This action-oriented research project explores, applies, and evaluates the potential of digital innovation in three key areas: urban agriculture and nutrition; ecosystem-based climate adaptation; and women's access to land. The project focusses on developing and advancing concrete solutions for low-income urban populations and small-scale farming communities in several African countries and India.

The aim of the Urban Agriculture and Nutrition thematic research strand is to explore the role of digital solutions in further strengthening food security and livelihood opportunities for marginalized groups. We explore how digitalization can enhance the empowerment of vulnerable groups through strengthening access to information and public services, lowering transaction costs along agri-food chains, and improving the design and enforcement of relevant public policies.

Our workstream on nature-based solutions investigates how local institutions in smallholder farming contexts can be strengthened through digitalization in climate adaptation, with a focus on water resources. In this regard, digitalization is not regarded as an end in itself but as a means to enable farmers and other land users to make better informed decisions with a view to enhance the resilience of their production systems in the face of climate change. The project is currently exploring how to support Water User Associations in the Indian state of Maharashtra to utilize digital tools to manage limited water resources in a more sustainable and equitable way.

The Gender and Land Rights workstream focuses on digital tools such as monitoring and alert systems for supporting women’s land rights and report rights violations. We aim equally at an in-depth analysis of the opportunities as well as risks of digital innovations in the context of strengthening tenure security for women. Together with our partners Kenya Land Alliance and Rainforest Foundation UK, we are piloting a digital reporting tool in two counties in Kenya.

Central to the SEWOH Lab is the question of how, and under what conditions, digitalization translates into practical opportunities for addressing the numerous challenges mentioned above. This requires understanding broader social, political and institutional dynamics, and, where necessary, exploring the kinds of social and organizational innovations needed to harness the potential of digital technologies to deliver on multiple targets under the Sustainable Development Goals, including food and nutrition security, sustainable natural resource use, and resilience to climate change.