Linking Knowledge to Action for Sustainable Development in India

Pandey, Neha, Prakash, Chandra, and Deep Narayan Pandey. 2007. "Linking Knowledge to Action for Sustainable Development in India." To be presented at National Conference on Avenues for Empowering the Poor and Enhancing their Growth in the Era of Knowledge Economy, New Delhi, April 24-25, 2007.

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Abstract
"Sustainable development is driven by knowledge because progress of society towards sustainability is a knowledge-intensive enterprise. Investing in creation, communication and linking knowledge to field and policy action is therefore necessary for ecological, economic and social well-being. While India ranks very high in terms of number of research papers published annually, when it comes to linking that knowledge to action for bringing human development it ranks very poorly. "The Human Development Index (HDI) for India is 0.611, which gives India a rank of 126th out of 177 countries. Drawing on the pioneering efforts on linking knowledge to action, here we argue that in order to reduce poverty and bring sustainable human development a concerted effort is required to design and implement strategies for connecting science to decision making across scales and sectors in India. We present a potential strategy for connecting science to decision-making. Good research is required to produce knowledge and a robust knowledge supply-chain is essential to link knowledge to policy and field action. We call upon the scientists to employ strategies for co-production of knowledge, and for people engaged in capacity building programs to employ co-synthesis of knowledge useful to solve the field problems. Practitioners and policy makers on their part are expected to link that knowledge to both field and policy to design and implement interventions for sustainable development."

Document Type:
Conference Paper

Keywords:
co-production
India-sustainability
developing countries
decision making
India-knowledge sharing
learning-India
ID Code:
2138

Linking Local Knowledge to Global Markets: Livelihoods Improvement through Woodcarving in India

Role of traditional knowledge for the conservation science is acknowledged but the evidence related to its direct contribution to livelihoods and household income is often overlooked. Recent importance to woodcarving in India provides opportunity to explore if, and under what conditions, traditional knowledge on woodcarving contributes to livelihoods improvement and household incomes. There is a paucity of good studies on woodcarving in India but the preliminary information provides inference that a comparatively much better policy and governance, good infrastructure and a growing tourism play vital role in supporting local artisans and entrepreneurs to use their traditional knowledge for generating large household incomes. Although it seems plausible that local knowledge can support livelihoods improvement with suitable interventions, robust studies are urgently required to provide operational models for linking livelihoods and conservation through trade in woodcarving. Suitably designed action research is likely to provide insights for supporting livelihoods through woodcarving as well as promoting the tree-growing in agroecosystems to supply raw material for woodcarving enterprise.

Fulltext available at: http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/archive/00002124/01/PandeyWood.pdf