A Comparison of drought instruments and livelihood capitals^*

* Supplemental data for this article can be accessed http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2019.1585318

ABSTRACT

Institutional analysis is used to assess macro (in)formal policy approaches while livelihoods analyses takes a micro bottom up approach to analyse how livelihoods can be improved. The two approaches are rarely linked and scarcely applied to the understudied problem of drought. Hence this paper addresses the question: How can the livelihoods approach be combined with institutional analysis and how can such a hybrid method be applied to assess policy instruments aimed at improving, for example, the resilience of agricultural producers to drought? This paper designs a methodology and tests it in three case studies on drought in Alberta (Canada), Coquimbo (Chile), and Mendoza (Argentina). The methodology requires (a) identifying policy instruments (regulatory, market, suasive, and management), and assessing their effectiveness in addressing the (b) local to global drivers of the problem being addressed while (c) improving the resilience of people through contributing to livelihood capitals. The paper concludes first, that different policy mixes are necessary in different geographical areas and circumstances for enhancing livelihood capitals, and second, that it is possible and useful to combine top down institutional analysis with bottom up livelihood capitals.

KEYWORDS:

• Drought
• policy instruments
• livelihoods
• agriculture
• resilience
• institutional analysis

Notes on contributors

Dr Margot A. Hurlbert is a Canada Research Chair, Tier 1, Climate Change, Energy, and Sustainability and professor at Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Regina, Canada. Her research interests focus on energy, climate change, agriculture, and water. Margot has lead and participated in many research projects, serves on the editorial boards of international journals, is a Senior Research Fellow of the Earth Systems Governance Project, and the Lead of the Science, Technology and Innovation Research Cluster at Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy in Regina. Margot is Coordinating Lead Author of a chapter of the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Land and Climate and a Review Editor for AR6.

Dr Joyeeta Gupta is a professor of environment and development in the global south at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam and IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in Delft. She is also a member of the Amsterdam Global Change Institute and serves as an editor on numerous journals. She has published extensively on environment, sustainability, justice, and inclusive development. She is on the scientific steering committees of many different international programmes including the Global Water Systems Project and Earth System Governance.

Dr Hebe Verrest is a Human Geographer and assistant professor at the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies (GPIO) of UvA. Her research focuses on cities, historically on small and medium cities in the Caribbean, and increasingly on coastal cities in South Asia. Leading in her work is a focus on exclusion and inequality. These themes come back in more specific themes that I have worked on such as urban governance and spatial planning; climate change adaptation, livelihoods and entrepreneurship.

ORCID

Margot A. Hurlbert http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3825-8413

Joyeeta Gupta http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1424-2660

Hebe Verrest http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2812-4155

Notes

* Supplemental data for this article can be accessed http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2019.1585318

1 Excluded from this study were items such as transportation, roads, distance to nearest town (Quandt, 2018).

2 Excluded from this research were considerations of ability to work, nutrition, labour power, female literacy, and immunizations (Quandt, 2018).

3 This research was made possible by researchers participating in the “Vulnerability to Climate Extremes in the Americas” project (see http://www.parc.ca/vacea/) the International Research Initiative on Adaptation to Climate Change (IRIACC) funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

4 A review of journal articles studying drought as well as literature of non-governmental organizations (e.g. FAO) was undertaken to compile a list of drought instruments and facilitate their identification within the study areas.

5 These are: (1) SSHRC (Social Science Research Council of Canada) funded collaborative project between Canadian and Chilean researchers focused on institutional adaptations to climate change (IACC) (see http://www.parc.ca/mcri/) (268 interviews in Canada, and 86 interviews in Chile assessing the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of local agricultural producers; 100 Governance interviews in Canada and 30 in Chile). (2) Deliberative democracy in the watershed project funded by SSHRC (see www.parc.ca/vacea/index.php/water-governance) (100 Local water advisory group interviews). (3) Vulnerability to Climate Extremes project funded by SSHRC, NSERC, and IDRC, with case studies in Canada, Chile, Argentina, Columbia and Brazil (see http://www.parc.ca/vacea/) (100 Agricultural producer vulnerability interviews; 70 governance interviews).

6 Although Canadian producers don't endure the same restrictions on sale of their produce, they do experience the same constraints regarding local governments.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by International Research Initiative on Adaptation to Climate Change: [Grant Number 106372-008, 009].