Integrated assessment frameworks for understanding pathways for socially inclusive agricultural intensification

Alleviating poverty through agricultural development is a challenge that requires sound understanding of the social, market, environmental and institutional settings. An integrated assessment (IA) process can help to clarify and examine the nature of the interactions between these diverse processes and facilitate concerted and collaborative efforts from interdisciplinary teams. This paper provides an overview of IA frameworks developed for a project aimed at identifying opportunities and policy options that promote more socially inclusive and sustainable agricultural intensification in rural communities in West Bengal and Bangladesh. The IA frameworks were intended to provide a 'big picture' of the social and agricultural systems we are researching, and to improve understanding of the interrelationships between the diverse processes, and the pathways between drivers and outcomes. This paper describes the methodological process followed in developing these frameworks (Figure 1). The frameworks are grounded in both theory and observations from project activities, and were iteratively developed with input from stakeholders and domain experts. The frameworks then formed the basis for further (semi)quantitative or qualitative analysis, demonstrated in the study through the development of semi-quantitative models (fuzzy cognitive maps) and narratives. As a modelling process, an outcome of the IA work has been the formalisation of our common understanding of the system. The IA framework development also facilitated an explicit integration process, as it involved all team members who were required to consider the linkages between their usual fields of study to the wider system, thereby promoting interdisciplinary thinking. The IA frameworks have also become a discussion and learning tool to test implications of system interventions or perturbations.