Sepo Hachigonta

Gerald C. Nelson

Timothy S. Thomas

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda

Southern African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis examines the food security threats facing eight of the countries that make up southern Africa  Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe  and explores how climate change will increase the efforts needed to achieve sustainable food security throughout the region. Southern Africas population is expected to grow at least through mid-century. The region will also see income growth. Both will put increased pressure on the natural resources needed to produce food, and climate change makes the challenges greater. Southern Africa is already experiencing rising temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns, and increasing extreme events. Without attention to adaptation, the poor will suffer. Through the use of hundreds of scenario maps, models, figures, and detailed analysis, the editors and contributors of Southern African Agriculture and Climate Change present plausible future scenarios that combine economic and biophysical characteristics to explore the possible consequences for agriculture, food security, and resources management to 2050. They also offer recommendations to national governments and regional economic agencies already dealing with the vulnerabilities of climate change and deviations in environment. Decisionmakers and researchers will find Southern African Agriculture and Climate Change a vital tool for shaping policy and studying the various and likely consequences of climate change.

A comprehensive analysis

Southern African Agriculture and Climate Change

Rakeshnie Ramoutar-Prieschl

This open access book provides an overview of the building blocks necessary for managing, steering and guiding the establishment of a research infrastructure (RI). It offers valuable insights into RI investment, access and management at the academic, grants management, agency and policy level, and serves as a useful guide for the research community, students, and those in the private sector wishing to understand the approaches and opportunities involved in the establishment, maintenance and management of research infrastructure platforms. Presenting a holistic view of RI investment and granting cycles from a South African perspective, the books target audience includes those working in science diplomacy, policymaking and science grants councils (especially in Africa) as well as funders and donors.

Management of Research Infrastructures: A South African Funding Perspective

Priscilla Mensah

David Katerere

Andreas Roodt

This book, which contains a collection of review articles as well as focus on evidence-based policy making, will serve as a valuable resource not just for all postgraduate students conducting research using systems analysis thinking but also for policy makers. To our knowledge, a book of this nature which also has a strong African focus is currently not available. The book examines environmental and socio-economic risks with the aim of providing an analytical foundation for the management and governance of natural resources, disasters, addressing climate change, and easing the technological and ecological transitions to sustainability. It provides scientific and strategic analysis to better understand the dynamics of future energy transitions, their main driving forces, enabling factors, barriers, as well as their consequences for the social, economic and environmental dimensions of human wellbeing. Science-based policy advice is achieved through an integrated assessment and modeling of how to simultaneously address the major energy policy challenges in the areas of environment (climate change and air pollution), energy poverty (or access to affordable and clean energy for the poor), energy security and reliability. It also aims to improve our understanding of ecosystems and their management in today’s changing world—in particular, the current state of ecosystems, and their ecological thresholds and buffering capacities. It provides support for policy makers in developing rational, realistic and science-based regional, national and global strategies for the production of fuel, food and fibre that sustain ecosystem services and safeguard food security. Finally, it addresses the human development dimension of global change based on comprehensive studies on the changing size and composition of human populations around the world by analyzing both their impacts and the differential vulnerabilities by age, gender and level of education.

Systems Analysis Approach for Complex Global Challenges

Sepo Hachigonta

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