sustainable development thesis proposal

PhD thesis proposal

You’ve successfully completed the comprehensive process and are now ready to finalize your proposal. What does that involve? The academic calendar provides important context for this process and outlines timelines and committee structure .

Normally, PhD candidates submit a dissertation proposal to the committee in time to ‘defend’ it by the end of the second year (sixth term) in the program. There is no formal defense but there is an expectation that PhD candidates will present their proposal to the advisory committee, and to revise the proposal to address all concerns and issues raised. Once the committee is satisfied with the proposal it can be approved and the milestone form completed.

Expectations regarding proposal content and structure vary. You are strongly recommended to discuss with your supervisor and committee the final content and structure of your proposal. However, there are some common proposal elements that can be used to prepare a draft and that can be modified as needed. A general proposal structure (and approximate single-space length estimates) is outlined below:

General Proposal Structure and Content

• Table of contents (provide a list of tables and figures as appropriate)
• 1.0 Introduction and problem context (1-2 pages): Outline the scholarly and practical/social relevance of your project. Explain the core sustainability challenge or problem, and indicate how your work can address this challenge (i.e., the ‘so what’).
• 2.0 Research questions/objectives or hypothesis (1 page): Outline your core research questions and/or objectives or hypothesis. Align questions/objectives/hypothesis with the core problem articulated above. Ensure subsequent sections of the proposal (literature review, methodology) refer back to and address these questions/objectives/hypothesis.
• 3.0 Literature review and conceptual framework (3-5 pages): Situate your research within the relevant scholarly literature; identify key gaps and limitations and set the foundation to justify your topic and your methodological approach. Work to develop of a clear theoretical or conceptual framework for your research.
• 4.0 Methodology and methods (i.e., research design) (3-5 pages): Establish the philosophical and epistemological foundations for your work and situate your choices about methods and tools for data collection, analysis and synthesis. Clearly outline specific methods, highlighting their strengths and limitations with regard to your research specifically. Indicate the relationship among your data collection and analysis plans and your research objectives/hypotheses, and any assumptions you are making in the process.
• 5.0 Expected outcomes and contributions (1-2 pages): Identify and discuss the expected outcomes and novel contributions you hope to make – these can be theoretical, empirical and/or focused on applied or policy contexts. If you are planning to follow a dissertation by manuscript format (see guidelines below), tentatively outline the expected focus of the three main manuscripts.
• 6.0 Schedule of activities (1 page): Provide an expected schedule of tasks and activities starting with proposal approval and ethics clearance, through to expected timelines for first drafts and proposed defense date.
• 7.0 Budget (as necessary) (1 page)
• 8.0 References (as required)
• Appendices (as necessary) : Consider including as needed such information as interview questionnaire/questions or other protocols and information as appropriate; details on methods or analytical tools that don’t need to be in the main body of the proposal, etc.

Dissertation by manuscript*

SERS PhD students may in consultation with their supervisor and committee decide to follow a dissertation by manuscript format. In the manuscript option, the thesis will comprise the following:

• An introductory chapter(s) that outlines the problem context for the work, establishes its purpose and objectives, situates the work in the broader literature, and explains how the manuscripts presented in the body address the purpose and objectives. Typically, an integrated overview of the methodological approach and methods will also be included (however a standalone methods chapter or standalone literature review may be permitted to avoid excessive chapter length)
• Manuscripts (at least three for which the PhD candidate is first author; and possibly others for which the PhD candidate is not first author) that present research findings/contributions. Typically these will be manuscripts for refereed journals, but other formats, such as book chapters, may be appropriate. The manuscripts may submitted, in press, or published.
• A concluding chapter that outlines the principal findings and contributions of the total research effort.
• References cited in each manuscript, and in the introductory and concluding chapters, are normally consolidated at the end of the thesis.
• Appendixes may also be included as part of the thesis.

The entire thesis must be formatted according to the requirements of the GSPA. All chapters, including those presenting previously published work, must use a consistent format, and must be continuously paginated.

The following are other requirements for the manuscript thesis option:

• An important principle that must be followed in developing the manuscript thesis is that the entire document will comprise a conceptual "whole". Thus, the manuscripts should relate to the overall purpose of the PhD research program and its objectives. It is not acceptable for a student and his or her advisor to work on separate "projects" during, or outside of, the PhD program, and then submit manuscripts relating to these projects for the thesis. It is also not acceptable to include manuscripts completed prior to the commencement of the PhD program.
• The first-authored manuscripts must be dominated by the intellectual effort of the student, and these manuscripts must be written by the student.
• Where multiple authorship occurs, there must be a preface statement in the thesis outlining the roles of the respective authors, and clarifying the extent and nature of the contribution of the thesis author. Co-authors must sign the statement to indicate that they are in agreement with the evaluation of the roles and contributions of the various authors.
• In no case can a co-author serve as an external examiner for the thesis.
• When previously published, or in press, work is reproduced in the thesis, waivers from copyright holders are normally required. These should be included as an appendix.

* Adopted from the Waterloo-Laurier Joint Program in Geography .

PhD in Sustainable Development

Ph.d. curriculum.

The distinctive and innovative nature of this program requires a core set of courses that provide an interdisciplinary grounding. Each of these courses is taught at the level expected of first- or second-year Ph.D. students in the affiliated departments. The course structure is designed to provide students with PhD-level training in economics and a natural science field, complemented by integrative courses in sustainable development designed specifically for this program and courses in social sciences. The course structure combines flexibility to pursue an individual field of study with broad-based skills and knowledge development. The core curriculum consists of around ten core courses, listed below. Students must also complete two social science electives and a coherent sequence of four natural science courses for a minimum total of 60 credits and should maintain an overall B+ average with no lower than a B- in any of the core classes. In addition to course work, students participate in integrative seminars  Sustainable Development Seminar I ( SDEV U9200 ) / Sustainable Development Seminar II ( SDEV U9201 ) throughout the first three years of the program, and complete the MA thesis and take an Orals Exam (leading to the MPhil Degree), in addition to presenting and defending a Ph.D. dissertation.

Due to the unique interdisciplinary content of the program, students entering with a master’s degree earned at Columbia University or elsewhere are still required to complete all MA and MPhil course requirements and examinations.

Advanced Standing for previously held degrees may occasionally be accorded at the discretion of the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) after successfully completing the first year.

Students must select an advisory committee before the end of the fourth semester, ideally earlier, with the help and approval of the DGS and Program Faculty. The committee ideally comprises 2 to 3 members, one of whom is the academic advisor and must be a member of the SIPA faculty. The remaining advisors can be from other Columbia University schools and departments or from other universities. An advisor from a different university cannot be the main academic advisor. The advisory committee should include faculty whose expertise covers both the social and natural sciences.

For the first year or (at most) two academic years, the DGS will have the role of academic advisor. The role of the advisor is to guide and monitor research progress, including reporting to GSAS on the progress of the student, sitting in on Orals and Defense committees, and other associated duties .

Service Requirements

In addition to completing the requirements for the MA and the MPhil, students have to fulfill a teaching and research requirement. This entails six semesters of work as a teaching fellow (TF) or a graduate research fellow (GRF), as assigned by the director of the program. Students typically serve as TFs in SIPA master-level courses as well as a few undergraduate courses. Students who secure external fellowship funding may reduce this requirement with the approval of the Director of Graduate Studies. Still, in all cases, every student must TA at least two semesters .

The Ph.D. in sustainable development is designed and supported as a five-year program. It is recognized that some students may need to extend their studies for all or part of a sixth year. While this can be accommodated administratively, students cannot assume that funds will be available to support the sixth year of study, and they are urged to make efforts to secure fellowship support or obtain funds through their advisors or from outside sources. Sixth-year extensions may be granted as exceptions and must not be assumed.

John Mutter , Professor  Director of the Ph.D. in Sustainable Development [email protected]

Tomara Aldrich Program Coordinator for the Ph.D. in Sustainable Development  [email protected]

John Mutter , Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and of International and Public Affairs; Director of the PhD in Sustainable Development program

Douglas Almond , Professor of International and Public Affairs and of Economics

Scott Barrett , Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics

Geoffrey Heal , Donald C. Waite III Professor of Social Enterprise in the Faculty of Business and Professor of International and Public Affairs

Cristian Pop-Eleches , Professor of International and Public Affairs

Jeffrey Sachs , Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development; Professor of Health Policy and Management; Director of the Earth Institute

Wolfram Schlenker , Professor of International and Public Affairs

Jeffrey Shrader , Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs

Rodrigo Soares , Lemann Professor of Brazilian Public Policy and International and Public Affairs

Joseph Stiglitz , University Professor

Requirements for the MA Degree

Sustainable development courses.

These courses are designed and taught specifically for the PhD students in Sustainable Development, although they may be open to students from other programs.

Core Economics Courses

All core economics courses are taught in the Economics Department and are drawn from the Economics PhD syllabus. More information about these courses can be found from the Economics department Web site .

Social Science Courses

Students must take at least 3 social science courses. 

Natural Sciences Courses

Students must also take 3 natural science electives drawn from the following departments:

Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B)

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES)

Department of Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) at the Mailman School of Public Health

Department of Earth and Environmental Engineerin g (DEEE) at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS)

The master’s thesis should be completed by May 1 in the fourth semester and should address a problem in sustainable development using data and methodologies from the four natural science courses completed in the first two years of the program. The thesis consists of an article (around 30 pages long), which would be publishable in an appropriately refereed academic journal reflecting the disciplinary orientation of the project.  Students should submit the Masters paper to their research advisor(s) with a copy to the DGS. The advisor later meets with the student and submits a pass/fail grade to the Assistant DGS for processing. For titles of MA thesis projects previously completed by students in the program please see here .

Requirements for the MPhil Degree

Completion of the MA requirements with a minimum of 60 credits and a B+ average.

Complete 4 out of 6 semesters of service requirements (Teaching Assistant, TA or Research Assistant, RA appointments) . Students with outside funding need to complete a minimum of 2 TA appointments.

Fulfillment of research tools requirement

Core courses in quantitative methods (Introduction to Econometrics I and II, and a third Quantitative Analysis course).

Either a two-course sequence in GIS or other analytic modeling systems or a proficiency examination in a non-English language, as selected with the approval of the academic adviser.

Submission of a final draft of the dissertation prospectus , approved by the adviser, to the MPhil Examining Committee three weeks prior to the MPhil examinations. The prospectus should:

be a single, 10-page document

be distinct from the Master’s thesis though it can build on similar research

cover the methods and objective of the research project

Two-hour long oral exam designed to examine the candidates’ formal learning and their capability to do independent research, including the presentation of a dissertation prospectus/proposal. The examination committee will consist of three faculty members, normally from the Sustainable Development core faculty, and will be chaired by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), who will lead the discussion of the prospectus. Examinations are conducted as follows:

5 minutes: the candidate will give a formal presentation of the prospectus

30 minutes: all members of the examining committee, led by the DGS, will ask questions.

30 minutes: examination of proficiency in fields most relevant to the proposed research, from within the following subjects:

Natural Science

Sustainable Development

(Optional) An elective field, such as study of a region

Each component will be graded on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest. If the average grade is 3.5 or above the student receives a clear pass. If the average grade is below 3.0 the student will be required to leave the program by the end of the current semester. If the average grade is between 3.0 and 3.5 or if any individual grade is below 3.0 the committee require the student to take further courses, revise their prospectus, or provide a revised research paper.

Requirements for the PhD Degree

Phd dissertation.

The PhD dissertation will be on a social science topic in sustainable development. The social science research will be informed by an understanding of physical and natural science constraints and opportunities influencing economic development.

Students with a regional area of interest to their dissertation may wish to do research abroad, so as to conduct field studies, use archives, improve language skills, or confer with local experts. In order that students may complete the PhD program without delay, it is preferred that they make use of summers to conduct such research. Students who feel they require a longer period of field research or language training need the approval of their advisor, and of the DGS. Students may not receive extended residence credit for study or research away from Columbia before the completion of all course work requirements and comprehensive examinations.

PhD Defense

Complete the GSAS deposit application and pay the $85 processing fee;

Submit the required Survey of Earned Doctorates online;

Upload and submit a PDF copy of your dissertation;

Obtain a signed Approval Card that certifies you have made all required revisions and that the dissertation has been approved for deposit by your sponsor and by your doctoral program.

Open defenses (optional)

If both the candidate for a defense and the Advisory Committee choose to have an “open” defense, the following will apply:

The candidate will have a maximum of 40 minutes to present major conclusions of the thesis research, with at least half of the time devoted to a description of new findings or insights in the field discussed that directly resulted from research by the student.

 Any member of the University community or other interested parties can attend the first part of the thesis defense.

Questions following the initial presentation are permitted for a maximum of 10 minutes.

Following the oral presentation by the candidate and the brief period for general questions, the defense committee will question the candidate in closed session for a period of up to 90 minutes.

If either the candidate or the Advisory Committee prefer, the procedures for “closed defense” (i.e., 20-minute oral presentation followed by questions from the defense committee in closed session for a period of up to 90 minutes) will be followed.

Candidates must consult with their advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies about scheduling the defense. Every Ph.D. student must submit the Intent to Distribute and Defend form directly to GSAS.

The final examination will not be scheduled until the Director of Graduate Studies has recommended the dissertation for defense. A five-person examining committee will be appointed by the department and must be approved by GSAS. The DGS will then officially invite the examiners.

The Application for Defense must be completed by the Candidate and the Director of Graduate Studies and submitted by the program’s office to the GSAS Dissertation office.

Members of the PhD examining committee must be given a minimum of three weeks to read the thesis, so the defense may comfortably be scheduled after submission of the thesis to the Advisory Committee. Before being recommended for defense, the candidate must submit to his/her Advisory Committee draft copies of the thesis, including figures, plates and tables and obtain the Advisory Committee’s written approval of the draft. (Written approval by the Advisory Committee indicates only that the thesis as it stands or with revisions suggested by them is in good enough form to justify scheduling the defense.)

After the Advisory Committee has given its preliminary approval in writing, and the candidate has made any revisions suggested by them, he/she must distribute copies of the dissertation to the external readers. Instructions for the correct form for preparing the manuscript and information on publication options may be obtained via the Graduate School’s website ( http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsas/ )

The candidate must see that outstanding fees or loans to the University are paid and make sure that he/she has fulfilled all other Departmental requirements. When these requirements have been fulfilled and the examining committee has been appointed by the DGS, the candidate is notified of the examination date, usually about two weeks in advance.

After passing the final examination, the candidate must see to any minor revisions and their approval by the examining committee before final deposit. If major revisions were called for (a defense-vote of “incomplete”), these must be made and submitted within a stated period (usually no fewer than three months and no longer than one year from the date of the defense) to the supervising committee, whose approval will have to be certified in writing before the candidate can be recorded as having passed the final examination. From the time of the “pass” vote, the student has a maximum of six months to deposit the thesis. There are four steps to completing your deposit -- the steps can be done in any order, but your deposit is only considered complete when all four steps are done.

Doctorate degrees are awarded in October, February, and May. Check the academic calendar for specific deadlines for the final deposit of the dissertation. (You may, however, call yourself “Dr.” as of the day of your deposit, since that date will appear on your official transcript.)

PhD in Sustainable Development Courses

SDEV U6240 Environmental Science for Sustainable Development. 3.00 Points.

Category: EE, EPD:Sustainable

This course provides a rigorous survey of the key areas of natural science that are critical to understanding sustainable development. The course will provide the theories, methodological techniques and applications associated with each natural science unit presented. The teaching is designed to ensure that students have the natural science basis to properly appreciate the co-dependencies of natural and human systems, which are central to understanding sustainable development. Students will learn the complexities of the interaction between the natural and human environment. After completing the course, students should be able to incorporate scholarly scientific work into their research or policy decisions and be able to use scientific methods of data analysis. This is a modular course that will cover core thematic areas specifically, climate, natural hazards, water management, public health/epidemiology, and ecology/biodiversity. To achieve coherence across lectures this course will emphasize how each topic is critical to studies of sustainable development and place-based case studies in recitation will integrate various topics covered. In the lectures and particularly the recitation sections this course will emphasize key scientific concepts such as uncertainty, experimental versus observational approaches, prediction and predictability, the use of models and other essential methodological aspects

SDEV U9200 Sustainable Development Seminar I. 1.50 Point.

This course is restricted to PhD in Sustainable Development

SDEV U9201 Sustainable Development Seminar II. 1.50 Point.

SDEV U9240 Human Ecology ＆ Sustainable Development. 4.00 Points.

Category: EPD:Sustainable, PhD in Sustainable Development Open to PhD Students Only

This course has two primary objectives: first, to provide a structured way to think about—and conduct research in—the field of sustainable development. Second, to introduce formal models of dynamic, coupled human and environmental systems

SDEV U9245 Environment ＆ Resource Economics. 3.00 Points.

This course aims to introduce you to the basic concepts of environmental economics

SDEV U9248 Collective Action for Global Sustainable Development. 3.00 Points.

Category: PhD in Sustainable Development Registration restricted to PhD Students

When externalities go uncorrected, and public goods go undersupplied, the reason is not that the market fails; the reason is that governments are unable or unwilling to intervene effectively. The biggest problem is with transnational externalities and regional and global public goods. This is partly because of the scale of these problems, but it is also because the institutional arrangements at this level make effective intervention difficult. There is no World Government. Instead, there are around 200 sovereign states. To support sustainable development globally, states must cooperate, and yet states' self-interests often conflict with their collective interests. This is why all countries agree that collective action must be taken to limit climate change, and yet, though they try and try again, countries seem unable to muster the individual action needed to meet their own collective goal. The aim of this course is to develop an apparatus for understanding international collective action for sustainable development. By an apparatus, I mean a theory, a structured way of looking at and understanding the world. Rather than just present the theory, my aim is to show you why theory is needed, how it has been constructed, and what its strengths and weaknesses are. Basically, in addition to teaching you principles and tools, I want you to come to see how this field has developed, what it has achieved, and where it has fallen short. Throughout the course, we shall also be looking at tests and applications of the theory-empirical and experimental papers in addition to case studies. The course draws from a number of disciplines, especially economics, game theory (analytical and experimental), and international relations-but also international law, philosophy, history, the natural and physical sciences, and engineering. The focus will be on institutions, and the way that they restructure the relations among states to cause states to behave differently-that is, to cause them to undertake collective action. In terms of applications, the course will address not only climate change but also depletion of the ozone layer, trans-boundary air pollution, pollution of the oceans, over-fishing, biodiversity loss, and the emergence and spread of infectious diseases

ECON GR6211 MICROECONOMIC ANALYSIS I. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: the director of graduate studies' permission. Corequisites: ECON G6410. Consumer and producer behavior; general competitive equilibrium, welfare and efficiency, behavior under uncertainty, intertemporal allocation and capital theory, imperfect competition, elements of game theory, problems of information, economies with price rigidities

ECON GR6212 MICROECONOMIC ANALYSIS II. 4.00 points .

Prerequisites: the director of graduate studies permission. Corequisites: ECON G6410. Consumer and producer behavior; general competitive equilibrium, welfare and efficiency, behavior under uncertainty, intertemporal allocation and capital theory, imperfect competition, elements of game theory, problems of information, economies with price rigidities

ECON GR6411 INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMETRICS I. 4.00 points .

Corequisites: ECON G6410 and the director of graduate studies' permission. Introduction to probability theory and statistical inference

ECON GR6412 INTRODUCTN TO ECONOMETRICS II. 4.00 points .

Corequisites: ECON G6410 and the director of graduate studies permission. Introduction to the general linear model and its use in econometrics, including the consequences of departures from the standard assumptions

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Food systems for sustainable development: proposals for a profound four-part transformation

• Review Article
• Open access
• Published: 09 August 2018
• Volume 38 , article number  41 , ( 2018 )

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• Patrick Caron   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8494-2243 1 , 2 ,
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Evidence shows the importance of food systems for sustainable development: they are at the nexus that links food security, nutrition, and human health, the viability of ecosystems, climate change, and social justice. However, agricultural policies tend to focus on food supply, and sometimes, on mechanisms to address negative externalities. We propose an alternative. Our starting point is that agriculture and food systems’ policies should be aligned to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This calls for deep changes in comparison with the paradigms that prevailed when steering the agricultural change in the XXth century. We identify the comprehensive food systems transformation that is needed. It has four parts: first, food systems should enable all people to benefit from nutritious and healthy food. Second, they should reflect sustainable agricultural production and food value chains. Third, they should mitigate climate change and build resilience. Fourth, they should encourage a renaissance of rural territories. The implementation of the transformation relies on (i) suitable metrics to aid decision-making, (ii) synergy of policies through convergence of local and global priorities, and (iii) enhancement of development approaches that focus on territories. We build on the work of the “Milano Group,” an informal group of experts convened by the UN Secretary General in Milan in 2015. Backed by a literature review, what emerges is a strategic narrative linking climate, agriculture and food, and calling for a deep transformation of food systems at scale. This is critical for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. The narrative highlights the needed consistency between global actions for sustainable development and numerous local-level innovations. It emphasizes the challenge of designing differentiated paths for food systems transformation responding to local and national expectations. Scientific and operational challenges are associated with the alignment and arbitration of local action within the context of global priorities.

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Future Food Systems

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1. Introduction

2. Food systems: an integrated perspective to address the “food and nutrition security, ecosystem integrity, climate and social justice” nexus

3. Food systems transformation for sustainable development: the four parts

3.1. Healthy and sustainable food consumption patterns

3.2. A new vision of sustainable agricultural production and food value chains

3.3. Contributing to mitigate climate change

3.4. A renaissance of rural territories

4. The new food systems transformation

4.1 . Assessing the contributions of food systems to the SDGs

4.2. Achieving impact at scale through local-level action

4.3. Managing the intersection of global and local priorities through territorial approach

5. Conclusion

1 Introduction

An exceptional process reached its conclusion in 2015. For the first time in history, world leaders have unanimously agreed on a vision for the future of humanity: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Through a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets (UN 2015 ), the agenda articulates a universal and integrated plan of action of application in all countries, developed and developing alike. The 2030 Agenda integrates the three dimensions of sustainable development across the 17 SDGs, and within each of the goals, together with human rights, peace, security, and governance. In the words of the then United Nations Secretary General, it represents a paradigm shift and a plan of action for dignity, people, planet, prosperity, justice, and partnerships (UN Secretary General, 2014 . paragraph 64). In this framework, SDG 2 aims to “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture,” while SDG 13 urges to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.” The impact of climate change undermines human rights and reinforces inequalities and injustice. In this way, climate action is also a moral imperative that brings justice to the center of the climate-poverty-development discussion, a message that is at the core of Pope Francis’ Encyclical “Laudato Si” and the Climate Justice perspective (Robinson 2015 ). Through the Paris Agreement on climate, 195 countries have established a universal action framework in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Nature Climate Change 2016). The SDGs set concrete targets for multiple issues and sectors that are critical to climate action.

Against this backdrop, the then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon convened an informal High-Level meeting of experts and policy-makers in Milan on the 2015 World Food Day (“Milano Group”), with the mission of laying out shared views on the following: (i) a strategic narrative that links climate, agriculture, and food, (ii) emerging opportunities for bringing this narrative to the climate debate, and (iii) options for action. This paper builds on the outcomes of the Milano Group’s deliberations and focuses its main conclusion: the need for the transformation of food systems—at scale—in order to achieve the SDGs and the Paris Agreement. The transformation should deliver multiple and simultaneous social, economic, and environmental outcomes, including poverty eradication and mitigation and adaptation to climate change. This consensus implies a radical shift in comparison with the paradigms that steered the agricultural changes of the XXth century. We therefore refer to a new transformation in food systems, in agriculture, and in rural livelihoods.

After examining the links between agriculture and food and nutrition security (FNS) and the evolution of the role of agriculture for development, we conclude with the need to move beyond food supply as the basis for food systems. We identify four essential parts for the transformation of all food systems. We also discuss some of the principles that should underpin the transformations, as well as major challenges with implementation.

2 Food systems: an integrated perspective to address the “food and nutrition security, ecosystem integrity, climate and social justice” nexus

The sustainable development of the world’s people and of their planet is only possible if all people are food secure and well-nourished, if all ecosystems are healthy and balanced, if societies are resilient in the face of threats posed by climate change, and if governance of development benefits is fair and just. Food systems “consist of all the elements (environment, people, inputs, processes, infrastructures, institutions, etc.) and activities that relate to the production, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food, and the outcomes of these activities” (HLPE 2014 ).

Agriculture and fisheries are the primary livelihoods for most of the world’s people and influence all these realities. One can easily understand the exclusive focus and pressure placed on the agricultural sector by the injunction to “produce more” over the past two centuries. It was no easy task to enable the exponential growth of the global population, moving from 1 to 7 billion people in two centuries and from 3 to 7 billion between just 1960 and 2010, while Malthus observed a linear increase in agricultural production (Malthus 1798 ). Wars and famines were avoided, and the prophecy of Malthus was not fulfilled—thanks to the Green Revolution. While population doubled between 1961 and 2003, global food production increased by a factor of 2.5 (Paillard et al. 2011 ), leading to a steady increase in the average food available per person, from 2373 kcal/person/day in 1969/71 to 2772 kcal/person/day in 2005/07 (FAO 2012 ). This increase in production was associated with significant changes in food systems with major risks to food security confined—in the main—to localized populations affected by violent conflict and/or unexpected weather events. However, there are underlying risks associated with a “high level of corporate concentration in food trade, transformation and distribution” (HLPE 2017a ), unequal endowments in agricultural assets, difference in access to natural resources (De Schutter 2011 ), and inequalities in people’s income.

Agriculture has suffered from a lack of public interest and investment in recent decades. As a consequence of the riots that affected many countries in early 2008 due to the spike in food prices, agriculture was back on center stage in the scientific literature (Godfray et al. 2010 ; Guillou and Matheron 2014 ) and in the political agenda (HLTF 2008; reform of the Committee on World Food Security; priority in the G20 and G8 agendas). Evidence shows that global and regional per capita availability of food has constantly increased during recent decades and that the available global supply was not the basis of this food crisis. Rather, it was inequalities of access to food because of extreme differences in people’s purchasing power and excessive trade-related volatility in world food prices. This was a result of an erosion of planning and regulatory capabilities at every level: the consequence was a global crisis of the food system (Headey 2011 ) that threatened the global economy and drove political instability throughout the world.

However, the boost in attention that resulted from the 2007–2008 food price crisis (MC Arthur 2015 ) has not led to a sustained increase in the level of political attention given to agriculture and food systems. This is a paradox given that well-functioning food systems are critical for advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Hence, there is a need for new narratives and better means for their communication, starting with an explanation of why food systems are so important. Firstly, agriculture and fisheries are the primary means of income for most of the world’s poor and vulnerable people (IBRD/World Bank (The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank), 2007 ). Secondly, food and nutrition insecurity, as well as rural poverty, are root causes of political instability, conflict, violence, and migration (FAO 2016 ). Indeed, the HLPE (HLPE 2017a ) reports that “unequal access to food is… a driver of many other inequalities and instability… and (leads to) to low levels of investment in the provision of public goods and services.” Thirdly, agricultural practices are highly connected to environmental health, management of natural resources, and climate change (Smith 2013 ). Fourthly, the crop, livestock, and fish sectors are resource intensive. They use 70% of freshwater resources (Kabat 2013 ) and are responsible for around 30% of total energy demand (FAO 2011a ). Fifthly, agriculture is at least twice more effective than any other sector in reducing poverty (IBRD/World Bank 2007 , op. cit. ) and will continue to play a pivotal role in efforts to reduce extreme poverty (Christiaensen et al. 2011 ). Since agriculture is—worldwide—the main source of jobs (30.7% of the world’s workers were employed in the agriculture sector in 2014; FAO 2015a ), the rural sector contributes to around half of the total reduction in extreme poverty (de Janvry and Sadoulet 2010 : p. 18).

The agriculture sector has only recently given priority to climate change, in particular to its increasingly dramatic impact on the millions of small-scale family farmers and food processors. This is significant as they produce around 80% of the food consumed in the world (Sourisseau 2015 ; IAASTD 2009 ) and represent more than 80% of the 570 million households living from agriculture (Lowder et al. 2016 ). Climate therefore threatens the food and nutrition security of people living in the most vulnerable ecosystems (Campbell et al. 2016 ): this is unjust and contributes both to suffering and to forced migration. It threatens both peace and security. At the same time, the agricultural sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is directly responsible for 14% of emissions and contributes 24% if related land use changes are taken into consideration (IPCC 2014 ). At the 17th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (COP17) in 2011 in Durban, the conference requested its Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advise (SBSTA) to consider issues related to agriculture. The landmark 2015 Paris Agreement has subsequently underscored the importance of ensuring food security for all: the Parties recognized “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger, and the particular vulnerabilities of food production systems to the adverse impacts of climate change.” However, Article 2 of the Agreement reflects the potential trade-off between fostering low GHG emissions and ensuring that sufficient food is available for all people. This paradox is unsurprising. It reflects some of the difficulties observed in successive negotiations at the UNFCCC (Campbell 2014 ) and results from well-developed national positions (Caron and Treyer 2016 ) related to people’s food and nutrition security, to the organization of international trade, and to the need for increases in agricultural productivity. However, the need for attention both to agricultural practices and to land use is clearly identified in the vast majority of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC; Thornton et al. 2017 ) to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This reflects the capacity of changes in agriculture to contribute to climate change mitigation as well as to enable food producers to adapt to new weather patterns. The particular relevance of agriculture for adaptation is also reflected in the context of the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) alongside the NDCs, where agriculture is a prime consideration. The 23rd conference of the parties in Bonn, 2017, has reflected the political will of parties to intensify work on agriculture with adopting the Koronivia joint work on agriculture by which the COP requests both SBSTA and SBI to jointly address issues related to agriculture (4/CP23). The recent Koronivia decision recognizes and highlights the additional challenge of achieving food security under a changing climate and specifically addresses vulnerabilities in the agriculture sector.

Hence, there are many reasons why it would not be correct to continue addressing Food and Nutrition Security solely as a global supply issue (Fouilleux et al. 2017 ). Population growth is no longer the main driver of demand in agriculture and food systems. Increasing per capita incomes, cash-cropping, urbanization, and changing dietary preferences are exerting ever stronger influences (HLPE 2016 ). Despite the need to boost food production in certain regions, most importantly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the world is not currently suffering an overall food shortage. When it identified critical and emerging issues in 2017, the HLPE highlighted the need for transformation of both production and consumption patterns and the organization of food systems. It also focused on the challenge of social and economic inequalities and the suffering of small-scale food producers and processors, especially women, who have tended to be left behind by initiatives geared to increasing production (HLPE 2017a , op. cit. ).

There is no reason for the future to reflect the past (Paillard et al. 2009, op. cit .). There are numerous reasons why the evolution of food systems should shift from an exclusive focus on boosting production so as to increase the supply and availability of food. Future generations will be better served if such food systems are designed so that they contribute to achieving the SDGs. The focus of food systems should be on eradicating poverty, increasing resilience, ensuring people’s food and nutrition security, promoting good nutrition and health, reducing inequalities, contributing to peace, promoting political stability, regenerating ecosystems, and mitigating climate change. The full diversity of food systems must be taken into account as they are redesigned (Ingram 2011 ): the starting point must be to shift the focus from “feeding people” to “enabling people to nourish themselves” and doing this in a way that is sustainable (Haddad et al. 2016 ).

The overall purpose is for agriculture and food systems’ to make the greatest possible contribution to achievement of the SDGs: food systems transformation should reflect a consensus on pathways to be pursued and their potential impact—in terms of environmental, social, nutrition, and health outcomes.

3 Food systems transformation for sustainable development: the four parts

Food systems provide a powerful lever for economic and social development. Agriculture, food processing, and distribution have evolved substantively in the last century because of urbanization, mechanization, and modernization. Their performance has deeply transformed most economies.

The evolution has involved the industrialization of processing, commoditization of all types of food, globalization of markets, increases in distant exchanges, and reorganisation of distribution. Even if such changes have touched only part of the agriculture sector, the dynamic that has been generated is very strong. The challenges faced by farmers, especially small- and medium-sized landholders, have been highlighted: appropriation of biological resources (Godfray et al. 2010 , op. cit. ), land tenure and grabbing (HLPE 2011b ; www.landmatrix.org ), increased competition, exclusion linked to standards and specifications (Reardon et al. 1999 ), market instability and excessive price volatility (HLPE 2011a ), reduced access to credit, dismantling of support mechanisms and services (IBRD/World Bank 2007 , op. cit. ), growth and emergence of risks—particularly climate (Beddington et al. 2012 ), and emerging diseases (Morand and Figuié 2016 ).

The evolution of food systems has brought unprecedented increases in production and wealth, but many concerns have emerged regarding externalities. This has led to questions about the long-term sustainability of current agriculture and food production. They include—firstly—concerns about environmental issues and more specifically to threats regarding species diversity, ecosystem integrity, and ecosystem based services (Conway 1997 ; Steffen et al. 2015 ; Maxwell et al. 2016 ), as well as to related trade-offs (Phalan et al. 2011 ; Byerlee et al. 2014 ). Secondly, there are concerns about rural impoverishment, vulnerability, and human rights (Pingali 1993 ) which call for attention to dependency on imported food, technologies, or inputs, to health impacts of inappropriate food consumption, and to risks linked to concentration of food processing and of distribution chains (Murphy et al. 2012 ).

In a world increasingly focused on sustainable futures for people and planet, there is growing recognition of the important role played by agriculture. Following the food price spikes in 2008, there was increased awareness of the multiple inter-relationships between agriculture and key social, environmental, and economic issues. The sector is less and less considered as a problem, and more and more is seen as a solution (Brussaard et al. 2010 ; Lipper et al. 2014 ). The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offers new momentum for work on the potential contributions of agriculture to public goods. It can be viewed as a powerful lever for the achievement of the overall 2030 Agenda. For this to happen, there has to be a transformation of food systems as a whole and not only from a sectorial point of view throughout the world: this has four interdependent parts that must be initiated and managed. This applies despite the diversity of local contexts as illustrated by Fig.  1 , the pathways being followed, and the solutions that are developed. It means taking account of trade, climate change, global health, ecosystems, migration, actions of corporations, and of global social movements: all these elements justify the use of a global framework.

Vibrant and innovative local-specific human-driven systems as engine for a profound food system transformation (source: N. Le Gall/Cirad—Année international des Forêts 2011). Illustrates the profound food system transformation that is required to achieve the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate and that is made of four parts (nutritious and healthy food, sustainable agricultural production and food value chains, mitigation of climate change and resilience, renaissance of rural territories). Such a transformation relies on the capacity to design and implement local specific innovation based initiatives to address local and national expectations through diverse adapted pathways. It also depends on the capacity to stimulate such initiatives and to orchestrate such a transformation at the global level to ensure orientation and consistency among scales

3.1 Healthy and sustainable food consumption patterns

The first part of the transformation relates to food consumption patterns. This challenge is amplified by the unprecedented questions raised by the supply of an increasing urban population. What must be produced in the future, both in terms of volume and quality and the social, health, and environmental footprints of production modes, will mainly depend on what is consumed, wasted, thrown away, or recycled. Unhealthy diet is now recognized as a universal problem and the number one risk factor driving the world’s disease burden (Forouzanfar et al. 2015 ). Malnutrition irreversibly prevents hundreds of millions of people from reaching their full potential capabilities of living a healthy and productive life and is broadly recognized as a social injustice. Food consumption is an important area of innovation and public policy due to its links with production, value chains, the environment, nutrition, and health (Porter et al. 2014 ). Sustainable and nutrition-sensitive food consumption patterns should be supported through favorable food environments (HLPE 2017b ). Dietary changes and reductions in food wastage are core elements of the SDG for sustainable consumption and production (goal 12) and, more broadly, of all SDGs.

3.2 A new vision of sustainable agricultural production and food value chains

The second part of the transformation involves the promotion of inclusive, sustainable, and nutrition-sensitive agricultural production, processing, distribution, and marketing. It should consider the multiple functions of, and demands made on, agriculture and food. Sustainable agriculture can create decent jobs, support inclusive growth, improve livelihoods, and adapt to climate change. It must be implemented in ways that are tailored to each context. FAO estimates suggest that the economic empowerment of rural women through an equal access to productive resources (reflected in SDG 1) could increase yields on their farms by 20–30%, lifting 100–150 million persons out of hunger (FAO 2011b ).

None of these changes are attainable in the absence of healthy ecosystems and their associated services. The challenge is to increase agricultural production on existing agricultural lands in ways that ensure biodiversity, maintain the integrity of ecosystems, and sustain ecosystem services: it is one of the world’s core sustainability challenges. Patterns of agricultural production and the measures of agriculture’s performance and effects must be reconsidered in ways that take account of the multiple functions expected from agriculture, including adaptation to and mitigation of climate change, biodiversity management, the provision of ecosystem-based services, people’s incomes, and just societies.

Pioneer farmers are pursuing ecologically sound agricultural practices and are well able to contribute to this part of the transformation. Numerous technical advances have been developed and subjected to scientific analysis—including agroecology (Wezel et al. 2009 ; IPES-Food 2016 ) and organic agriculture (Halberg and Müller 2013 ). Agroecology—in its many incarnations—is now considered by many global leaders as an approach that can promote the transformation, as stated during a symposium organized by the FAO in April 2018.

One promising approach is to understand biological and ecological regulatory mechanisms and to amplify them to increase the efficiency of resource use in agricultural systems. This approach can help to design (and then assess) sustainable production systems: it involves the use of multiple criteria and many different measurement scales. It calls for the analysis and strengthening of systems for innovation: this is a challenge for scientists to better consider local knowledge and expertise (Hainzelin 2013 ; Caron et al. 2014 ; Tittonnell 2014). There is growing evidence regarding the impact of such approaches on increasing incomes and improving food and nutrition security (HLPE 2016 , op. cit .), on improving the resilience of small-scale farms, and on reducing greenhouse gas emissions (FAO 2013 , op. cit .). As this is an emerging area for scientific analysis, there are controversies about the potential impact of different production models and the best pathways to pursue in different settings. This leads to the co-existence of different—sometimes conflicting—narratives (Petersen and Snapp 2015 ). There is therefore a need for stimulating innovation that is adapted to each situation, which addresses barriers and obstacles and that generates impact at scale.

3.3 Contributing to mitigate climate change

A concerted response to the challenge of climate change is at the heart of the 2015 Paris Agreement and is central to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is the third part of the sustainable transformation of food systems. The starting point is the contribution of agriculture and land use changes to GHG emissions and the limited capacity of existing agricultural and food systems’ practices to lower their climate footprint. Simply put, if climate action is to be effective, there must be profound changes to agricultural systems (Lipper et al. 2014 , op. cit .).

Climate-compatible and sustainable agriculture, in particular Climate-Smart Agriculture (FAO 2013 ), identifies the synergies that can result from agricultural practices that mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases (and reduce emissions through carbon capture), strengthen the social-ecological resilience of agricultural landscapes and rural communities in the face of unpredictable weather patterns, and contribute to improvement in rural livelihoods through sustainable improvements in productivity. Thus, although farming and land use changes are important drivers of climate change, they can also contribute to reduced emissions (Lipper et al. 2014 , op. cit. ). Provided that opportunistic behavior, in particular green-washing, is avoided, transformed agriculture and food systems can be important levers for effective climate action.

3.4 A renaissance of rural territories

The fourth part of sustainable food system transformation reflects the extraordinary potential for territory-based institutions to stimulate people’s well-being through providing a range of social, economic and environmental functions and services that are essential to the whole of society (OECD/FAO/UNCDF 2016). Effective action at territorial level contributes to the food and nutrition security of rural and urban populations, to steady and shared economic growth, to decent jobs for young people, and to reducing root causes of frustration and conflict, which can lead to unrest, violence, and forced migration (Mercandalli and Losch 2017 ). In practice, this requires the establishment of trusted means to encourage—among others—greater equality of opportunity including gender equity, the sustainable management of natural resources, resilience in the face of climate change, as well as access to clean air, to water and sanitation, to renewable energy sources including wind and solar radiation, and to telecommunications.

At the heart of vibrant territories are strong political institutions and a wealth of social capital—at the local as well as at national and regional levels. The institutions need to be strong enough to support food systems transformation (Rigg 2006 ). This requires people within territories being empowered to develop their visions for sustainable development and then to implement meaningful activities. This is particularly important in rural areas, since, after decades of public disinterest, rural areas and their inhabitants are at high risk of being left behind. When this happens, it has a negative impact on all dimensions of sustainable development. The alternative is a rural renaissance , in which the relationships between rural and urban populations are recrafted within a renewed rural–urban social contract. It is central to the achievement of the SDGs, and the alternative—a process of urbanization that is built on the deprivation of rural areas—is widely seen to be unsustainable and likely to drive the migration of people from rural areas to towns and cities (HLPE 2017a , op. cit .).

4 The new food systems transformation

These four parts together make up the food systems transformation that is required if the SDGs are to be achieved. The use of the term “transformation” is deliberate as incremental change will not be enough. The breadth and depth of the transformation required suggest that it must be supported by people who are committed to radical, collective and long-term change. We do not refer to it as a revolution, since it must happen as a well-conceived and carefully planned process that engages all stakeholders. Considerable intellectual and material investment is required to make it happen. The investment should result in exploration of a broad range of options and should be explored as a basis for developing novel strategies and practices (Godfray et al. 2010 , op. cit .). Barriers and obstacles that impede action must be identified and overcome. This includes power imbalances and conflicts of interest across food systems (HLPE 2017b ), as well as the trade-offs needed to align local systems with global priorities for sustainability. Managing the trade-offs calls for enlightened governance and political arbitration. The investment includes an exceptional national and inter-national mobilization of people with the capability to do this work and to establish means to build inclusive, sustainable, and safe agriculture, food, and rural systems. The people who lead it must be able to embrace the four components of food systems transformation and to create optimal conditions for their implementation. The transformation will not occur spontaneously: it must be planned, designed, implemented, and monitored by those who will be locally involved in implementation working within agreed parameters for sustainable development at national and global levels.

The first stage of implementing the transformation depends on the existence of agreed orientations that are shared among the actors. Context-adapted goals need to exist at all levels, from local to global, that are fully in line with the SDGs. There will be tensions between different interests and handling them calls for political management of trade-offs between stakeholders and among processes of arbitration. A consistent framework is needed to promote the transformation while addressing the complex and interrelated challenges, particularly the synergies and trade-offs between what is expected at local, national and global level.

The second stage of implementing the transformation requires the involvement of scientific groups and political actors through enabling them to access new knowledge to learn new processes and to implement them intensively (Caron et al. 2014 , op. cit .). In recent decades, agricultural innovation has tended to promote homogeneity and uniformity: the transformation recognizes the virtues of diversity and context-adapted solutions. “Context-adapted” and “place-based” solutions should be favored over “one size fits all” prescriptions (IAASTD 2009 )—even if the latter maintain the illusion to be easily taken to scale.

The third stage of implementing the transformation relies on shifts in the governance of food systems so that they prioritize human development and people’s food and nutrition security, the stewardship of renewable resources, long-term ecosystem health, as well as equitable growth, trade, and consumption (Lambek et al. 2014 ). This requires the design of new policy frameworks at national—and global—levels. Such shifts can only take place if they are supported by all stakeholders—including businesses. While it is the role of Government to establish policy and define standards, the governance of food systems has to be both multi-scalar and multi-stakeholder, and this adds to complexity (Lang et al. 2009 ). It is important that the interests of the many people who are poor, vulnerable, and at risk of being left behind are prioritized.

Finally, the fourth stage of implementing the transformation relies on new ways of thinking, planning, and managing policies and programs for production, consumption, innovation, and rural development. Linear thinking and logic models that seek to prescribe results need to evolve into approaches that embrace complexity, focus on socio-political processes and transitions, take account of the multiple relationships between stakeholders, and consistently commit to the empowerment of all peoples in ways that enable them to realize their human rights (Ferrero and Zepeda 2014 ).

The four stages of implementing the transformation remind us that success results from multiple actions along a range of pathways. The transformation cannot be advanced through one universally applicable technical model: pathways must be context-specific, multi-dimensional, and integrated. Advancing the transformation requires the design and implementation of new and differentiated actions at local level, responding to expectations of different stakeholders, reflecting national policy, and—at the same time—seeking to impact at scale, so contributing to achievement of the SDGs. The affirmation of this plurality, like the uncertainties regarding the paths to follow in each place, reflects the pre-eminence given to local knowledge and innovations, including from farmers themselves, as well as the local application of scientific expertise. It will result in the revaluing of different forms of knowledge.

There are three prerequisites for successful implementation of the four-part transformation, which needs immediate attention. First, metrics that aid planning, implementation, and monitoring must be designed and tested. Second, links between local and global action must be organized to enable coherent changes on a significant scale. Third, territorial approaches must be used to incentivize actors so that they adopt new practices.

4.1 Assessing contributions of food systems to the SDGs

To appreciate the contribution of food systems to the SDGs, we need (a) to be able to describe their characteristics with a common language and (b) to measure systems performance in relation to the SDGs. There is still much to be done on how to measure performance: this need is leading numerous authors to propose new methods and indices. The explosion of indices is unsurprising because of the wide range of issues involved. Many countries are already implementing multi-dimensional poverty measures (Alkire and Robles 2016 ). The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has proposed a Food Security Index ( http://ghi.ifpri.org/ ) to serve as a dashboard. More recently, FAO has developed the Food Insecurity Experience Scale: this has been adopted in the SDG indicator framework (FAO 2016c ).

The articulation of the 17 SDGs requires us to completely modify how performance is conceived and measured. The UN Statistical Commission has developed an indicator framework for the SDGs that is expected to be further refined in the coming years to include some of these complex variables (UN 2015 ).

It will be critical for the food system transformation that the SDG indicators integrate the core variables that define the overall transformation and its four constituent parts. This calls for further work to ensure that frameworks and indicators can fully describe the nexus of food and nutrition security, environmental health, climate and social justice, as well as the impacts of food systems on the nexus. The frameworks and indicators must be applicable at local levels and—at the same time—contribute to analysis at global level. The metrics that derive from these frameworks should be publicly available so that those who make investments can assess the extent to which they succeed in transforming food systems and to which they will contribute to change at scale.

We propose a framework that has two overarching characteristics. First, it takes interactions between food and nutrition security, environmental health, climate, and social justice into account. Second, it focuses on ways in which the nexus is influenced by changes in food systems. We believe that the framework can help with identifying potential indicators and developing them. The combination of framework and indicators should encourage the production of evidence that can support policy decisions and action in different contexts. The framework is described in Fig.  2 .

Assessing the food systems transformation capacity to address the Agenda 2030 through the agriculture–food and nutrition security–environment health–climate–social justice nexus. Suggests a general framework for food systems transformation by highlighting the four parts, each of which can be characterized with specific variables. These can be used to design relevant indicators for assessing the impact of system transformation

4.2 Achieving impact at scale through local-level action

The combination of research-based innovation and traditional knowledge yields multiple options for transforming food systems at the local level. For example, many rural communities permanently adapt agricultural practices so that their livelihoods can become more resilient in the face of climate change. Local-level change contributes to the overall transformation of food systems. Ideally, this local knowledge and experience should be made more widely available so as to examine the extent to which they can be applied more widely across nations and regions. Yet, most of these local experiences are not directly reproducible in different agricultural–sociological–economic systems and this limits the extent to which they can be taken to scale. This suggests that the transformation of food systems cannot rely exclusively on universal approaches or the scaling-up of local specific solutions.

The food system in each locally setting is characterized by context-specific environmental, cultural, and agronomic features. There may also be locally specific patterns of financial investment and of trade. The local system is influenced by its interactions with large-scale processes, such as specific consumer demand, via the retail sector. The local system functions in ways that reflect the interests of the agriculture and food sector: these are determined by power relations and social structures and are affected by long-standing agreements, trade-offs, and conflicts. Because of the heterogeneity of local food systems, and the ways in which they are shaped by the contexts within which they operate, it is necessary to establish context-specific and localized pathways for transformation. In order to design and implement such pathways, it is the responsibility from political bodies and associated institutions to establish legitimate relevant objectives, assessment metrics, and indicators for food system transformation.

The large-scale impact of local food systems changes does not just result from the summation of local-level initiatives and processes: it depends on the simultaneous application of interventions at different levels. To assess the contribution of local changes to global impact, two other types of metrics will be needed.

The first is to quantify interaction between the different levels of intervention that contribute to system transformation (Gunderson and Holling 2002). This is needed because successful transformation depends on the successful integration of local and regional policies and initiatives. This includes the resolution of tension and sometimes conflicts between internationally agreed goals and local realities, interests, agreements, and habits. This involves effective governance and political arbitration in the event of trade-offs.

The second is to quantify the degree to which frameworks are being applied to support (a) policy coherence between local and national levels and (b) the management of trade-offs and compromises required to make coherence happen. One issue that has been highlighted is the intersection between local agriculture and food systems with the globalized market. This is critical—and quite controversial—given the concentration of food corporations, the homogenization of markets, and the expansion of international trade in food associated with the multiplication of international trade agreements. “Many economists argue that the environmental and social concerns associated with freer trade are best addressed with domestic policies that do not distort trade… Others encourage markets but support market interventions …, while the food sovereignty movement argues that local markets are the priority” (HLPE 2017a , op. cit .). The multi-stakeholder United Nations Committee on World Food Security should be sufficiently empowered by its members to provide global-level political governance for food systems transformation.

4.3 Managing the intersection of global and local priorities through territorial approaches

A territory is much more than an administrative area. It is a bounded space that has stood the test of time, is owned by a social group that identifies with it, and which accepts specific forms of governance and control (Caron et al. 2017 ). A territory offers its inhabitants a form of social regulatory capacity that has been established at the interface between collective action and public administration: that latter represents an increasing commitment to sustainability. In practice, territories may be defined in different ways: a municipality or a coalition of municipalities, a traditional area for indigenous people, habitations around a watershed, a value-chain corridor, a production basin, and so on. Its people have a similar vision of their destiny and common concerns about the threats they face. They support the rule-based administration of public affairs and favor strong and well-directed collective action: this can buffer the impact of market and state failures on the territory and its people (Ostrom 1990 ). It usually involves a link between collective action and public administration, with efforts to resolve contradictions between them.

When food systems are transformed in ways that encourage resilience in the face of adverse weather, they bring multiple benefits both to people and to landscapes (Scherr et al. 2012 ). Such changes are dependent on the effective organizations of individual territories, on constructive relationships between rural and urban areas, among territories, with national authorities and with international institutions. Implementing a territorial approach to food systems (Benoît et al. 2006 ) involves working in five dimensions: (i) establishing an operational definition for what is meant by a territory; (ii) creating functioning institutions and governance platforms through building social capital and empowering local stakeholders; (iii) encouraging improvements in production through better rural infrastructure, links to markets, climate-compatible agriculture, and stimuli for non-farm economy; (iv) providing support for poorer people including safety-nets, conditional cash transfer programs, and other forms of social protection; as well as (v) implementing of territorial development as a national strategy through rural development policies and financing instruments.

5 Conclusion

Inclusive and sustainable food systems are necessary not only for achieving SDG 2 but also as a contribution to the whole of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Sustainable food systems may contribute to four outcomes: (i) enabling all people to eat nutritious and healthy diets, (ii) regenerating ecosystems, (iii) mitigating climate change, and (iv) encouraging social justice through focusing on the resilience and well-being of poorer rural communities. There are economic and political interests which will influence the realization of these outcomes: transformation efforts will be contested and need strong political support, including from within urban areas, if they are to succeed.

Vibrant rural territories, within which people produce food, deliver essential services, and contribute to the whole of the society, are indispensable. The SDGs will simply not be achieved without rural prosperity. The interdependence of rural and urban areas should be recognized and form the basis of a new rural–urban social contract. This will be the basis of society remunerating rural dwellers and their territories both for the functions they perform and for the public goods they provide to societies, the planet, and economies. To this end, it is important that relevant metrics are used to illustrate the benefits of sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food systems.

Although the pathways for most food systems changes are designed at local and national levels, the universal implementation of this four-part transformation should be pursued in global forums and advocated within global governance processes. The four parts should be mainstreamed in existing institutions, agreements, and conventions, in particular the UNFCCC. The newly established Koronivia joint work for agriculture might provide a relevant space within the process where analyses, metrics, knowledge platforms and learning could be encouraged. The four part transformation should feature strongly within national policies, societal norms, integrated management of territories and systems for public accountability. All actors, whatever their modes of production and consumption, should be encouraged to engage. There are no universal technical “fixes” for such a food systems transformation: the approach must always be adapted to the specificities of different locations. This means encouraging analyses, metrics, knowledge platforms, and learning that are locally relevant in ways that include all stakeholders.

There is always more to be learnt about the links between agriculture, climate, food and nutrition security, ecosystem regeneration, and social justice, given the constant evolution of humanity and the planet. Science is invited to help understand the links and the ways in which change is taking place over time and to enable decision makers to anticipate and appreciate what was not known before. Implementing the food systems transition will be knowledge intensive. But knowledge generation has a cost; it calls for well-directed investment in research that does not only deliver technology but also helps with understanding of dynamics, transitions, and interfaces. The research should help to decode each nexus, use metrics, quantify progress, and dissect out the basis of any disagreement. It should contribute to explore possible futures through foresight analysis, the identification of critical and emerging issues and to the formulation of policies.

The food systems transformation depends on enlightened policies, well-adapted processes, local to global integration, and value systems based on justice and human rights principles for arbitrating trade-offs. All concerned will need to think in interconnected ways that link systems, use novel data sets, and aid decision-making. These are substantial demands, but unless such changes are made, the transformation will not succeed. The experience of the Milano Group demonstrates how regular interactions among diverse leaders from different stakeholders—decision makers, implementers, scientists, farmers, civil society organizations, businesses, and consumers—can develop new narratives and result in collective action for transformation.

The process could be accelerated through multi-stakeholder coalitions to encourage greater alignment among actors in the framework of the UN system action as in the Committee on World Food Security, through encouraging science-based systems changes, curated Food Systems Dialogues, and high-level advocacy such as a global panel for Food Systems Transformation. This could follow the example of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate led by former President of Mexico Felipe Calderón. Such a concerted effort for food systems transformation is key to the implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate and the 2030 Agenda. It will also be an opportunity for the diverse actors that share a common vision to explore the links between evidence and policy and between local and global processes.

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Caron, P., Ferrero y de Loma-Osorio, G., Nabarro, D. et al. Food systems for sustainable development: proposals for a profound four-part transformation. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 38 , 41 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-018-0519-1

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THE 17 GOALS

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End poverty in all its forms everywhere.

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Sdgs icons. downloads and guidelines, the 17 goals.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,  adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

The SDGs build on decades of work by countries and the UN, including the  UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs

• In June 1992, at the  Earth Summit  in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, more than 178 countries adopted  Agenda 21 , a comprehensive plan of action to build a global partnership for sustainable development to improve human lives and protect the environment.
• Member States unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration at the  Millennium Summit  in September 2000 at UN Headquarters in New York. The Summit led to the elaboration of eight  Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)  to reduce extreme poverty by 2015.
• The Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development and the Plan of Implementation, adopted at the  World Summit on Sustainable Development  in South Africa in 2002, reaffirmed the global community's commitments to poverty eradication and the environment, and built on Agenda 21 and the Millennium Declaration by including more emphasis on multilateral partnerships.
• At the  United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20)  in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012, Member States adopted the outcome document  "The Future We Want"  in which they decided, inter alia, to launch a process to develop a set of SDGs to build upon the MDGs and to establish the  UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development . The Rio +20 outcome also contained other measures for implementing sustainable development, including mandates for future programmes of work in development financing, small island developing states and more.
• In 2013, the General Assembly set up a 30-member  Open Working Group  to develop a proposal on the SDGs.
• In January 2015, the General Assembly began the negotiation process on the  post-2015 development agenda . The process culminated in the subsequent adoption of the  2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development , with  17 SDGs  at its core, at the  UN Sustainable Development Summit  in September 2015.
• Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction  (March 2015)
• Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development  (July 2015)
• Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development  with its 17 SDGs was adopted at the  UN Sustainable Development Summit  in New York in September 2015.
• Paris Agreement on Climate Change  (December 2015)
• Now, the annual  High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development  serves as the central UN platform for the follow-up and review of the SDGs.

Today, the  Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG)  in the United Nations  Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA)  provides substantive support and capacity-building for the SDGs and their related thematic issues, including  water ,  energy ,  climate ,  oceans ,  urbanization ,  transport ,  science and technology , the  Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) ,  partnerships  and  Small Island Developing States . DSDG plays a key role in the evaluation of UN systemwide implementation of the 2030 Agenda and on advocacy and outreach activities relating to the SDGs. In order to make the 2030 Agenda a reality, broad ownership of the SDGs must translate into a strong commitment by all stakeholders to implement the global goals. DSDG aims to help facilitate this engagement.

Follow DSDG on Facebook at  www.facebook.com/sustdev  and on Twitter at  @SustDev .

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Every year, the UN Secretary General presents an annual SDG Progress report, which is developed in cooperation with the UN System, and based on the global indicator framework and data produced by national statistical systems and information collected at the regional level.

Please, check below information about the SDG Progress Report:

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Please, check here for information about SDG indicators and reports: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs#

Additionally, the Global Sustainable Development Report is produced once every four years to inform the quadrennial SDG review deliberations at the General Assembly. It is written by an Independent Group of Scientists appointed by the Secretary-General.

• Global Sustainable Development Report (2019)
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2024 Theses Master's

Merging The Digital With The Physical: Augmented Reality Technology For Digital Heritage Interpretation

Chen, Daoxin

This thesis explores the role of digital technology in enhancing heritage interpretation, with a particular focus on Augmented Reality (AR) as a tool for engaging the public with architectural heritage. It delves into the AR design processes and the potential of AR to enrich the public's understanding of cultural heritage. Grounded in the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) interpretation principles and the PrEDiC (Presentation, Embodiment, Dialogic interaction, and Cultural learning) framework for digital heritage interpretation, this study proposes a new framework that integrates AR technology with heritage interpretation. The proposed framework will be applied to analyze AR applications at three heritage sites, leading to the development of new design guidelines tailored for AR in cultural heritage settings. This guideline will try to ensure that AR applications effectively meet interpretation needs and that interactions between the public and heritage sites inform the design of AR experiences. The practical application of these guidelines will be illustrated through a design proposal for the Low Memorial Library at Columbia University. This demonstration will highlight how AR can enhance cultural understanding and foster a deeper connection between the public and cultural heritage.

• Historic preservation
• Augmented reality
• Architecture--Conservation and restoration--Technological innovations
• College buildings
• Low Memorial Library
• Columbia University

This item is currently under embargo. It will be available starting 2026-06-01.

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La exposición de Canaán (Haití) a los riesgos naturales y antrópicos : proyectos de desarrollo urbano y gobernanza postcatástrofe

• Autores: Remsly Desravines
• Directores de la Tesis: Joana Maria Petrus Bey ( dir. tes. ), Mauricio Ruíz Pérez ( dir. tes. )
• Lectura: En la Universitat de les Illes Balears ( España ) en 2024
• Idioma: español
• Número de páginas: 487
• Tesis en acceso abierto en: RepositoriUIB

La presente tesis doctoral tiene como objetivo examinar las estrategias de desarrollo implementadas en Canaán, Haití, después del terremoto devastador ocurrido en 2010. El enfoque principal se centra en el análisis de la gobernanza, la vulnerabilidad y los riesgos naturales y antrópicos. A través de un análisis crítico, se evalúan los enfoques de desarrollo adoptados y se identifican las limitaciones que enfrentan éstos a la hora de lograr reducir la vulnerabilidad y el riesgo en esta zona caracterizada por una alta vulnerabilidad socioambiental. El análisis resalta la importancia crucial de una gobernanza efectiva y participativa en la planificación y ejecución de proyectos de desarrollo, especialmente en áreas propensas a riesgos naturales. Después de analizar los resultados de una extensa encuesta realizada en 2018 en Canaan, se examinan los desafíos y obstáculos enfrentados por los residentes en la zona, tales como la falta de coordinación entre los actores clave, la debilidad institucional y la exclusión de las comunidades locales en la toma de decisiones. Para abordar estas limitaciones, se propone la aplicación de un enfoque integrado hacia la sostenibilidad, de acuerdo a los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) promovidos por la ONU, para abordar los desafíos de la gobernanza y la gestión de riesgos en proyectos de desarrollo en zonas vulnerables. Además, se utiliza el método de la jerarquía analítica (AHP, por sus siglas en inglés) para desarrollar una herramienta de valoración previa de proyectos, la cual permite evaluar de manera sistemática y objetiva la idoneidad de las intervenciones planificadas en términos de su impacto socioambiental. Los resultados del análisis crítico revelan las deficiencias en las estrategias de desarrollo implementadas en Canaán después del terremoto. Se identifican problemas en la gobernanza, como la falta de participación de las comunidades locales en la toma de decisiones y la insuficiente coordinación entre los actores involucrados. La propuesta de la herramienta de valoración previa de proyectos basada en AHP busca mejorar la toma de decisiones en futuros proyectos de desarrollo en zonas de alta vulnerabilidad socioambiental. Esta herramienta considera aspectos clave de sostenibilidad, como la equidad social, la preservación del medio ambiente y la resiliencia frente a los riesgos naturales y antrópicos. Así, se espera que los hallazgos y recomendaciones de esta investigación sean de utilidad para los responsables de la toma de decisiones y los profesionales involucrados en el desarrollo sostenible y la reducción de riesgos en contextos similares a Canaán, Haití.

Aquesta tesi doctoral té com a objectiu examinar les estratègies de desenvolupament implementades a Canaan, Haití, després del terratrèmol devastador ocorregut el 2010. L'enfocament principal se centra en l'anàlisi de la governança, la vulnerabilitat i els riscos naturals i antròpics. A través d'una anàlisi crítica, s'avaluen els enfocaments de desenvolupament adoptats i s'identifiquen les limitacions que enfronten a l'hora d'aconseguir reduir la vulnerabilitat i el risc en aquesta zona caracteritzada per una vulnerabilitat socioambiental alta. L'anàlisi revela la importància crucial d'una governança efectiva i participativa en la planificació i execució de projectes de desenvolupament, especialment a les zones propenses a riscos naturals. Després d'analitzar els resultats d'una extensa enquesta realitzada l'any 2018 al Canadà, examinant els fracassos i els obstacles dels delinqüents per part dels residents de la zona, històries com la manca de coordinació entre els actors clau, la debilitat institucional i l'exclusió de les comunitats locals a la zona. procés de presa de decisions. Per abordar aquestes limitacions, es proposa aplicar un enfocament integrat cap a la sostenibilitat, d'acord amb els Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible (ODS) promoguts per l'ONU, per abordar els desafiaments de la governança i la gestió de riscos en projectes de desenvolupament en zones vulnerables. A més, s'utilitza el mètode de la jerarquia analítica (AHP, per les sigles en anglès) per desenvolupar una eina de valoració prèvia de projectes, la qual permet avaluar de manera sistemàtica i objectiva la idoneïtat de les intervencions planificades en termes del seu impacte socioambiental . Els resultats de l'anàlisi crítica revelen les deficiències en les estratègies de desenvolupament implementades a Canaan després del terratrèmol. S'identifiquen problemes en la governança, com ara la manca de participació de les comunitats locals en la presa de decisions i la insuficient coordinació entre els actors involucrats. La proposta de l'eina de valoració prèvia de projectes basada en AHP cerca millorar la presa de decisions en futurs projectes de desenvolupament a zones d'alta vulnerabilitat socioambiental. Aquesta eina considera aspectes clau de sostenibilitat, com ara l'equitat social, la preservació del medi ambient i la resiliència davant dels riscos naturals i antròpics. Així, s'espera que les troballes i les recomanacions d'aquesta investigació siguin útils per als responsables de la presa de decisions i els professionals involucrats en el desenvolupament sostenible i la reducció de riscos en contextos similars a Canaan, Haití.

This doctoral thesis aims to examine the development strategies implemented in Canaan, Haiti, after the devastating earthquake in 2010. The focus is on the analysis of governance, vulnerability, natural and anthropogenic risks. Through critical analysis, the development approaches adopted are assessed and the constraints they face are identified when it comes to reducing vulnerability and risks in this area of high socio-environmental vulnerability are identified. The analysis highlights the crucial importance of effective and participatory governance in the planning and execution of development projects, especially in areas prone to natural risks. After analyzing the results of an extensive survey carried out in 2018 in Canaan, the challenges and obstacles faced by residents in the area are examined, such as the lack of coordination between key actors, institutional weakness and the exclusion of local communities in decision making. To address these constraints, an integrated approach to sustainability is proposed, in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promoted by the UN, to address governance and risk management challenges in development projects in vulnerable areas. In addition, the analytical hierarchy method (AHP) is used to develop a pre-project evaluation tool, which allows a systematic and objective evaluation of the relevance of planned interventions in terms of socio-environmental impact. The results of the critical analysis reveal the shortcomings of the development strategies implemented in Canaan after the earthquake. Governance problems are identified, such as lack of participation of local communities in decision-making and insufficient coordination between stakeholders. The proposal for a pre-assessment tool based on the AHP aims to improve decision-making in future development projects in areas of high socio-environmental vulnerability. This tool takes into account key aspects of sustainability, such as social equity, environmental preservation and resilience to natural and man-made hazards. Thus, it is hoped that the findings and recommendations of this research will be useful to policymakers and practitioners involved in sustainable development and risk reduction in contexts similar to Canaan, Haiti.

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Suburbanization Problems in the USSR : the Case of Moscow

• Référence bibliographique

Gornostayeva Galina A. Suburbanization Problems in the USSR : the Case of Moscow . In: Espace, populations, sociétés , 1991-2. Les franges périurbaines Peri-urban fringes. pp. 349-357.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3406/espos.1991.1474

www.persee.fr/doc/espos_0755-7809_1991_num_9_2_1474

• RIS (ProCite, Endnote, ...)

Résumé (fre)

La suburbanisation n'existe pas en URSS au sens des phénomènes décrits dans les villes occidentales. Cependant on observe certains transferts limités d'activités industrielles exigeantes en espace ou polluantes, voire même de centres de recherches, vers les zones suburbaines ou des villes-satellites. Mais ces déconcentrations répondent à une logique de planification administrative. En outre, les Moscovites hésitent à aller habiter dans ces centres d'emploi, de crainte de perdre les privilèges liés à l'autorisation d'habiter Moscou (la propiska) et du fait des communications insuffisantes avec la capitale. Le taux de croissance de la population moscovite reste supérieur à celui du reste de l'oblast. Par contre le développement de datchas de seconde résidence est très important dans l'oblast de Moscou, en particulier aux alentours des stations de chemin de fer. L'abolition du système de propiska pourrait transformer les datchas les plus proches de Moscou en résidences principales.

Résumé (eng)

The suburbanisation does not exist as such in the USSR with the meaning one has of the phenomena in Western cities. Though one may notice some limited transfers of industrial activities demanding a lot of space or polluting ones, even research centres, towards the suburban areas or satellite-towns. But these déconcentrations correspond to an administrative planification logics. Moreover the Muscovites hesitate before going and living in these employment centres, because they are afraid of loosing the privileges linked with the authorisation to live in Moscow (the propiska) and because of insufficient communications with the capital. The growth rate of the Muscovite population remains higher than this of the remainder of the oblast. To the contrary developing of datchas for second residences is very high in the Moscow oblast, especially in the vicinity of a railway station. The abolishment of the «propiska» system might transform the datchas nearer to Moscow into main residences.

• Economic structure [link]
• Suburbanization of activities [link]
• Suburbanization of population [link]
• Conclusions [link]
• Literature [link]

Liste des illustrations

• Table 1. Employment structure, % [link]
• Table 2. Annual rate of population increase, % [link]
• Fig. 1. Spatial distribution of country-cottages and gardening associations in the Moscow region [link]

Texte intégral

Galina A. GORNOSTAYEVA

Moscow University

Suburbanization Problems

in the USSR :

the Case of Moscow

Suburbanization processes typical to cities in Western Europe, the USA and other countries are not observed in the USSR or they are distorted to such an extent that they may not be compared with existing standards. This states the question how Soviet cities-succeeded in escaping this stage of urban development. In order to answer this question, we should first summarize the main aspects of Western suburbanization.

Firstly, it is well known that the urbanization processes are linked to structural changes in the economy. Thus the transition from the stage of concentration to this of suburbanization is associated with industrialization, and the transition to the third stage - déconcentration - is related with the rapid growth of employment in the non-industrial sphere. Secondly, a suburbanization of economic activities can be distinguished. It applies in the first place to the building and iron- working industry, transports, engineering and chemical works. These are polluting and requiring extensive areas. This suburbanization of industry is caused by the following factors: rising demand for land from firms ; worsening of transport

tions in the inner cities ; demand for lower land costs and taxation levels in suburbs ; rapid growth of road transports; state policies regulating the growth of large cities ; migration of the labour force to the suburban zones. Scientific and educational activities are also transferred from the centre to the suburbs.

The third important aspect of suburbanization applies to the population. In the suburbs two opposite flows of population meet ; one is centripetal, coming from non- metropolitan regions, the other is centrifugal, coming from the central city. The reasons for the migration to the suburbs are as follows : declining living standards in large cities (overcrowding, slow housing renewal, environmental problems, etc.); growth of motorization of the population, development of communications (telephone, telex, fax, computer) ; intensifying decentralization of working places ; lower land prices in the suburbs ; state support for the intensification of real estate development in the suburbs. The above-mentioned factors and reasons for suburbanization are altered in the Soviet cities. Let us explore them, by taking for example the largest one - Moscow.

Economic structure

The employment structure in the USSR reveals sharp differences from those in developed urbanized countries. The USSR is characterized by a high share of employment in agriculture, industry, construction and a low share in the non-industrial sphere (tab. 1).

A correlation analysis of the percentage of urban population and employment in the different spheres of economic activity reveals that the share of urban population in the USSR is higher than in countries with the same percentage of persons employed in agriculture.

TABLE 1. EMPLOYMENT STRUCTURE,

Source: personal calculations.

The urbanization processes in the Moscow Capital Region (MCR) are more intensive than in other regions of the USSR. Structural changes are more obvious here : the share of employment in the non-industrial sphere increases more substantially and the percentage of persons employed in industry and agriculture is lower than in the whole country. However the MCR cannot therefore be compared with a metropolitan region in a Western country. Although Moscow is the most advanced agglomeration in the USSR, it lags is far behind the major world cities in terms of development and it is at the very start of the post- industrial stage of its structural and urban transformation.

The structural «anomaly» of the USSR as a whole and of the MCR in particular is explained by the enforced process of industrialization (starting from the thirties) at the expense of the peasantry (thus, there is not only a booming industrial employment in cities, but also worsening living and working conditions in villages and forced collectivization having triggered off the massive rural emigration). As a result, the share of urban population in the USSR is higher than expected, based on changes in the economic structure. While urbanization in the developed countries was due, among

other causes, to an increasing labour efficiency in agriculture, this remained quite low in the USSR. Therefore the employment share in agriculture is overstated in comparison with countries with a similar percentage of urban population, and even this considerable part of the labour force is unable to feed the whole population of the country.

The share of agricultural employment in the mcr increased from 7,4 % to 7,6 °7o between 1980 and 1985 (as a result of Moscow attractiveness and the better living standards in its surrounding villages), whereas it continued to decline in other parts of the Central region. The population growth in villages adjacent to Moscow is especially intensive, though labour efficiency in localities near Moscow is higher than in the other oblasts. In spite of this, Moscow oblast provides only 61 % of milk, 34 °/o of potatoes, 45 % of vegetables and 23 % of meat needed by the population in Moscow city and oblast (Argumen- ty i facty, 1988, N50, p. 3). The structural anomaly is not only related to processes in agricultural sphere but also in industrial sector. As a result of the low economic mobility of socialist firms and of the absence of market relations, the industrial development was extensive,

without significant increases of the labour

productivity.

Thus the employment transfer from the

agricultural to the industrial sector, their

extensive development and their low labour

productivity are intrinsically related with the political definition of productiorfrela- tions and course of structural economic transformation.

Suburbanization of activities

Moscow and Moscow oblast show divergent economic structures and changes (tab. 1). In Moscow the employment share in the non-industrial sphere in Moscow is growing more rapidly, whereas the share of industrial employment is decreasing. In Moscow oblast the part of transport and communication infrastructure, retail trade, administration, housing (presently less developed than in Moscow) is increasing. Some stages in the transformation of activities in the mcr's settlements may be pointed out here. The stage of industrialization and reconstruction after World War II is characterized by the swift industrial development and the active restructuration of the Moscow and Moscow oblast economy. New industries have been built (motor-car and aircraft assembly, machine-tool industry, organic synthesis, etc.), around Moscow research and production potential. Nevertheless, this restructuration is extensive, since traditional industries don't curtail production. It favours the heavy concentration of modern functions in Moscow. There is no transfer of firms outside Moscow. Suburbanization of industrial activities did not occur because of the state owning the means of production and of thé socialist form of production relations. When research and technological progress are slowing down, these firms become inefficient and spatially immobile. The period 1956-1970 is marked by an intensive development of the region scientific sphere and by the rise of « satellite » urban policy. The new centres were specialized in modern branches of machinery and research-engineering activities and were undoubtedly very attractive for the population. Therefore towns like Dubna were growing rapidly. While the aim was to redirect part of Moscow population

growth, they display a quite specific relation with the capital. For instance, Muscovites working in Pushchino cannot reach their job every day because they lack transport facilities. Nevertheless, they don't wish to move and register their passports in the city in which they actually work, since they would have to give up their Moscow registration and then lose all Moscow privileges (see further). These new centres are isolated from information sources in Moscow. Poor telephone communications, lack of computers and telex systems hamper contacts and teamwork with colleagues in the city. It seems that material resources for experimental work in research centres are not sufficient to compensate for lack of information and communications. At the same time, poor transport links with Moscow and the other towns of Moscow oblast isolate the scientists from the higher standard of culture in the centre and from a well developed social infrastructure. An original home-work relation can be observed in Dubna: the Muscovites get the second registration of passports and live there in hostel apartments during 4 or 5 working days, during the weekends they go back to Moscow, where their families are living. The change of functions in Moscow oblast towns is still going on. Inside the towns of the first circle adjacent to Moscow, the share of employment in the non-industrial sectors and transport is growing. Inside the towns of the second circle (suburban zone) these changes lead to an increasing potential of non-industrial, industrial and construction functions. Finally, in the outlying parts of the region the further grovth of construction and industrial functions is observed and the organization potential is intensifying in some towns. The mcr towns display a crawling concen-

tration of the regional most important functions and their extension outside the boundaries of Moscow to the towns of the suburban zone. But the déconcentration of functions in the mcr is not only of natural- economic character. It also results from the state urban policy. Déconcentration is not related to the search for more advantageous sites for firms and institutions as regards to economic or social relations (the availability of cheaper labour force or more comfortable living conditions, etc.), nor is it sustained by the expansion of transport and communication facilities. Thus, this déconcentration is independent from curtailment of any function in central Moscow, whose potential is still growing, and it is also completely inadequate regarding the continuing concentration of population (see below). All this, together with the slow economic and territorial mobility of firms, is an obstacle to the economic restructuration of the region, and to the reorientation of Moscow and its suburbs to non-industrial activities and to progressive scientific and informational work. The mass labour-consuming functions still remain in Moscow and its suburbs, but they are inevitably cut off from modern types of activities.

The idea of alleviating Moscow's development appeared from the very beginning of its rapid growth, since the excessive concentration of population and employment led (as in the other major world cities) to environmental discomfort, worsening of transport, strip-holding of land and other congestion signs. In market economies, the firms react to alterations of economic or social conditions by their mobility: some

of them close, other relocate in more convenient places. In the USSR, the problem of firm transfer (unhealthy or unprofitable firms) becomes unsolvable because of the special type of production relations. Economic and territorial passivity of firms is apparent in the difficulties of erecting industrial buildings and dismantling machinery and equipment, in the low turnover of the means of production. The same problem exist regarding the labour force. Firms transferred to the suburban towns of Moscow oblast are encountering great difficulties in recruiting staff in sufficient numbers and of required skill. The local labour force is rather weak, while the Moscow workers wouldn't leave the capital to follow their firm, because they are afraid of being deprived of passport registration in Moscow. From the social point of view, giving up a Moscow registration is more significant to people than losing their job. The processes going on in the mcr are therefore not quite comparable with those in the Western world. The market economy is more «lively» and replacement of functions has the character of territorial waves. Some functions disappear while new ones emerge. In the mcr, the waves are replaced by stratification. New functions do not replace the old ones, but joining them. At the same time, this process of relative déconcentration of functions overpass the process of stable concentration of population. In the mcr, the modern branches are gravitated closely to Moscow, where skilled workers are retained by their registration advantages. Suburban towns have to be satisfied with commuters or specialists from the outlying regions of the USSR.

Suburbanization of population

The urbanization structure of the region is characterized by the predominance of its main centre - Moscow. The share of the capital in the total Moscow oblast population was as follows: in 1929 - 44,3 Vo, in 1939 - 51,6 %, in 1959 - 54,9 %, in 1979 -54,5 Vo, in 1985 - 57,3 % (Moscow Capital Region, p. 137.). Within the agglomeration, the share of Moscow is still higher, in 1959 it was 75,5 % and in 1985

- 67,3 % (ibid., p. 141), whereas in the highly developed capital regions of the world the agglomeration counts one half or less of the total population and of the economic potential, the second half being concentrated in the suburbs (Gritsay, p. 71). Moreover, the growth rate of Moscow population is higher than that of Moscow oblast (tab . 2).

TABLE 2. ANNUAL RATE OF POPULATION INCREASE,

Migrations are of great importance to the mcr. The internal migration of rural population to the cities is rather substantial, and the immigration flow from the rest of the USSR is not compensated by the decrease of rural population in the mcr. The nearer a town to Moscow, the larger the migration share in its total population increase.

The dynamics of population in the mcr has a specific character. In agglomerations of the developed countries the principle of the «broken glass» summarizes the suburbanization process. When, for some reasons, the centre loses its attractiveness the urban population moves to suburbs in search of higher living standard. In Moscow agglomeration the principle of the «overfilled glass» is operating. People wanting to live in Moscow cannot enter the city and are forced to settle near it. In Moscow immigration undoubtedly prevails over emigration, confirming the extreme territorial differentiation in conditions, level and way of life. As a rule, commuting is oriented from suburbs to Moscow (600 thousand persons come to Moscow and only 200 thousand leave it), but it accounts only for 12-15 % cf the total employment in Moscow's economy. Moreover, these commuters are not Muscovites but potential new inhabitants of the capital (striving for passport registration and domicile in Moscow).

Moscow became the most attractive place for living and an intensive flow of ruined rural residents as well as residents from other regions of the country were rushing -to Moscow. These processes were generated not only by the inception of the country structural economic transformation,

but also by the policy of special privileges for Moscow. These privileges came into being after the establishment of a centralized distribution system. Such a system involves the assignment of a priority level of foodstuffs and manufactured goods to each territory. Moscow was awarded the highest priority level. From the very beginning, better living standards and higher income for certain population categories were established there. In the thirties the artificial differentiation in living standards was confirmed by imposing restrictions to passport registration in the capital, and also by the division of administrative bodies into Moscow and Moscow oblast authorities. In the period 1925-30 dozens of new large firms were located in Moscow, but housing was insufficient at that time. Therefore, a great number of migrants from every corner of the country came to get a job in Moscow and settled in cottages in the nearby countryside. Soon, these settlements in the nearby countryside. Soon, these settlements turned into urban ones. For example, towns like Mytishchi and Luberstsy developed rapidly, and even Muscovites moved there when the railways were electrified. This was clearly the outset of a suburbanization process, but it stopped as soon as the restrictions on passport registration in Moscow were imposed and the social barrier between Moscow and Moscow oblast was established. In the period 1930-40, new industrial developments were banned from Moscow and firms drawn towards the city were located on the outskirts thus causing a rapid growth of the old and new towns. Although the development of cottages as second residence near Moscow started even before the revolution, since the en-

vironmental degradation of Moscow was practically completed at that time, they became the main resorts of those years. They had flourished in the districts with privileged natural conditions and convenient transport services (not further than 2 km from a railway station). In the period 1930-40, this sprawl of leisure housing carried on - cottage settlements expanded into an entire belt of scattered one- storeyed buildings. But at the same time, urban multi-storeyed housing also increased and after World War II these multi- storeyed buildings were found in the cottage settlements of the leisure zone. In the period 1950-60 a network of gardening associations was established. In those

years the most convenient land near Moscow had already been built on. The gardening plots allotted to the Muscovites were located in the remote parts of the mcr, outside the suburban zone, and very frequently they were on improper territories. Because of their remoteness, the difficulties in cultivation and building, the lack of infrastructure, these plots cannot become effective leisure resorts. More frequently Muscovites use them for fruit and vegetable growing.

The desire of the Muscovites for having a second residence in the suburbs can be interpreted as an unfulfilled suburbanization tendency. This desire has the same, mainly environmental, causes as suburbaniza-

tion in Western countries. The cottages within the reach of Moscow's traffic and having access to appropriate infrastructure and amenities, might become the principal residence of Muscovites if passport registration is abolished. The restrictions of passport registration in Moscow fixed in the thirties were devised as an administrative solution against the effects of Moscow's unique attractiveness and not as a means of eliminating the attractiveness itself. For this reason, Moscow became even more attractive, like a forbidden fruit. The consequences were both the concentration of the upper strata of society in the city and the extensive development of industry, resulting in a growing shortage of unskilled labour.

The shortage of regular workers in Moscow is sometimes explained by the increasing number of working places. An adequate planning of the «limiters» (1) system is then put forward as the solution for controlling the growth of Moscow is found in (Glushkova, 1988, p. 43). To be frank, about twenty industrial units and more than one hundred scientific institutions were already created in the seventies alone, in spite of the industrial building ban in Moscow, only a few firms moved outside the city in return. New industrial units easily find staff, since they offer new machinery, relatively good working conditions and higher wages. New scientific and administrative institutions are in a similar position. But the situation is totally different in the old industrial units, with rundown equipment and a high level of manual tasks. Those units suffer from a staff shortage. Moreover, as in any other city, there is a social mobility in Moscow, in most cases improving - from manual up to mental, from unskilled up to highly skilled work. Furthermore, the prestige of a higher education (university) is overestimated in Moscow, whereas the prestige of the manual professions has declined as a result of the stagnation of reinvestments in industry, the high share of manual labour (40 %), and also favouritism and

crowding in the administrative staffs. The attractiveness of an upper class position is therefore overestimated, and social mobility activated. Since Moscow cannot admit free «immigrants» the lower strata of the social structure are vacant and there appears a shortage of unskilled labour force. The lower strata of the social structure were filled in with « limiters ». Available employment in Moscow was not the cause of an organized immigration flow, but represented the only possible way to register the passport there. Roughly half of these people drawn into Moscow's economy left their jobs. «Limiters» get the right to register their passports in Moscow and take up their residence in new houses when their contract expires. They usually quit their job as soon as possible in search of better working conditions (Glushkova, 1988, p. 42). The nature of unskilled work in Moscow and the associated working conditions are so unattractive that it is nearly impossible to find Muscovites willing to perform them.

The institution of passport registration raised many problems. Thus the « limiters » are recruited in social groups not needing most of the advantages of a large city, their psychology and value system differ sharply from native Muscovites. The direct environment of the hostels where «limiters » live, has a pronounced criminal character. Fictitious marriage in order to register the passport in Moscow has become a widespread practice.

Moscow's environmental problems can hardly be solved as long as passport registration exists. The population is literally locked up within the city boundaries. Notwithstanding the environmental stresses, the Moscow privileges prevent the Muscovites from leaving the city. The urban districts not saturated with harmful industrial units are the most prestigious. The social and economic causes of Moscow's extensive growth reveal that its problems are a reflection of the ones facing the USSR. The concentration of economic, social and management functions in Mos-

cow in Soviet times materializes the strong centralism of the particraty and weighs down on the city's development. Low labour efficiency in agriculture and sheer desolation of villages on the one hand, rapid but extensive industrialisation together with forced increasing social attraction of Moscow, confirmed by the restrictions on passport registration, on the other hand, were the key factors of the mcr's polarization during decades. Together with objective factors found in other large cities of the world, subjective factors related to the Soviet political and economic system influence Moscow's growth.

The objective factors are as follows: the diversity of employment in the capital, the emergence of new types of occupations, the concentration of high-skilled and creative labour, the higher living standards, the large educational and cultural opportunities.

The subjective factors are the higher supply level of foodstuff and manufactured goods different than in other regions (the existence of meat-rationing system in many regions of the country and its absence in Moscow establishes a significant threshold not only in terms of supply but also in the outlook of the population); the lack of communications and individual motorized transport (in the rsfsr one counts 47 cars per 1000 urban inhabitants against 560 in the USA) (Argumenty i facty, 1988, N47, p. 2); the craving for joining the upper social classes and for accessing neighbourhoods with a high quality of life; unjustified promotion of upward social mobility releasing «the ground floors» of Moscow's economy; continued growth of employment due to the extensive economic development and the low economic and territorial mobility of firms. Today, the hierarchy of priorities for selecting a residence within the mcr and the whole country is as follows. Food supply comes first. The supply of manufactured

goods, the opportunities to obtain better and larger living quarters and to accede to a prestigious employment with a wage increase, social promotion, well developed consumer services come next. And only at the end of the scale appears the opportunity to fulfil cultural needs and education. Thus, there is a process of «pseudo- urbanization» characteristic of the Soviet economic and social system, superimposed on the process of «natural» urbanization. By natural urbanization we mean the process related to economic development and to the natural difference between rural and urban ways of life. The specificity, the structural changes and the hierarchy of city functions shape the migration flows conditioned by natural urbanization. «Pseudo-urbanization» points to «the scum» of the process, that may complete the economic and socially conditioned urbanization. The «pseudo-urbanization» is generated by a disproportionate development of the country's economic structure (hypertrophie share of industry; economic and political reforms have triggered off a massive flow of the peasantry towards the cities, related not with the rising but with the lowering of labour efficiency in agriculture, with impoverishment of the countryside and hence with the urge towards the centres of relative well-being), and by the territorial inequalities in standards of living, artificially created and maintained by the institution of passports and registration.

The suburbanization of population cannot be observed in the MCR. The centripetal tendencies mentioned above resulted in rapid growth of Moscow and its suburbs, as well as in some stagnation of its periphery. Thus Moscow agglomeration is now in the first stage of development, the stage of «crawling» concentration where centrifugal forces are very weak. This situation will last as long as the barrier in terms of standards of living exists between Moscow and Moscow oblast.

Conclusions

This study has reaffirmed the general lack of suburbanization in the Soviet cities. Some signs of suburbanization like the

transfer of some activities from Moscow to the suburbs, the concentration of population in towns and villages near the central

city and commuting, differ significantly pie and firms will emancipate, only if the from the Western cities. The process of ur- existing political and economic system in banization will take its normal course, peo- the USSR is dismantled.

Argumenty i facty, 1988, N47, p. 2 Argumenty i facty, 1988, N50, p. 3

GLUSHKOVA V.G. Questions of Interrelated Settlement in Moscow and the Moscow Region, Problems of Geography, vol. 131, Moscow, 1988, pp. 40-56.

GRITSAY O.V. Western Europe : Regional Contrasts at the New Stage of Scientific-Technological Progress, Moscow, 1988, 148 p.

Moscow in Figures. 1980, Moscow, 1981, 220 p. Moscow in Figures. 1985, Moscow, 1986, 240 p.

National Economy of Moscow Oblast. 1981-1985, Moscow, 1986, 271 p.

National Economy of the ussr. 1985, Moscow, 1986, 421 p. Yearbook of Labour Statistics. 1987, Geneva, 1987, 960 p.

Moscow Capital Region: Territorial Structure and Natural Environment, Moscow, 1988, 321 p.

(1) Limiters are unskilled workers, hired in an organised way by Moscow firms; after working there for several years of working they get the right to register

their passports and to take up their residence in Moscow.