Beekeeping is commonly adopted as an additional livelihood activity that can help smallholder farmers diversify and enhance their livelihoods. However, it is unclear whether it is resilient to environmental shocks and stresses. This article investigates beekeepers’ experiences and perceptions about challenges to beekeeping in the Taita Hills Mountains, Kenya. Key findings demonstrated that beekeeping has the capacity to substantially increase household income, but there are several challenges which affect beekeeping’s sustainability considering predictions around climate and land use change. Bee population decline due to pesticide use was seen as a major challenge across the altitudinal range. In the highland areas deforestation, land use conflicts and cold weather were key issues; whereas in the lowlands water availability and the associated impacts on floral availability were the primary concerns of beekeepers.

The study aimed at understanding the implications of compensation packages for the social networks of displaced persons in Uganda’s oil-rich Albertine Graben. Questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions, and observations were used to obtain data from purposively selected respondents. Qualitative data was analysed using content analysis while quantitative data analysis entailed generating descriptive statistics (percentages) and inferential analysis was performed through cross-tabulation by way of chi-square tests. There was a significant association between compensation type and social network distortion for the affected groups (p = 0.000). Institutional management of different compensation packages exhibited professional shortcomings that need to be addressed to build sustainable social networks such as credit facilities. We thus recommend that government involves all stakeholders at every development phase and that compensation rates are continuously updated to allow for fair compensation rates in future and effective resettlement procedures during induced-displacement and resettlement processes.

Innovating is vital to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, to adapt to challenges and benefit from opportunities. Stakeholders’ decisions to engage in innovation programmes are influenced by their perceptions. This article uses the Q-method application to investigate these perceptions along the swine value chain in Benin. Fifty-five statements were established with local stakeholders and then graded by 25 interviewees on an 11-grade scale. Three main discourses were identified: an optimistic discourse tied to an endogenous vision of innovation, and a pessimistic one to a top-down, exogenous vision. A third discourse highlighted more nuanced redistributive effects of innovation. Innovation platform projects, stimulating local innovation, should rest on and reinforce the first optimistic discourse.

This paper investigates 90 different factors contributing towards the success of Engineers Without Borders USA water-well borehole projects based on four indicators. Seventy-five per cent of the 22 well projects studied were successful according to at least three of the four success definitions. Different factors impact the success indicators in complex ways. Community engagement should be sought out, though not necessarily during implementation. An experienced travel team, surprisingly, tends to create less successful projects, but this is improved by performing periodic control checks or supplementary pre-implementation surveys.

This viewpoint paper considers how companies are engaging in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Based on a review of the SDG engagement of 70+ of the world's largest companies, we challenge the assumption that business is making significant contributions to the SDGs. We develop an argument for how companies have continued with “business as usual” while reaping the reputational gains of being associated with the SDGs. We suggest four practices companies use to manage expectations to contribute to the SDGs (repackaging, cherry picking, agenda setting, and decoupling) and offer recommendations on how business can make more meaningful contributions to the SDGs.

Finance is vital for commercialising seed businesses and the Government of Nepal has launched a priority sector-lending plan (PSLP) for financing agriculture. This article assesses the use and role of finance and the challenges in accessing PSLP loans, using interviews with 197 farmer households and stakeholders. The results show that awareness about PSLP can increase gross margins by 46%, but farmers have yet to take on PSLP loans. Bankers lack the agribusiness knowledge to support PSLP. The study recommends that policymakers and bankers harmonise policies and PSLP implementation by aligning loans with cropping cycles, farmers’ institutions, seed value chains and effective outreach.

This article analyses the implementation of a sustainable food reserve programme in mitigating the malnutrition and empowering vulnerable communities in East Java, Indonesia. Structural equation modelling and sustainable livelihood approach were adopted as analytical tools. Data were compiled from the reports of executing institutions, and primary data were collected from stakeholders. Results show that the programme was successful in mitigating vulnerable communities from malnutrition, and empowering them to improve their livelihoods. Despite some constraints, the programme improved communities’ consumption patterns in ways that guaranteed balanced food consumption and enhanced five livelihood capitals.

The Vienna Declaration 1993 is an important instrument that provides a platform for creating a national human rights plan. This paper focuses on the practical aspect of localising international law in the drafting process of Thailand's human rights action plan. It argues that while the drafting process can serve as an argument against the existing criticism concerning the “supra-national” character of international law in the alienation of the local participation, the process also gives rise to the dilemma of public participation, which the paper calls “a national standardisation” on important human rights issues, namely the rights to social welfare of migrant workers and their dependants, and the abolition of capital punishment.