In the first of a series of blogs on global research, we speak with Anna Rabinovich, a researcher at the University of Sussex who is making a significant impact internationally. A professor in social psychology and sustainability, Anna leads the REAL NbS project; an initiative that aims to find equitable Nature-based solutions to mitigate land degradation, and enhance climate resilience in eastern African communities.

What is the REAL NbS project?

Resilience in Eastern African Lands: Nature-based Solutions (REAL NbS) is a multi-institution interdisciplinary research project focused on enhancing climate resilience of farming and agro-pastoralist communities in eastern Africa by co-developing equitable nature-based solutions to land degradation, and supporting their implementation. The project is led by Prof. Anna Rabinovich from the School of Psychology, and is run by a large interdisciplinary team.

What problem does the project address?

Land degradation is a critical problem in sub-Saharan Africa, which exacerbates vulnerabilities to climate change among agro-pastoralist and farming communities in the region. It increases exposure and sensitivity of agro-ecological systems to climate impacts and reduces effectiveness of climate adaptation options, undermining resilience of the affected communities. Land degradation affects over 25% of the global land surface, and more than 40% of it takes place in developing countries. 

It is essential to find effective solutions to mitigating land degradation and implement them successfully in order to build pathways for climate resilient development. The project aims to achieve this with a focus on nature-based solutions (NbS).

What is the aim of the project?

Our aim is to strengthen climate resilience of agro-pastoralist and farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa by co-developing and testing equitable NbS to land degradation, assessing their feasibility and scalability, and exploring evidence-based pathways to facilitating implementation of such solutions by stakeholders. To achieve this, we are advancing an interdisciplinary and community-based approach, engaging cutting-edge research in soil and agricultural science, group psychology and anthropology, and development studies, as well as stakeholder knowledge and collaboration of local NGOs, civil society organisations, and policy-makers. The project outcomes will provide stakeholders at local to international level with evidence of NbS that are acceptable to stakeholder communities, adaptable to different contexts, and applicable at wider scales.

Who’s the team?

Our team is a collaboration of researchers from five different countries: Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, the UK, and the USA. It includes collaborators from Nelson Mandela Institution of Science and Technology (Tanzania), Jimma University (Ethiopia), The Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa, Institute of Development Studies, and Cranfield University. We are an interdisciplinary team, bringing together expertise in soil science, agriculture, pastoral systems, social psychology, anthropology, and international development studies.

Where is the project conducted?

At the moment, we work across two sites: Dedo district in south-western Ethiopia (smallholder farming communities) and Monduli district in northern Tanzania (agro-pastoralist communities). Differences across the sites will allow us to contextualise findings across various geographic conditions, livelihood types, and socio-cultural contexts.

What’s currently happening within the project?

This autumn, the project team has conducted a series of stakeholder workshops in Arusha, Tanzania and Jimma, Ethiopia. The 3-day workshops were designed to engage local community members and NGO representatives in meaningful discussions around land degradation and its impacts, and to co-select nature-based solutions that will be tested within the project. We focussed on understanding community-specific challenges around land degradation, identifying sustainable practices to address it, choosing the most feasible solutions, and setting measurable goals to evaluate the effectiveness of NbS over time. In Arusha, the top co-selected solutions were cover cropping, contour planting, agroforestry, and rotational grazing. In Jimma, stakeholders from Dedo district suggested to test such NbS as tree planning, grass strips, and soil bunds. Following this, the project will enter the phase of trial implementation and monitoring. The success metrics defined in the workshops will guide the evaluation, allowing local communities to see the tangible impacts of their chosen solutions, adjust where needed, and contribute to a model of sustainable land management.

In parallel, other members of the team were conducting participatory video work in Monduli district. We have trained local community representatives in using video methods, recorded video material, and conducted discussions based on it. This enabled the team to identify experiences of land degradation within wider social context, perceptions of various solutions, and trade-offs of these solutions for different gender and age groups. We are currently launching a big survey study in Ethiopia to explore how perceptions of shared threat from land degradation and community cohesion may contribute to motivation to cooperate with one’s community in implementing nature-based solutions.

Find out more about the project on the news page, website, and LinkedIn.

Funding statement: This work is supported by UK Research and Innovation Building a Green Future strategic theme, Building a Secure and Resilient World strategic theme, Natural Environment Research Council, and the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (grant number NE/Z503447/1).