Institutional diagnostics for African food security: Approaches, methods and implications

Abstract

Securing access to affordable and nutritious food is an urgent topic on the agenda for development strategies in Africa. Intervention strategies targeting food security triggered a long lasting debate whether science and technology driven interventions could be the panacea for hunger eradication. However, contextual factors are extremely important in determining food security, as it is a location specific outcome of how biophysical, geographical, societal and political factors combine. Recent studies emphasize the important role of institutions to understand the persistence of food insecurity or to explain how different actors address food security. This article introduces a special issue that investigates approaches and methods, anchored in different institutionalisms, diagnosing how institutions influence food security levels in diverse African contexts. We draw two main lessons from this special issue. Firstly, there is a clear need for localized ex-ante institutional diagnostics to understand developments in food security in Africa. This can inform and guide decision-makers in designing locally appropriate interventions. Secondly, developing institutional diagnostics in view of sustainable food security requires theoretical triangulation; food insecurity is typically a problem emerging from a configuration of distinct processes. To develop a contextual and precise understanding of how institutions work and to identify what an institutional context 'is good at', the special issue argues in favour of an interdisciplinary approach in the social sciences that is strongly rooted in evolving practices (re)arranging institutions affecting food security.

Navigating dynamic contexts: African cooperatives as institutional bricoleurs

“…Based on our findings we suggest development policy and practice to include a critical institutionalist approach when designing interventions aiming to enhance sustainable market access for small farmers. We recommend shifting attention to the ability of a cooperative to embed in a socio-historical shaped local reality, rather than to comply to an ideal-type organization, which is in line with recent research on institutional diagnostics (Schouten, Vink, & Vellema, 2018). Interestingly, both case studies also shed light on the role of support delivered by NGOs.…”

The System Evaluation of Grain Production Efficiency and Analysis of Driving Factors in Heilongjiang Province

“…Compared with other regions, Heilongjiang Province has a lack of Techch. In the future, policy makers must focus on the introduction of advanced agricultural production technologies, strengthen regional cooperation, utilize the experience of high-tech-level areas, and take such measures as site-specific fertilization, rational close planting, timely irrigation, pest control and other technical measures to promote grain production in Heilongjiang Province [32,33].…”

Foreign‐Funded Adaptation to Climate Change in Africa: Mirroring Administrative Traditions or Traditions of Administrative Blueprinting?

“…Examination of important development aid approaches during the last couple of decades illustrates three different ways in which development aid regimes have dealt with administrative contexts. None of these approaches seems to have explicitly accommodated what scholars like Rodrik () and others (see e.g., Schouten, Vink, & Vellema, ) have labeled proper diagnostics on the role played by each recipient country's administration in a certain context, and what that would imply for the implementation of the development aid approach itself. We label the first way development aid approaches deal with administration as aligning development aid interventions with donor countries' administrative traditions.…”