Stakeholders’ planning workshop for the Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture project

This report summarizes the proceedings of the stakeholders’ planning workshop for the Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture project held in Kigali, Rwanda on 6-7 March 2017. Organized by the project team at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the meeting brought together 39 participants from various institutions including the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), the International Livestock Reaserach Institute (ILRI), the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF), the University of Reading, Meteo Rwanda, the Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB), the Ministry of Agriculture, Development Rural du Nord (DERN), Radio Huguka, AICP and CARITAS. Participants discussed project achievements and activities for year 1 of the project and identified activities for the year 2 of the project

Formation des équipes pays du projet TARSPro sur l’approche services climatiques participatifs et intégrés pour l’agriculture (PICSA)

Du 27 au 31 mars 2023, a eu lieu l’atelier de formation des équipes pays du projet « Technologies et Innovations Agricoles pour l’Accroissement de la Résilience des Systèmes de Production et des Exploitations Familiales en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre (TARSPro) sur l’approche services climatologiques participatifs et intégrés pour l’agriculture (PICSA) à SAMI Hôtel, à Ouagadougou au Burkina Faso. L’atelier a regroupé au total 19 participants des systèmes nationaux de recherche agricole (SNRA) et des agents des services nationaux de météorologie du Bénin, du Burkina Faso, du Mali, du Niger et du Tchad (cf. liste de présence en annexe 1 du présent rapport). L’atelier a été animé par l’Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT qui appuie le Conseil Ouest et Centre Africain pour la Recherche et le Développement Agricole (CORAF) dans la mise en œuvre du projet TARSPro à travers une assistance technique en vue d’une intégration efficace de l’Agriculture Intelligente face au Climat (AIC) dans la mise en œuvre dudit projet. L’atelier de formation sur l’approche PICSA vise à outiller les équipes pays de TARSPro pour les rendre aptes à aider les producteurs à prendre des décisions adéquates fondées sur des données scientifiques climatiques et météorologiques historiques et spécifiques à leurs localités, des options de cultures, d’élevage et autres activités de subsistance localement pertinentes et ce, avec l'utilisation d'outils participatifs d’aide à la prise de décision

Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture: Qualitative Evaluation through a Gender Lens

This report presents results from a qualitative evaluation of the Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture project, carried out in October of 2019. The project focused on enhancing smallholder farmer resilience and ability to cope with climate variability through interventions such as Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) and Radio Listeners’ Clubs (RLC). Recognizing that gender-related factors influence farmers’ capacities to access, use, and benefit from climate information, the evaluation critically analyzed differences and trends in women’s and men’s access to weather and climate information, use of the information in their farm and non-farm livelihood decision-making, and benefit from their climate-informed decisions made. The project also sought to reach increasing numbers of farmers over the course of its duration, starting with pilot districts and extending interventions into additional areas over its four years. Consequently, the evaluation took into account a farmer’s length of exposure to one or multiple project interventions, sampling farmers representing “treatment categories” of participation in: i) PICSA in 2016, ii) PICSA in 2018, iii) PICSA and participating in a RLC, and iv) not having participated in either intervention

Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture: Evaluation of farmers’ awareness, use and impacts

Climate services are important in helping smallholder farmers manage climate-related risks and adapt to climate change, especially for rainfed agricultural production systems. In order to increase the resilience of farmers to the changing climate in Rwanda, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded a four-year project—Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture (RCSA) from 2016 to 2019. Through the project, climate services were disseminated directly to more than 111,000 farmers in four provinces across Rwanda through Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA), Radio Listeners Clubs (LCs) and cell phones; as well as broadcast by a radio network accessible to about 70% of the population. This report presents analyses of the project end-line survey of 1525 households, sampled across 15 of Rwanda’s 30 districts, in order to assess the influence of PICSA training and LCs on awareness, access and uptake of climate services by smallholder farmers; and their impact on household welfare (i.e., crop productivity, income, food security) on a quasi-experimental sampling design with a non-participant control sample. Analyses show that farmers use climate services to make decisions on the types of crops to grow (75%), the types of crop varieties to plant (58%), timing of planting and land preparation (75%) and when and how to prepare land (65%). Participation in PICSA and LCs, alone and in combination, is associated with a substantial increase in the proportion of farmers that report changing crop, livestock and livelihood management practices in response to weather and climate information. Relative to the control, PICSA participation increased the value of crop production by 24%, and income from crops by 30%. The combination of PICSA and LCs was associated with a 47% increase in the value of crop production, and a 56% increase in income from crops