More effective synergies for sustainable development: enhancing the social capital of research organizations addressing rural poverty and environment in Africa

Sustainable development remains a formidable cha llenge in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. The African continent has a poverty rate of around 45% and close to 300 million people living in absolute poverty. Land degradation is severe, with high rates of forest conversion, nutrient loss in farmlands, and sedimentation of waterways. If current development patterns continue, very few countries in Africa will achieve the Millennium De velopment Goals that were set in the late 1990s to guide development investments toward achievem ents of the MDG goals by the year 2015. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002, it was made clear that progress toward the goals was poorest in Africa and that more sustained and synergistic efforts would be required to achieve th e goals of sustainable development. Achieving the goals of sustainable development st arts at the scale of individuals, families and communities. Drawing upon the general literatur e as well as experience with a particular agroforestry project in Kenya, Pretty and Buck ( 2002) make the case that social capital and social learning are fundamental to the attainment of sust ainable rural development at the local scale. In this paper we propose that social capital and social learning are important for sustainable development at all scales, from the local to the inte rnational. As we move up scales from the local to the national and international, social capital and social learning involves an increasingly complex array of organizations, networks, and a lliances. Every organization involved in the sustainable development challenge – whether it fo cuses on research, policy or practice -- must continually make choices about how to invest its scar ce resources in various ty pes of social capital, collective action, and collective learning processes. Some collective learning processes have scored quite spectacular successes, such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) and the Inter- Governmental Panel on Climate Change (eg IPCC, 2007), while many others have been less successful.

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