RIEL seminar series
Research and development to improve smallholder livelihoods in Timor-Leste: What research questions should we ask?
| Presenter | Prof. Andrew McWilliam, Marcia Exposto e Silva, and Dr Leigh Vial | |
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| Contact person | E: RIEL.outreach@cdu.edu.au | |
| Location | Yellow 1.1.39 and online | |
| Open to | Public | |
This seminar will present the achievements to date as part of an ACIAR-funded Small Research Activity (SRA) which precedes a planned larger ACIAR project to improve smallholder livelihoods in Timor-Leste through increased labour productivity with a focus on innovation in soils management and improvement.
The SRA aims to generate research questions that a future ACIAR project will pursue; ACIAR projects are usually commissioned with predefined research questions. The SRA will be undertaken until January 2024. This SRA has chosen six paired locations in three key livelihood zones to generate appropriate agricultural research questions for improved labour productivity and livelihoods.
The SRA is applying a Stages of Progress (SoP) methodology to understand what has driven rural households into or out of poverty over time and how that affects food security and sovereignty. It applies a modified Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) to further characterise the locations, and a participatory research selection process with each community to choose the final research questions.
This seminar will feature Prof Andrew McWilliam (Coresearcher, UWS), speaking on the SoP methodology, Marcia Exposto e Silva (Timor Leader), joining from Dili to describe what was learned about community livelihoods, and Dr Leigh Vial (Project Leader), describing the emerging research questions.
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