of catchment governance systems and institutional arrangements drawn from examples in the USA, UK and North West Europe. Two catchments in the UK have also been selected for intensive research - the upper reaches of the River Tamar in southwest England and the River Thurne in the Norfolk Broads.
  This research is funded by the Rural Economy and Land Use Programme, which is a collaboration between the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
  CeDEP staff member involved: Laurence Smith
• Integrated participatory assessment and management in support of decision-making for water allocation for fisheries and agriculture in Cambodia. Funded by the Challenge Program on Water and Food, the project aims to determine key variables relating to the management of water for combined fisheries and agriculture systems and integrate these variables within existing participatory agro-ecosystem assessments. Project partners include IWMI and WorldFish, and the Ministries of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and Water Resources in Cambodia.
  CeDEP staff member involved: Laurence Smith
• Evaluation of the 2006/7 Agricultural Input Subsidy in Malawi, for the Malawi Government. Involves working with staff from the University of Malawi, Overseas Development Institute and Michigan State University.
  This research is funded by DFID Malawi and by the Future Agricultures Consortium.
  CeDEP staff member involved: Andrew Dorward
• Involvement in the Future Agricultures Consortium, which aims to encourage debate and policy dialogue on the future of agriculture in Africa.
  CeDEP staff members involved: Andrew Dorward and Colin Poulton
• On-going studies of rural community enterprises, funded by the Ford Foundation, and further work to identify and improve effective means of access by poor rural producers to input, product and services markets (Ford Foundation and UN Food and Agriculture Organization)
  CeDEP staff member involved: Nigel Poole
• A nine-country comparative study of African cotton industries, organised by the World Bank.
  CeDEP staff member involved: Colin Poulton
• Changes in Australian coastal and marine environments.
  CeDEP staff member involved: Ben Daley

Partners/collaborators

• Future Agricultures Consortium
• CGIAR Centres
• Institute for Development Studies
• Overseas Development Institute
• London International Development Centre
• The Dutch Royal Tropical Institute (KIT)

Food Policy

This is a multidisciplinary journal publishing original research and critical reviews on issues in the formulation, implementation and analysis of policies for the food sector in developing, transition and advanced economies. It is edited by CeDEP staff: Colin Poulton, Andrew Dorward and Nigel Poole; published by Elsevier.

External Links

Future Agricultures Consortium

Food Policy - http://www.elsevier.com/wps/.../30419/description#description

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