Impact assessment of CCAFS support to the 7th Five Year Plan in Bangladesh

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) addresses the challenges of climate change and food security by mobilizing CGIAR and partner science and expertise to achieve positive change through evidence-based policy impacts with respect to climate-smart agriculture (CSA), food systems, and landscapes under climate change (CAS Secretariat, 2020). The future scenarios project under the theme uses multi-stakeholder regional and national scenarios to explore key socio-economic and uncertainties for food security, environments and livelihoods under climate change through integrated qualitative-quantitative scenarios describing futures up to 2050. The CCAFS South Asia (SA) Regional Scenarios Coordinator along with the Future Scenarios Project Team has been supporting the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) with successful policy guidance by using participatory scenarios for planning, training and capacity building from 2014. Since then, the SA Scenarios Coordinator has worked on building long-standing, effective collaborations with the government, civil society and academic stakeholders for strategic planning and research to explore the feasibility of strategies, plans and policies toward improved food security, environments and livelihoods under different socio-economic and governance conditions. The CCAFS future scenarios work has impacted the key economic development policy of Bangladesh – the Five Year Plan (FYP)

Approaches through which anticipation informs climate governance in South Asia

This report presents the RE-IMAGINE research in one of its four regions: South Asia. RE-IMAGINE builds on climate foresight expertise of the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) Program and analyses the role of foresight in climate governance across the globe. Scenarios and many other methods and tools are used today to imagine climate futures and develop strategies for realizing new futures while governing climate change. With the proliferation of these processes in sustainability-related research and planning contexts, scrutiny of their role in steering climate actions in the present becomes increasingly important. How can the benefits and challenges of these processes of anticipation be better understood as governance interventions? At the same time, research into anticipatory climate governance processes in the Global South has remained very limited, while these regions are most vulnerable to climate change. The RE-IMAGINE report therefore examines processes of anticipation in four regions of the Global South. The research question we answer in this report is: ‘through what approaches are diverse processes of anticipation used to govern climate change in diverse South Asian contexts?’. In order to answer this question, we first examine what methods and tools are used to anticipate climate futures and their role in climate policy and decision-making. We then closely examine three case studies to understand their approaches to anticipatory governance. Additionally, we present the results of two regional meetings with stakeholders where we discussed the challenges that exist in each country to practice anticipatory climate governance and the opportunities to strengthen capacities in this field. Finally, we present recommendations for strengthening processes of anticipatory climate governance in the region

Is anticipatory governance opening up or closing down future possibilities? Findings from diverse contexts in the Global South

There is an urgent need to understand how anticipation processes such as scenario planning impact governance choices in the present. However, little empirical research has been done to analyze how anticipation processes frame possibilities for action. This paper investigates how assumptions about the future open up or close down anticipatory governance actions in a large number of climate-focused anticipation processes. We focused on four Global South regions: West Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Central America. We apply an analytical framework that identifies four diverse approaches to anticipatory governance and connect this to the notion of opening up or closing down of possibility spaces for action. Across the four regions, we find that many anticipation processes open up dialogue about deep uncertainties and pluralistic worldviews but end up informing mostly technocratic and linear planning actions in the present. We also observe that anticipation processes in the Central American context more often break this trend, particularly when transformative ambitions are formulated. The focus on more technocratic futures and linear planning strategies and reliance on a mostly North-based global futures industry may close down more culturally, socially and politically diverse and regionally relevant future worldviews in anticipation processes

Transformative horizons: reflecting on a decade of scenario-guided policy formulation

Participatory foresight has proliferated rapidly in response to unprecedented global uncertainty and the need to transform to more sustainable societies. However, the link from foresight to action is often under-researched; and understanding how foresight can be used for the realization of transformative ambitions has proven particularly difficult. In this paper, we reflect on a unique case: a project that spans eleven years of scenario-guided participatory policy formulation processes for food security and agriculture under climate change across seven global regions. Many of the policy formulation processes in these regions have led to changed policies and plans as a result of participatory scenario analysis. The length, scope, and level of policy engagement that characterizes this case offers unique opportunities for learning about impactful foresight. In addition, lessons from the project have proliferated into a range of other initiatives that have often been able to complement the original project strategies with new approaches that have in turn yielded more insights. We provide core insights from the successes and failures in this unique global case for connecting foresight to action by examining interactions between 1) institutional contexts and knowledge systems; 2) relationships with the future; 3) imaginaries; 4) participation cultures; 5) process designs and participants; and 6) futures methodology. We then go on to discuss how such best practices can be ‘scaled deep’; ‘scaled out’; and ‘scaled up’ for transformative change

A low-carbon and hunger-free future for Bangladesh: An ex- ante assessment of synergies and trade-offs in different transition pathways

Feeding and nourishing a growing global population in Bangladesh is a major challenge in a changing climate. A multi-level participatory scenario approach with corresponding modeling and decision support tools is developed and applied to support decision-makers in developing scenario-guided enabling policy for food security in the future under climate change. The results presented in this paper show how, under different scenarios, the agri-food system may transform in the next decade as a result of the interaction of intertwined institutional, technological, and market drivers in Bangladesh. For scenario building, the food and agriculture community was brought together with the climate and energy community. We also experimented with different ways to bring voices that are often less included in policymaking, such as poor rural communities and youth. The scenario quantification is performed by MAGNET, a GTAP-based multi-sector and multi-region computable general equilibrium model. The simulation results depict a comprehensive picture of corresponding and varied pressures on agricultural resources and opportunities for economic development and trade in Bangladesh. Finally, we did an ex-ante assessment of the trade-offs and synergies between zero-hunger- and zero-emission-related targets within the Bangladesh Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the developed scenarios

Stakeholder-driven transformative adaptation is needed for climate-smart nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa.

Improving nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa under increasing climate risks and population growth requires a strong and contextualized evidence base. Yet, to date, few studies have assessed climate-smart agriculture and nutrition security simultaneously. Here we use an integrated assessment framework (iFEED) to explore stakeholder-driven scenarios of food system transformation towards climate-smart nutrition security in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. iFEED translates climate-food-emissions modelling into policy-relevant information using model output implication statements. Results show that diversifying agricultural production towards more micronutrient-rich foods is necessary to achieve an adequate population-level nutrient supply by mid-century. Agricultural areas must expand unless unprecedented rapid yield improvements are achieved. While these transformations are challenging to accomplish and often associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions, the alternative for a nutrition-secure future is to rely increasingly on imports, which would outsource emissions and be economically and politically challenging given the large import increases required. [Abstract copyright: © 2024. The Author(s).

A new integrated assessment framework for climate-smart nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa : the integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED)

Funding statement This work was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council through UK Research and Innovation as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund, AFRICAP programme, grant number BB/P027784/1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The political economy of low carbon, climate resilient development in Bangladesh

This study presents a political economy analysis of Low Carbon, Climate Resilient Development (LCCRD) through the Solar Home System (SHS) and Solar Irrigation Pumps (SIP) programs in the energy and agriculture sectors and in doing so assesses their contribution to the broader development trajectory of Bangladesh. LCCRD involves implementing adaptation, mitigation and development simultaneously in order to benefit from ‘triple wins’. A qualitative case study approach enabled a detailed analysis of the institutional and financial mechanisms; benefits and trade-offs from the programs and studied the discourses and narratives related to LCCRD in Bangladesh. The programs delivered triple wins but the benefits from adaptation, mitigation and development were not derived equally. The SHS program contributed to building adaptive capacity, reducing vulnerability and advancing human development benefits at the local level. However, the program only contributed marginally to the renewable energy mix and the mitigation goals of Bangladesh. Energy access through SHS was not necessarily pro poor. Besides providing energy access for irrigation in off grid areas, the SIP program also contributed to adaptation, mitigation and a reduction in fossil fuel subsidies along with contributing to human development benefits to a large extent. Although there was a trickledown effect of the funds, the implementing organisations benefitted more from accessing climate finance than the farmer beneficiaries using the service. Previous research on expected ‘triple wins’ from the programs do not take into account how peripheral they are to the broader development trajectory of Bangladesh which is now focused on less clean forms of energy generation for economic growth. In contributing to the current ‘triple wins’ discourse in Bangladesh, this study provides a more realistic account regarding the prospects of LCCRD. However, the space for ‘triple wins’ could be enlarged if the programs are redesigned specifically to contribute to pro-poor adaptation, mitigation and development

A low-carbon and hunger-free future for Bangladesh: an ex- ante assessment of synergies and trade-offs in different transition pathways

Feeding and nourishing a growing global population in Bangladesh is a major challenge in a changing climate. A multi-level participatory scenario approach with corresponding modeling and decision support tools is developed and applied to support decision-makers in developing scenario-guided enabling policy for food security in the future under climate change. The results presented in this paper show how, under different scenarios, the agri-food system may transform in the next decade as a result of the interaction of intertwined institutional, technological, and market drivers in Bangladesh. For scenario building, the food and agriculture community was brought together with the climate and energy community. We also experimented with different ways to bring voices that are often less included in policymaking, such as poor rural communities and youth. The scenario quantification is performed by MAGNET, a GTAP-based multi-sector and multi-region computable general equilibrium model. The simulation results depict a comprehensive picture of corresponding and varied pressures on agricultural resources and opportunities for economic development and trade in Bangladesh. Finally, we did an ex-ante assessment of the trade-offs and synergies between zero-hunger- and zero-emission-related targets within the Bangladesh Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the developed scenarios

Approaches through which anticipation informs climate governance in South Asia

This report presents the RE-IMAGINE research in one of its four regions: South Asia. RE-IMAGINE builds on climate foresight expertise of the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) Program and analyses the role of foresight in climate governance across the globe. Scenarios and many other methods and tools are used today to imagine climate futures and develop strategies for realizing new futures while governing climate change. With the proliferation of these processes in sustainability-related research and planning contexts, scrutiny of their role in steering climate actions in the present becomes increasingly important. How can the benefits and challenges of these processes of anticipation be better understood as governance interventions? At the same time, research into anticipatory climate governance processes in the Global South has remained very limited, while these regions are most vulnerable to climate change. The RE-IMAGINE report therefore examines processes of anticipation in four regions of the Global South. The research question we answer in this report is: ‘through what approaches are diverse processes of anticipation used to govern climate change in diverse South Asian contexts?’. In order to answer this question, we first examine what methods and tools are used to anticipate climate futures and their role in climate policy and decision-making. We then closely examine three case studies to understand their approaches to anticipatory governance. Additionally, we present the results of two regional meetings with stakeholders where we discussed the challenges that exist in each country to practice anticipatory climate governance and the opportunities to strengthen capacities in this field. Finally, we present recommendations for strengthening processes of anticipatory climate governance in the region