Project

Tradeoffs and synergies (& scenarios)

Achieving the SDGs requires many interventions in more sustainable, equitable and climate-resilient food systems. Good policy-making by national and decentralised governments in developing countries requires that the trade-offs and synergies between possible interventions are mapped out. This project will develop an evaluation method for this and test it in case studies. Among the desirable outcomes of food systems are environmental, social and economic sustainability. Wageningen Livestock Research has developed the Dairy Sustainability Assessment Tool (DSAT) to facilitate discussion on sustainability of the dairy sector in East Africa among farmers, cooperatives and other stakeholders. However, DSAT needs to be reviewed to further improve the tool.

Literature shows a wide variety of studies addressing trade-offs and synergies of economic, environmental, and social objectives when implementing interventions aimed at better food system outcomes. These studies differ in their focus on the nature of the simultaneous objectives and how trade-offs and synergies can occur within or between different dimensions of sustainability (human/social, environmental, economic or people-planet-profit); between different timescales (short- and long-term); between different spatial scales (from micro to macro, for example, from farm to landscape scale); and between different types of actors (for example, farmers and consumers).

To enhance the WR capacity on methods for analyzing trade-offs and synergies, it is important to identify what approaches WR already has available and should develop further in order to support food system transition processes with relevant, meaningful, and applicable evaluation frameworks. For a potential policy or intervention, ex-ante evaluation of trade-offs and synergies often starts with an identification of objectives and/or clarification of an impact pathway or theory of change, i.e., a foreseen scenario. Based on these objectives and impact areas, relevant indicators of system performance need to be selected and sometimes even developed.

This project aims to expand and strengthen Wageningen Research capacity to assess trade-offs & synergies, in the context of supporting multi-stakeholder processes for development of transition pathways towards sustainable and healthy food systems (which use visioning and potential scenarios). As such, the primary audience of this project are stakeholders involved in transition pathway development, e.g., central and lower level government agencies in developing countries, as well as intermediaries involved in the process, such as consultants, (local) researchers and NGOs involved in policy influencing. Secondary audience includes researchers interested in such processes.

Publicaties