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While there is increasing interest in implementing drug checking within overdose prevention, we must also consider how to scale-up these responses so that they have significant reach and impact for people navigating the unpredictable and increasingly complex drug supplies linked to overdose. The purpose of this paper is to present a distributed model of community drug checking that addresses multiple barriers to increasing the reach of drug checking as a response to the illicit drug overdose crisis.

A detailed description of the key components of a distributed model of community drug checking is provided. This includes an integrated software platform that links a multi-instrument, multi-site service design with online service options, a foundational database that provides storage and reporting functions and a community of practice to facilitate engagement and capacity building.

The distributed model diminishes the need for technicians at multiple sites while still providing point-of-care results with local harm reduction engagement and access to confirmatory testing online and in localized reporting. It also reduces the need for training in the technical components of drug checking (e.g. interpreting spectra) for harm reduction workers. Moreover, its real-time reporting capability keeps communities informed about the crisis. Sites are additionally supported by a community of practice.

This paper presents innovations in drug checking technologies and service design that attempt to overcome current financial and technical barriers towards scaling-up services to a more equitable and impactful level and effectively linking multiple urban and rural communities to report concentration levels for substances most linked to overdose.

Agricultural aggregation schemes provide numerous farmer-facing benefits, including reduced transportation costs and improved access to higher-demand urban markets. However, whether aggregation schemes also have positive food security dimensions for consumers dependent on peri-urban and local markets in developing country contexts is currently unknown. This paper aims to narrow this knowledge gap by exploring the actors, governance structures and physical infrastructures of the horticultural value chain of Bihar, India, to identify barriers to using aggregation to improve the distribution of fruits and vegetables to more local market environments.

This study uses mixed methods. Quantitative analysis of market transaction data explores the development of aggregation supply pathways over space and time. In turn, semi-structured interviews with value chain actors uncover the interactions and decision-making processes with implications for equitable fruit and vegetable delivery.

Whilst aggregation successfully generates multiple producer-facing benefits, the supply pathways tend to cluster around urban export-oriented hubs, owing to the presence of high-capacity traders, large consumer bases and traditional power dynamics. Various barriers across the wider enabling environment must be overcome to unlock the potential for aggregation to increase local fruit and vegetable delivery, including informal governance structures, cold storage gaps and underdeveloped transport infrastructures.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first critical analysis of horticultural aggregation through a consumer-sensitive lens. The policy-relevant lessons are pertinent to the equitable and sustainable development of horticultural systems both in Bihar and in similar low- and middle-income settings.

This paper is designed to assess the sustainable value chain approaches for marketing channel development opportunities for agricultural products in coastal Bangladesh to combat climate change through an approach of community-based adaptation options.

The study was designed to select the potential value chain candidate and to analyze and establish a value chain map to benefit the crop farmers. In this connection, the resources of the whole context were evaluated. The approach uses few tools to generate three outputs, the last of which are the final list of value chains selected for in-depth assessment to design interventions as community-based adaptation practices of the study to combat climate change in the study areas.

The study demonstrated that the difference in the institutional circumstances of the end markets of the agriculture products is connected to the different categories of harmonization and control of the facilitating environment throughout the supply chains. National and local networks improve the value chain in terms of the value addition of the agriculture products, technology improvement, market access and profitability of the products. Strengthening the weak financial structure, focus more on formal financial systems and resolving sociocultural and climate change-induced hazard concerns are the major concerns on the development of value chains in the countries. Apparently, guarantee for good governance, checking illegal and unregulated market contexts, proper mitigation measures to climate change are some paramount important issues for the sustainable management of livelihood, yield, income and development.

All kinds of stakeholders of the agriculture product value chain should focus on competitiveness and productivity and look for and exploit multiple ways to add value once initial success has been attained with a single deal. Ensuring sustainability within the value chains is an important feature to cater to the challenges and changing demands of the age.

The study will help to established a sustainable value chain approach in response to climate change, which process will help to existent opportunities for firms to manage the issue of climate risk by codeveloping and employing adaptation options that may be more preferred or accepted by consumers across the entire chain for the sustainable management of livelihood, yield, income and development.

Background: The study focuses on the challenges encountered during the distribution of food and face-mask items during the first COVID-19 lock-down by various relief supply chain actors.

Methods: Data were collected from forty (40) relief actors through online (via Zoom and telephones) and face-to-face interviews, between January 2021 to March 2021. Data was coded based on per-determined themes after which it was further processed using Atlas ti. v7.57 to generate patterns.

Results: The study established challenges related to needs identification, procurement, warehousing, transportation, handling, beneficiary verification, and last-mile distribution. Additionally, the media and politics coupled with the emergence of new actors and governance issues were part of the challenges identified.

Conclusions: The identified challenges were internal and external to the relief supply chain; hence actors could have control over some while others were beyond their control. The findings could inform practitioners and policymakers on what challenges are likely to affect their operations, especially during a pandemic, and design appropriate coping mechanisms.

Lack of access to credit is commonly held responsible for slow agricultural and rural development in low- and middle-income countries. This paper aims to investigate the contribution of demand- and supply-side factors, particularly the role of risk rationing, on credit application and uptake in the case example of Kyrgyzstan.

Toward this aim, the study explores the determinants of credit behavior of 1,738 Kyrgyz sample farm households from 2013 to 2016 waves of the nationally representative “Life in Kyrgyzstan” (LIK) dataset along a hierarchical regression model, differentiating between factors influencing individual demand for credit and factors influencing supply for credit.

The results of our analysis indicate the relative importance of demand-side factors for credit applications, reflecting farmers' perceived risk of credit default and loss of collateral. Meanwhile, supply-side factors, such as real credit constraints and collateral requests, have a stronger influence on credit uptake rates and overall loan sums. These findings highlight the role of risk rationing for agricultural investment, suggesting a stronger focus of development policy on improving risk-sharing mechanisms for farmers, e.g. by developing the agricultural insurance sector.

The paper contributes novel evidence on the role of risk rationing in shaping the demand for formal credits for increasing agricultural and rural investment in low-income transition economies. Previous research has mostly focused on the role of credit supply, thus underrating the potential contribution of individual risk attitude, risk experience and risk sharing.

Access to food through retail supply chain distribution can vary significantly among the urban poor and leads to household food insecurity. The paper explores this sustainable supply chain phenomenon through a field study among South Africa's urban poor.

Urban metabolic flows is the theoretical basis in the context of supply chain management (SCM). The field study comprised 59 semi-structured interviews in one South African township. Data were recorded, transcribed and translated, and coded using NVivo 12 to provide an inventory of eight themes categorized and patterned from the analysis.

Findings indicate societal factors play a significant role affecting food distribution, access and security from a spatial perspective of retail outlet locations and a nutritional standpoint regarding quality and quantity of food.

The study is exploratory in one township, and while rigorously conducted, the generalizability of findings is limited to this context.

The study practically contributes by providing guidance for food retailers and policymakers to include nutritional guidelines in their distribution planning, as well as the dynamics of diverse neighbourhoods that exist in modern urban contexts.

New forms of retail food distribution can provide better security and access to food for the urban poor, contributing to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2 Zero Hunger and 11 Liveable Cities.

The study is interdisciplinary and contributes by linking UN SDGs and SCM through urban metabolic flows from development studies as an overarching framework to enable analysis of relationships between physical, social and economic factors in the urban environment.

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased demand for medical and protective equipment by frontline health workers, as well as the general community, causing the supply chain to stretch beyond capacity, an issue further heightened by geographical and political lockdowns. Various 3D printing technologies were quickly utilised by businesses, institutions and individuals to manufacture a range of products on-demand, close to where they were needed. This study gathered data about 91 3D printed projects initiated prior to April 1, 2020, as the virus spread globally. It found that 60% of products were for personal protective equipment, of which 62% were 3D printed face shields. Fused filament fabrication was the most common 3D print technology used, and websites were the most popular means of centralising project information. The project data provides objective, quantitative insight balanced with qualitative critical review of the broad trends, opportunities and challenges that could be used by governments, health and medical bodies, manufacturing organisations and the 3D printing community to streamline the current response, as well as plan for future crises using a distributed, flexible manufacturing approach.

The extraction of natural resources has long been part of economic development in small islands. The damage to environment and health is extensive, even rendering once productive islands virtually uninhabitable. Rather than providing long-term benefits to the population or to the environment, the culture of “extractivism” – a nonreciprocal approach where resources are removed and used with little care or regard to consequences – has instead left many in far more fragile circumstances, increasingly dependent on external income. The purpose of this paper is to show how continued extractivism in small islands is contributing to global climate change and increasing climate risks to the local communities.

Through a series of case studies, this paper examines the history of extractivism in small islands in Oceania, its contribution to environmental degradation locally and its impacts on health.

It examines how extractivism continues today, with local impacts on environment, health and wellbeing and its much more far-reaching consequences for global climate change and human health. At the same time, these island countries have heightened sensitivity to climate change due to their isolation, poverty and already variable climate, whereas the damage to natural resources, the disruption, economic dependence and adverse health impacts caused by extractivism impart reduced resilience to the new climate hazards in those communities.

This paper proposes alternatives to resource extractivism with options for climate compatible development in small islands that are health-promoting and build community resilience in the face of increasing threats from climate change.

Extractivism is a new concept that has not previously been applied to understanding health implications of resource exploitation thorough the conduit of climate change. Small-island countries are simultaneously exposed to widespread extractivism, including of materials contributing to global climate change, and are among the most vulnerable to the hazards that climate change brings.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it investigates the characteristics of Hanfparade 2022 – the biggest prolegalization festival in Germany – and its visitors, as well as the main reason for participation in Hanfparade. Findings are compared to those from Hanfparade 2016 to explore whether the main reason for festival attendance has changed since the legalization of medical cannabis in 2017 and since the announcement of plans for cannabis legalization. Second, this paper assesses Hanfparade participants’ views on cannabis legalization in Germany, in particular their opinions on and their preferences for retail supply options.

This study is a replication of a research conducted in 2016 at the same festival in Berlin, with a slightly adapted questionnaire. In this study, a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods was used: observation at the festival, interviews before and after the festival with the organizer and a survey among festival attendees (n = 183).

Protest still looks relevant for the participants at Hanfparade, and the announcement of plans for legalization does not seem to downgrade this feeling. The participants have positive opinions about self-supply through home cultivation, noncommercial supply through Cannabis Social Clubs (CSCs) and commercial supply through stores similar to Dutch coffee shops. However, positive opinions do not necessarily reflect a personal preference, e.g. CSCs were very low in personal preferences. The options of home cultivation and CSCs were more popular among daily users.

This study contributes to the ongoing debate in Germany, focusing on views of cannabis users.