NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
January 2012
"Socio-Economic Sustainability of Biofuel Production in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from a Jatropha Outgrower Model in Rural Tanzania"
Discussion Paper
By Elisa Portale
This new discussion paper investigates whether an outgrower scheme for a Jatropha production project in Tanzania is capable of developing “socio-economic sustainable outcomes for farmers.” The answer relies on the inclusion of an analysis of the farmers’ material benefits and subjective perceptions about the overall welfare contribution of the outgrower scheme. This research is the first to propose a practical way to operationalize such an analysis and to apply it to a concrete investment project.
December 15, 2011
"Profile: Calestous Juma"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Outreach
By Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project; Principal Investigator, Agricultural Innovation in Africa
"The Rio+20 process is an important reminder of the urgency to guide global production and consumption patterns with sustainability principles. Sadly, there is really no genuine global institution that is championing sustainable development. The vision that inspired Rio has been supplanted by two extreme positions. The first is a group that believes economic growth will have trickle-down benefits for the environment. The environmental camp has successfully replaced the spirit of Rio with a one-sided agenda that leaves little room for recognising the central role that human wellbeing plays in natural resource management."
November 2011
New Book from Former Harvard Environmental Economics Program Pre-Doctoral Fellow Gernot Wagner on Effective Environmental Economic Policy
News
By Robert C. Stowe, Executive Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program; Manager, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
The core message of But Will the Planet Notice?—presented with both rigor and wit—is that the actions of individuals can do very little to solve major environment problems, including climate change, species preservation, and water scarcity. What's required is economic policy that motivates large portions of the population—and major industrial sectors—to reduce pollution and use resources more efficiently.
June 2011
"A New Case for Wastewater Reuse in Saudi Arabia: Bringing Energy into the Water Equation"
Policy Brief
By Arani Kajenthira, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and Afreen Siddiqi, Visting Scholar, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
Industrial and urban water reuse should be considered along with desalination as options for water supply in Saudi Arabia. Although the Saudi Ministry for Water and Electricity (MoWE) has estimated that an investment of $53 billion will be required for water desalination projects over the next 15 years [1], the evolving necessity to conserve fossil resources and mitigate GHG emissions requires Saudi policy makers to weigh in much more heavily the energy and environmental costs of desalination. Increasing water tariffs for groundwater and desalinated water to more adequately represent the costs of water supply could encourage conservation, but also reuse, which may be more appropriate for many inland and high-altitude cities.
August 2011
"The Water–Energy Nexus in Middle East and North Africa"
Journal Article, Energy Policy, issue 6, volume 39
By Afreen Siddiqi, Visting Scholar, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy
Extracting, delivering, and disposing water requires energy, and similarly, many processes for extracting and refining various fuel sources and producing electricity use water. This so-called 'water–energy nexus', is important to understand due to increasing energy demands and decreasing freshwater supplies in many areas. This paper performs a country-level quantitative assessment of this nexus in the MENA region.
AP Photo
July 4, 2011
"Graziano's Five Major Challenges"
Op-Ed, The Guardian
By Lawrence Haddad and Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project; Principal Investigator, Agricultural Innovation in Africa
"Addressing this triple challenge (more food, less hunger, less environmental degradation) will require more than just funding. For the FAO to continue to serve as the world's leading authority on food and agriculture policy, it will need to reinvent itself, becoming a thought leader in ending the hunger of ideas on how to end hunger. For example, what is the role of advance market purchasing in hunger reduction? What should be done about foreign direct investment in agriculture and large-scale land acquisitions? How should food price spikes be managed? What are the benefits and risks of emerging food and agricultural technologies? The FAO needs to be leading the debates in these and other areas."
January 2011
"Conclusions and the Way Ahead"
Book Chapter
By Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development; Director, Science, Technology, and Globalization Project; Principal Investigator, Agricultural Innovation in Africa
A new economic vision for Africa's agricultural transformation— articulated at the highest level of government through Africa's Regional Economic Communities (RECs)—should be guided by new conceptual frameworks that define the continent as a learning society. This shift will entail placing policy emphasis on emerging opportunities such as renewing infrastructure, building human capabilities, stimulating agribusiness development, and increasing participation in the global economy. It also requires an appreciation of emerging challenges such as climate change and how they might influence current and future economic strategies.
Summer 2011
Belfer Center Newsletter Summer 2011
Newsletter
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
The Summer 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features analysis and advice by Belfer Center scholars regarding the historic upheavals in the Middle East and the disastrous consequences of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Center’s new Geopolitics of Energy project is also highlighted, along with efforts by the Project on Managing the Atom to strengthen nuclear export rules.
May 9, 2011
"Harvard Kennedy School Honors a Very Cool Idea"
News
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
On May 4, Greenpeace Solutions Director Amy Larkin joined high-level officials of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, McDonald’s, Unilever, and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) at Harvard Kennedy School to receive the School’s prestigious Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership for their collaboration, called Refrigerants, Naturally!
March 23, 2011
Expert Examines Impact of EU's Diversification Strategy on GCC at Dubai School of Government Lecture
Press Release
By Justin Dargin, Former Associate, The Dubai Initiative
Dubai-UAE - The European Union is trying to diversify its sources of energy imports and reduce reliance on Russian natural gas. Accordingly, it has started to reach out to Gulf countries for a secure source of this natural resource. In order to assess whether broadening the strategic relationship between the EU and the GCC is to the benefit of both sides, Europe's energy security challenges first need to be examined, according to Justin Dargin, Research Fellow at The Dubai Initiative and Fulbright Scholar of the Middle East.
