10 things to consider for scaling climate-smart agricultural index-based insurances

Agricultural index-based insurances can increase smallholder farmers’ resilience in a changing climate. CCAFS science successfully informs different insurance schemes around the globe. However, scaling up insurance products for the most vulnerable population remains a challenge, beyond the need to identify locally viable indices. In July 2018, CCAFS organized a South-South Cooperation event to facilitate exchange and learnings among its participants and partners, including government officials, private sector representatives and climate finance specialists and professionals. Their insights can give a first orientation to peer practitioners with plans to scale climate-smart agriculture (CSA) through insurance schemes. This Info Note is based on insights and discussions of CCAFS participants, partners and stakeholders working on climate-smart agricultural index-based insurances, during the first CCAFS South-South Collaboration Meeting in New York, July 2018

Inflación y flexibilidad del mercado laboral: La rueda que chilla es la que se engrasa

(Disponible en idioma inglés únicamente) La inflación puede engrasar las ruedas del mercado laboral, al disminuir la rigidez del ajuste salarial, pero también puede aumentar la incertidumbre y tener un efecto negativo de arena. En este trabajo se analiza el efecto de flexibilización que produce la inflación, y se analiza si la interacción entre la inflación y la regulación del mercado laboral inciden en la forma en que el empleo responde a las variaciones de la producción. Los resultados demuestran que en países industriales con mercados laborales altamente regulados, el efecto de flexibilización que produce la inflación domina al efecto de arena. En el caso de los países en desarrollo, la inflación rara vez tiene un efecto significativo en la normativa de los mercados laborales, lo que podría deberse a la presencia de un sector informal considerable y a una aplicación de jure de la normativa de los mercados laborales limitada.

Inflation and labor market flexibility: The squeaky wheel gets the grease

Inflation can "grease" the wheels of the labor market by relaxing downward wage rigidity but it can also increase uncertainty and have a negative "sand" effect. This paper studies the grease effect of inflation by looking at whether the interaction between inflation and labor market regulations affects how employment responds to changes in output. The results show that in industrial countries with highly regulated labor markets, the grease effect of inflation dominates the sand effect. In the case of developing countries, we rarely find a significant effect of inflation or labor market regulations and provide evidence indicating that this could be due to the presence of a large informal sector and limited enforcement of de jure labor market regulations.Employment; Unemployment; Flexibility; Inflation; Deflation; Job Security

Inflation and Labor Market Flexibility: The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

Inflation can “grease†the wheels of the labor market by relaxing downward wage rigidity but it can also increase uncertainty and have a negative “sand†effect. This paper studies the grease effect of inflation by looking at whether the interaction between inflation and labor market regulations affects how employment responds to changes in output. The results show that in industrial countries with highly regulated labor markets, the grease effect of inflation dominates the sand effect. In the case of developing countries, we rarely find a significant effect of inflation or labor market regulations and provide evidence indicating that this could be due to the presence of a large informal sector and limited enforcement of de jure labor market regulations.employment inflation

Lessons learnt from CCAFS - 10 years scaling climate-smart agriculture: Insights from the review of CCAFS scaling activities, 2019

This Info Note is based on the insights of the CCAFS core team, lessons shared by project leaders via the MARLO, and interviewees from the following CGIAR centers and partners: Bioversity, CIAT, CIMMYT, CIP, ICARDA, ICRAF, ICRISAT, IFPRI, IITA, ILRI, IRRI, IWMI, WorldFish, and WUR. After ten years’ implementation, lessons learnt of practitioners validate two concepts that CCAFS has used and developed for scaling CSA: the Three-Thirds Principle for effective science-policy engagement (Dinesh et al. 2018) applies widely for scaling CSA, when adding the element of iterative learning; and the LearningWheel with 11 cornerstones for effective research and development to improve livelihoods and the environment (Campbell et al. 2006) is a useful framework for managing not only R4D, but also scaling processes

The Scaling Mindset – Shifting from Problems to Solutions. Insights from the Review of CCAFS Scaling Activities, 2019

In the frame of the review of CCAFS scaling activities in 2019, 21 project leaders and –implementers were interviewed about their scaling processes, touching a series of aspects that had been identified as crucial and/or critical by earlier research. Results were analysed with a systemic approach, to draw organisational learnings. The findings were validated with CCAFS core team during their Scaling Workshop in Madrid, May 2019, in which the Core Team also prioritized its programmatic areas of response. This working paper captures the main insights and learnings from both the interviews on project level, followed by the results’ analysis. It then summarized the Core Team workshop’s main discussion points and shortly outlines the programmatic areas of response that CCAFS identified. The learnings and insights on the realities of scaling agricultural innovations presented in this working paper can provide a rich basis for further synthesis and/or deeper research on the different aspects of innovation development and scaling

Co-designing climate-smart farming systems with local stakeholders: A methodological framework for achieving large-scale change

The literature is increasing on how to prioritize climate-smart options with stakeholders but relatively few examples exist on how to co-design climate-smart farming systems with them, in particular with smallholder farmers. This article presents a methodological framework to co-design climate-smart farming systems with local stakeholders (farmers, scientists, NGOs) so that large-scale change can be achieved. This framework is based on the lessons learned during a research project conducted in Honduras and Colombia from 2015 to 2017. Seven phases are suggested to engage a process of co-conception of climate-smart farming systems that might enable implementation at scale: (1) “exploration of the initial situation,” which identifies local stakeholders potentially interested in being involved in the process, existing farming systems, and specific constraints to the implementation of climate-smart agriculture (CSA); (2) “co-definition of an innovation platform,” which defines the structure and the rules of functioning for a platform favoring the involvement of local stakeholders in the process; (3) “shared diagnosis,” which defines the main challenges to be solved by the innovation platform; (4) “identification and ex ante assessment of new farming systems,” which assess the potential performances of solutions prioritized by the members of the innovation platform under CSA pillars; (5) “experimentation,” which tests the prioritized solutions on-farm; (6) “assessment of the co-design process of climate-smart farming systems,” which validates the ability of the process to reach its initial objectives, particularly in terms of new farming systems but also in terms of capacity building; and (7) “definition of strategies for scaling up/out,” which addresses the scaling of the co-design process. For each phase, specific tools or methodologies are used: focus groups, social network analysis, theory of change, life-cycle assessment, and on-farm experiments. Each phase is illustrated with results obtained in Colombia or Honduras