Ryan Nehring

Multistakeholder platforms in transboundary waters: What do we know, and where should we go?

This policy brief synthesizes recent evidence on multistakeholder platforms (MSPs) in shared river basins and presents practical guidance for river basin organizations, development partners, and policymakers. It compares established basin-level MSP approaches across three basins (Nile, Zambezi, and Mekong) and describes how stakeholders in the Incomati and Maputo River Basins—shared across the Republic of South Africa, Eswatini, and Mozambique—built on these approaches to design their own MSP. This brief translates comparative evidence and field experience into a practical toolkit for advancing MSPs in shared basins.

Assessment of the processes of facilitating the co-creation of food system innovations in Caquetá/Colombia

A critical approach to co-producing knowledge for development

Motivation The concept of co-production has gained currency in development policy as an approach for collaboration and/or stakeholder participation to improve development outcomes. Co-production implies bringing together different knowledges to create something new, acknowledging that knowledge is both plural and partial; there are multiple ways of knowing and no one way represents truth. Yet existing literature on co-production tends to focus mostly on strategies for engagement rather than reckoning with structural forces and practical problems to realizing co-production. Purpose This article asks how the implementation of the co-production concept can account for relations of power. It develops a conceptual framework and practical guidance for co-producing knowledge for development. Approach and Methods The study provides an overview of the theory and practice of co-production and assesses its use in existing development policy. It draws on insights from political ecology literature to construct a conceptual framework and set of practical strategies for implementing co-production. Findings This article advances an approach to the co-production of knowledge that integrates political economy, reflexivity, and participatory methodologies to guide collaboration. This approach accounts for historical marginalization and unequal power relations to guide development interventions and/or policy. Policy Implications The article warns against uncritical adoption of co-production and highlights practical measures to examine power relations in order to understand challenges and enact equitable sustainable development in diverse settings.