Evidence on the social, economic, and environmental impact of interventions that facilitate bamboo industry development for sustainable livelihoods: a systematic map protocol

Abstract

Background: Bamboo has been identified as a potential instrument for socioeconomic development due to its fast growth, perceived environmental benefits, promising material properties, myriad applications, and relative underdevelopment as a global industrial product. Many projects and interventions have been carried out that aim to utilize bamboo's social and environmental potential in development. However, critical evaluations that demonstrate this effect using real-world evidence and outcomes are rare, and existing case studies have not been collated and analyzed in a systematic way. The proposed systematic map aims to summarize and evaluate evidence on the social, economic, and environmental impact of bamboo industry development initiatives on beneficiary communities and ecosystems, and to identify priority areas for future funding and research.

Methods: In the proposed systematic map, we will collect and thematically categorize evidence on the social, environmental, and economic impact of bamboo development implementations, identifying themes, research gaps, and critical success factors. Literature discussing this type of intervention is published by researchers, organizations, and governments in academic journals, institutional reports, and program evaluations describing various socio-economic and environmental outcomes, impacts and metrics for success. Search sources for this systematic map therefore include bibliographic databases, institutional websites, web-based search engines, and expert consultation. Targeted search strings will be used to identify relevant texts in a two-step review process comprising an abstract and a full-text screening process. Sources describing interventions with a primary aim of bamboo industry development for social benefit that concluded between 1990 and 2021 will be sought. Metadata coded from these texts will be reviewed, categorized, and checked by two reviewers. Reviewers will be checked for consistency on batches of 30 articles using the Kappa interrater reliability test with a goal of a Kappa coefficient of 0.9. Metadata will be coded into different categories including outcomes and impacts using NVivo. Results of both quantitative and qualitative data analysis will be summarized in a searchable online database. Themes will be synthesized and explored in a narrative review and using simple logic models demonstrating theories of change for eligible case studies.

Keywords: Nature-based solutions; Non-timber forest products; Program evaluation; Social impact; Theory of change..

Fig. 1

Bamboo industry development as an instrument for sustainable livelihood development. Adapted from Figs. 1, [25]