Tag: Climate
Theory of Change: Implementation Manual for the Enhanced National Greening Program
Synthesis Report: Improving the monitoring and evaluation of CIS to facilitate learning and improve outcomes
Choices have Consequences: REDD+ and Local Democracy in Kenya
An Assessment of the Business Environment for Waste-to-energy Enterprises and How it Affects Women Entrepreneurs in Kenya
Climate risk management and rural poverty reduction
Climate variability is a major source of risk to smallholder farmers and pastoralists, particularly in dryland regions. A growing body of evidence links climate-related risk to the extent and the persistence of rural poverty in these environments. Stochastic shocks erode smallholder farmers’ long-term livelihood potential through loss of productive assets. The resulting uncertainty impedes progress out of poverty by acting as a disincentive to investment in agriculture – by farmers, rural financial services, value chain institutions and governments. We assess evidence published in the last ten years that a set of production technologies and institutional options for managing risk can stabilize production and incomes, protect assets in the face of shocks, enhance uptake of improved technologies and practices, improve farmer welfare, and contribute to poverty reduction in risk-prone smallholder agricultural systems. Production technologies and practices such as stress-adapted crop germplasm, conservation agriculture, and diversified production systems stabilize agricultural production and incomes and, hence, reduce the adverse impacts of climate-related risk under some circumstances. Institutional interventions such as index-based insurance and social protection through adaptive safety nets play a complementary role in enabling farmers to manage risk, overcome risk-related barriers to adoption of improved technologies and practices, and protect their assets against the impacts of extreme climatic events. While some research documents improvements in household welfare indicators, there is limited evidence that the risk-reduction benefits of the interventions reviewed have enabled significant numbers of very poor farmers to escape poverty. We discuss the roles that climate-risk management interventions can play in efforts to reduce rural poverty, and the need for further research on identifying and targeting environments and farming populations where improved climate risk management could accelerate efforts to reduce rural poverty.
Carbon Isotopes of Riparian Forests Trees in the Savannas of the Volta Sub-Basin of Ghana Reveal Contrasting Responses to Climatic and Environmental Variations
Stable isotopes of tree rings are frequently used as proxies in climate change studies. However, species-specific relationships between climate and tree-ring stable isotopes have not yet been studied in riparian forests in the savannas of West Africa. Four cross-dated discs, each of Afzelia africana Sm. (evergreen) and Anogeissus leiocarpus (DC.) Guill. & Perr. (deciduous) in the humid (HSZ) and dry (DSZ) savanna zones of the Volta basin in Ghana were selected from a larger tree-ring dataset to assess the relationships between the tree-ring carbon isotope composition (δ13C values) and climatic parameters. The atmospherically corrected δ13C values of both studied species showed that A. africana was enriched in 13C compared to A. leiocarpus. Strong correlations were found between δ13C values of A. africana and A. leiocarpus with temperature, but weak correlations with precipitation. Spatial correlation analysis revealed significant relationships between δ13C values of both tree species and Sea Surface Temperatures in the Gulf of Guinea in the southern Atlantic Ocean. The results suggest that the carbon isotope composition of riparian trees in the Volta river basin has a potential to reconstruct climate variability and to assess tree ecological responses to climate change.
Climate-Smart Agriculture for Ethiopia and Beyond
Smallholder farming systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have been characterized by low crop yields as well as their reliance on ecosystem services. With chronically stagnant productivity, accommodating the growing demand for food, fuel, and income sources for a population that has doubled in the last decades has mainly been accomplished by the expansion of agricultural land (through clearing forestland) and/or by increasing cropping intensity through reduced fallows and mining of soil nutrients. Consequently, soil degradation has increasingly threatened the resilience of the ecosystems on which African smallholder agricultural systems have critically depended for their food security. African smallholder systems, which have already been stressed by unsustainable use of natural resources, are further threatened by climate change. The climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approaches advocate for the use of locally evolved and/or improved technologies, practices, and policies that can result in increased yield per unit area, as well as sustainable environment; combined, these approaches can meet the needs of growing populations while also maintaining resilient ecosystems. There is a broad range of diverse, climate-smart interventions, yet their individual efficacies may de-pend on how well they align with locally specific livelihood needs and contexts. The primary objective of this book is to provide guidance for academic, research, outreach, policy and development stakehold-ers to select specific (if possible) evidence-based CSA technologies, practices, and policies, or a mix thereof, to improve smallholder food production and sustain ecosystem services in Ethiopia and SSA countries. This chapter specifically elaborates on the rationales for why CSA approaches are needed, in the context of Ethiopia and SSA countries, to not only improve agricultural productivity and advance climate adaptation and mitigation goals, but also to simultaneously identify and address root causes of low soil fertility, high rates of soil erosion on farmlands, overall landscape degradation, and low and stagnant agricultural productivity, which often result in household food insecurity and poverty.
An Introduction to the Climate-Smart Agriculture Papers
Over the last decade, international concerns about climate change have stimulated broad investment in the pursuit of agriculture that is more climate-smart. These concerns are particularly pressing in Africa, where most farmers remain severely impoverished and dependent on rain-fed production systems. This volume collates some of the latest research from agricultural scientists working to speed up the development and adoption of more climate-smart farming systems in eastern and southern Africa. These 25 papers highlight ongoing efforts to better characterise climate risks, develop and disseminate climate-smart varieties and farm management practices, and integrate these technologies into well-functioning value chains. The papers emphasise the additional research efforts needed to improve the understanding and response to climate risk. The expert authors also make suggestions for strengthening the responsiveness of agricultural research and extension systems to future climate changes.
Editorial for the Thematic Series in Agriculture & Food Security: Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies in West Africa: learning from the ground AR4D experiences
This Thematic Series on “Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies in West Africa: learning from the ground AR4D experiences” contains seven papers presented by researchers from four West African countries based on participatory action research conducted since 2012 in the region. These research activities were funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) through a project titled “Developing community-based climate-smart agriculture through participatory action research in CCAFS benchmark sites in West Africa” (see [1]). This research action under the scientific lead of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) aimed to test and validate, in partnership with rural communities and other stakeholders, scalable climate-smart village models for agricultural development that integrate a range of innovative agricultural risk management strategies. The project also aimed to enable farmers, developers, managers and policy makers for the agriculture sector to develop cost-effective climate-smart agriculture (CSA) options that support local sustainable development and enhance livelihood resilience. It is therefore a response to the challenges (degraded lands, low crop productivity, high level of poverty for rural people, etc.) faced to satisfy the food needs of an increasing population in the face of a changing climate.