Water for agriculture in peri-urban delta areas is vital to safeguard sustainable food production. Due to dynamics of urbanisation in deltas and climate change, water availability (drought and flood) is becoming erratic and farmers cannot rely only on their own experience anymore to plan farming operations. This research aims to develop tailor made water information services with and for farmers in peri-urban areas in the urbanising deltas of Accra, Ghana and Khulna, Bangladesh to contribute to water and food security in river deltas. This will be done by 1) combining new developments in internet and mobile technology with latest insights on knowledge sharing; 2) integrating weather model results with observations of groundwater trends and river discharges; and 3) attuning knowledge about adaptive decision making and enabling governance structures to local situations. These insights will be used to co-create and test water information services, consisting of knowledge sharing platforms and virtual communities. Enabled by NWO seed money, the consortium has organised workshops with key actors (farmers, governance actors and ICT professionals) in both areas. These stakeholders have contributed to this proposal and are committed to engage in the proposed research and innovation process. The co-production of water information services with local farmers will contribute to: livelihood improvement, empower small/medium farmers and build capacity for enhancing sustainable food production. Furthermore it will result in a business case by delivering design principles for viable farmer-oriented water information services in other urban-rural delta zones in the developing world.

Social protection is increasingly considered as relevant instrument for inclusive growth. This reflects a substantial change of perspective. Good health is an important component of inclusive growth. Cash transfers and social health protection share similar objectives in this regard, but the relationship between both has not been thoroughly addressed yet. The research aims at developing new strategic knowledge on the effectiveness of cash transfer programs and social health protection policies in Ghana and Kenya with respect to the accumulation of health- related human capital and its spill-over effects on further intermediate inclusive growth objectives, including labour participation, asset accumulation and equality. It seeks to understand if and under which conditions these policies are mutually complementary. It further extends existing research by combining cost-effectiveness with political-economic considerations. This will be achieved by engaging in a multi-level and interactive process of co-production of knowledge between strategic actors in the process (i.e. researchers, ministries, practitioners). The project will build- up strategic knowledge on the integration of inclusive growth objectives into design and implementation of social protection interventions with a focus on instrument choice and the interaction between different policies integrating technical, financial and political considerations. The research employs a within-country comparison across time using existing household level data. The research addresses in particular poor women and children as these groups are among the most vulnerable population groups. A political economy perspective combining a process-tracing and institutional approach assesses factors hindering or facilitating policy change at national or local level. Results are compared across countries.