POLICY BRIEF: "Co-Designing for Actionable and Accountable Data in the Tonle Sap Basin, Cambodia"

Publication: CSDS and Oxfam Mekong Water Governance Program Policy Brief

Publication date: December 2024

Authors: Carl Middleton and Mech Sreylakh

Download the policy brief here.

Between October 2023 and August 2024, Oxfam’s Mekong Water Governance Program and the Center for Social Development Studies undertook an action research project applying a design thinking process in Kampong Phluk village and Bak Prea village located in the Tonle Sap flood plains in Cambodia. The project aimed to identify access to water data solutions that respond to community needs and context, including ensuring inclusion across sub-groups. This policy brief shows the benefits of design thinking as a bottom-up process for development practitioners to work with communities to co-define challenges and co-create solutions that are actionable, inclusive, and trusted. 

Citation: Middleton, C. and Mech, S. (2024). Co-Designing for Actionable and Accountable Data in the Tonle Sap Basin, Cambodia. Center for Social Development Studies and Oxfam Mekong Water Governance Program: Bangkok and Phnom Penh

JOURNAL ARTICLE: Guest Editorial: "Ecological knowledge co-production and the contested imaginaries of development in Southeast Asia"

Publication date: January 2023

Publication: Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography

Authors: Robert A. Farnan, Sally Beckenham, Carl Middleton

In Human Geography, there is growing interest in how accounts of development can be wedded to an understanding of society in which the material or technical is connected to the social. Science and Technology Studies (STS) approaches this division by emphasizing the inextricable relationship between technology and society. This process of co-production—between science and technology on the one hand and social and political order on the other—drives the focus of the special section and its investigation of ecological knowledge and contested imaginaries of development in Southeast Asia that this guest editorial introduces.

See the full guest editorial here.

Citation: Farnan, R.A., Beckenham, S. and Middleton, C. (2023), Guest Editorial: Ecological knowledge co-production and the contested imaginaries of development in Southeast Asia. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 44: 37-43. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12469

JOURNAL ARTICLE: "Higher Education Institution, SDG2 and Agri- Food Sustainability: Lessons from Chulalongkorn University and Thailand"

Publication date: October 2021

Publication: Environment, Development and Sustainability

Authors: Wayne Nelles, Supawan Visetnoi, Carl Middleton, Thita Orn- in

This paper examines higher education efforts linking United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and agri- food system sustainability given reports of stagnant movement for SDG2 in Southeast Asia and lack of data for effective monitoring or evaluation to realize the 2030 Agenda. It discusses Thai contexts amid a growing global movement in academic theory, policy and practice to mainstream SDG knowledge and implementation across campuses presenting one case to illustrate broader concerns. Chulalongkorn University policies, faculty awareness, curricula, research, sustainability reporting and partnerships about SDGs have contributed to SDG2 objectives from different disciplines and academic units. However, some faculty still lack understanding of SDGs generally while SDG2 has not been an institutional priority. The university has made welcome progress since 2017 policy promoting SDGs but still needs to strengthen SDG2 data collection, teaching, research and community outreach capacities including links to governement and international reporting to address complex agri- food system sustainability challenges. Comparative studies could also help while critically debating SDG deficiencies and promoting socioeconomic, ecological, agri- food system, community and campus sustainability.

Read the article here.

Citation: Nelles, W., Visetnoi, S., Middleton, C., & Orn-in, T. (2021). Higher education institutions, SDG2 and agri-food sustainability: Lessons from Chulalongkorn University and Thailand. Environment, Development and Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01892-1