The methodology for my research project is relatively straight forward. To recap, I aim to establish what level of emphasis countries in Sub Saharan African countries place on the issue of food loss and waste and its link with climate change. This will be done by analysing the INDCs submitted by these countries to the UNFCCC in advance of COP 21. The INDCs were chosen for a variety of reasons. These submissions helped form the foundation of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming. There were few guidelines and this allowed countries to take ownership of the document and highlight issues that important to them. Subsequently, the INDCs of 46 Sub Saharan African countries were downloaded for analysis (these INDCs are the materials). After an initial screening of the documents a more systematic analysis commenced. Using key terms identified from the literature review a key word search was conducted. The search was designed to ascertain the following:
- Importance of food security
- How climate change has/may impact food security
- Importance of food loss
- What proposals/intentions have Sub Saharan African countries submitted to limit post-harvest food loss?
The results were then collated on several Excel spreadsheets and graphs were generated. Keep an eye out for the provisional results (they will be published under the research section of the site!).