Doctoral Degrees (Human Nutrition)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Human Nutrition) by browse.metadata.advisor "Loots, Ilse"

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    An Institutional Understanding of the Transfer of Knowledge to Policy Processes: The Case of The Southern African Development Community’s Regional And National Vulnerability Assessment Committees.
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-03) Landman, Annie Petronella; McLachlan, Milla; Drimie, Scott; Loots, Ilse; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dept. of Global Health. Human Nutrition.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY : This thesis explores institutional blockages to and catalysts for the uptake of vulnerability research in vulnerability-reducing policies in southern Africa. The Southern African Development Community’s (SADC’s) Vulnerability Assessment Committee (VAC) constitutes the case study. It offers a unique empirical account of issues of research-policy transfer to reduce vulnerability in complex socio-ecological systems (SESs). Complexity theory provides insights into the research field. It conceptually draws together contextual challenges that contribute to vulnerability in the complex southern African context, the VAC, research processes, and policy processes. Southern Africa is a complex SES with a governing subsystem. The VAC forms part of this subsystem. VAC actors collect contextual information from the SES to inform governing actors of regional vulnerability. Governing actors could then apply the information to make policies reducing regional vulnerability in the SES. An institutional approach and the Policy Arrangement Approach (PAA) are useful for researching the research-policy transfer in the VAC policy arrangement. A PAA-analysis is organised from four integrated analytical dimensions: discourses, actors and coalitions, power and resources, and institutional rules. The PAA also uncovers links between the VAC and its context. Regional food emergencies strongly influenced the establishment and evolution of the VAC. The VAC was formed as a consensual platform to address challenges created by parallel-operating multi-sectoral administration structures hindering collaboration to deal with uncertainty, as well as different frameworks producing conflicting food security results. Discourse findings indicate the VAC mainly interprets vulnerability as vulnerability to food insecurity. Discursive shifts to broader vulnerability and resilience are stunted by a governing mode that does not accommodate multi-actor governance. Findings from the combined actors and power dimensions show that the process of formalising NVACs within national governments has increased government power, reducing the power of international agencies, whose participation is vital to addressing immediate regional challenges. Untransparent political processes have excluded international agencies from VAC activities and politicised vulnerably information. Institutional rules have emerged, including formalising NVACs within governments; set research frameworks; a minimum set of vulnerability indicators to report; a consultancy culture; multiagency VAC membership; volunteerism in un-formalised NVACs; and the strategic exploitation of food security information by international agencies focused primarily on food aid interventions. From these PAA dimension insights, identified catalysts for research-policy transfer include sufficient capacity and funding, technical assistance, communication strategies between research and policy processes, and high-level political support. Research process blockages include a focus on informing emergency interventions, a lack of VAC capacity, neglected communication and dissemination strategies, and politicised research. Policy process blockages include weak national policy processes and a lack of easy access to VAC outputs. The thesis also unpacks contextual factors and spin-offs from VAC processes that perpetuate blockages. Although currently experiencing challenges, the VAC is ideally positioned to house research-policy transfer initiatives. If policy continues to be a strategy to address regional vulnerability, policies need to acknowledge complex contexts and consequently continuously adapt to changes in complex SESs. Research remains a useful tool for better contextualising adaptive policies.