SSU video episodes and implementation of CSA technology packages in key value chains communications campaign

This report presents Shamba Shape Up (SSU) video episodes and implementation of CSA technology packages in key value chains communications campaign in Zambia. To scale up climate delivery systems, several platforms (mobile phones, the internet, radio, and television) were used, leveraging their benefits

AICCRA Country Scaling Vision: Zambia

AICCRA Zambia emphasizes integrating climate information services (CIS) into the CSA bundles as it is a necessary condition to enhance the scaling to be best-fitted to specific contexts, thereby strengthening the relevance of the CSA-CIS bundles. Adaptive scaling approach is selected for such best-fit and relevance to the contexts while enabling the agri-food system transformation as illustrated in Figure 1. Adaptive scaling is ˝processes where diverse actors-networks cooperate, feed off, adapt to, support, compete and interact with each other to form mechanisms and undertake the niche, reach, accelerate and transform functions of the scaling ecosystem˝ (adapted from IWMI, 2021). In the niche, actor networks identify the applicability of the innovation, respond to systemic barriers and opportunities, and adapt the innovation to new contexts

AICCRA leveraging on networks to communicate climate information and climate smart agriculture to smallholder farmers in Zambia

AICCRA Zambia supports networks and community responses through programs on climate innovation and agribusiness, leveraging on media and communication channels. Interventions are designed to stimulate networks of actors at multiple levels (macro, meso, micro) that catalyse dissemination of climate information and climate smart products and services to smallholder farmers. At project level, communication and outreach strategies that support networks and linkages within and across the networks can also contribute to achieving impact. Network strengthening and media communications can provide an important bridge for research, development, climate and agri-business to achieve their targets of enhancing uptake of climate information and climate smart agriculture. Assessment tools are being developed to identify what networks, partnerships and strategic stakeholders the media can leverage on and start working with. Assessing value creation stories with key stakeholders will show how communication and outreach activities of the AICCRA project have resulted in stimulating response by intermediaries and end-users and improved program performance and impact on smallholder farmers. Providing feedback on how good the media interventions were, how they contributed to local impact pathways, and what new opportunities for partnerships were discovered, supports monitoring and evidencing achievements in accordance with the project results framework

AICCRA Zambia Additional Finance Stakeholder Consultation Report

This report presents the outcomes of Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) Zambia Stakeholder Consultation Workshop for Additional Financing (AF). The consultation was held on September 21, 2023, from 09:00 to 14:00 CAT at the Inter-Continental Hotel, Lusaka. In total, 100 participants (31 females and 14 youth) participated in the consultation. The objectives of the stakeholder consultation were to: i) update and inform stakeholders about the AICCRA program; ii) inform partners and stakeholders about the continuation of financing and the rational for AICCRA’s AF, including the new orientations and increased ambitions; and iii) collect inputs and feedback from stakeholders to consolidate into the AICCRA AF proposal

Income and bean consumption patterns in Zambia

Master of AgribusinessDepartment of Agricultural EconomicsVincent Amanor-BoaduThe literature shows that increases in incomes lead to changes in the allocation of income or expenditure shares to different food products. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the effect of income on expenditure share allocations among different food groups. The study was particularly interested in beans and how changes in incomes affect the share of bean expenditures. We used data from the 2010 Zambia Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS). The LCMS covers the whole country and provides segmentation of the respondents, across the region and rural versus urban. It also provides detailed information on the income and expenditure distributions of respondent households. This allowed for the achievement of the overall objective of this thesis: understanding how beans and other food products responded to income changes as well as other demographic and socio-economic variables. The food share is the proportion of total household income that was allocated to food. The results show that food averages about 40% of income but varied significantly across the four income groups. It was 92% for those earning less than ZMW300 per month and 37% for those earning between ZMW300 and ZMW750 per month. It was down to 22.6% for those earning between ZMW750 and ZMW2.1 million per month had a food share of total income of only 10.8%, similar to the average U.S. consumer. These averages were found to be statistically different across the income groups. We found that Zambians allocated about 40% of their food expenditure to cereals compared to 5% to pulses and 3.5% to beans. They allocated a higher proportion of their food expenditure to fruits and vegetables than to beans and/or to pulses. This shows that legumes are very low on the food hierarchy in Zambia. However, across income categories, it was found that consumers in the second income group (ZMW300 and ZMW750 per month) allocated the most of their food expenditure to beans, about 3.9%, while those in the highest income group (ZMW750 and ZMW2.1 million per month ) allocated the least, about 3%. The biggest influencing demographic factor for pulses and beans’ shares of food expenditure was locale, with urban consumers having about 1.1 and 0.8 percentage points higher share of food expenditures allocated to beans than rural consumers. The respective t-values were 15.58 and 16.96. All the demographic and socio-economic variables were statistically significant at or below the 5% level. There was no difference between the allocation of people in the highest income group and those in the lowest income group. The results suggest that if the long-term objective is to reap the nutritional benefits of beans, there may be value in focusing on two principal policy variables: education and income enhancement. However, because education is correlated with income, the benefits of undertaking this policy initiative would more than benefit the bean consumption. It should unleash across the economy a more productive workforce that understands the health benefits of its food choices

Internship and innovation program under the Accelerating the Impact of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project in Zambia

The Accelerating Impact of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project works to deliver a climate-smart African future driven by science and innovation in agriculture. AICCRA does this by enhancing access to climate information services (CIS) and climate-smart agricultural (CSA) to millions of smallholder farmers in Africa. Under AICCRA-Zambia, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) partners with national universities and private sector entities to implement the internship and innovation grant program with the private sector (I2G program) to generate capabilities of individuals and institutions to deliver on the ‘translational research’ into business and commercialization. The I2G program supports young entrepreneurs and young professionals through the private sector working experience and demand-driven innovation development. The overall objective of I2G program is to build greater trust, knowledge sharing, and collaboration between the private sector, public sector, and research institutions that, in turn, contribute to an enabling environment to scale CSA-CIS bundles in an economically and environmentally sustainable way. Specific objectives of the I2G program include: support young entrepreneurs and young professionals through the private sector working experience and demand-driven innovation development; catalyze contextually relevant technical, social and financial innovations to support CSA-CIS scaling; create scientific evidence to catalyze innovative approaches to CSA agribusiness; create and foster national research – private sector partnerships to catalyze CSA-CIS scaling; and strengthen systemic capacity to be responsive and inclusive to scaling of CSA-CIS bundles. The I2G program has been implemented through five modalities: the internship with private sector entities, CSA-CIS hackathon for innovation development, business incubation for innovation commercialization, CSA-CIS demand-driven research, and CSA-CIS integration into educational curriculums. Centre to these modalities is the co-identification of CSA-CIS-related needs and challenges in relation to CSA-CIS scaling in Zambia which private sector actors, including smallholder farmers, are facing with

T-cell response to human papillomavirus type 52 L1, E6, and E7 peptides in women with transient infection, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, and invasive cancer

The E6 and E7 proteins encoded by human papillomaviruses (HPV) are prime targets for therapeutic vaccine development. Ninety-five women with HPV 52 infection (33 transient infections, 17 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade II, 15 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade III, and 30 invasive cervical cancers) were examined for T-cell responses using interferon-γ enzyme-linked immunospot (IFN-γ ELISPOT) assay. Of the 29 peptides (13 L1, 10 E6, and 6 E7) screened positive by an in vitro peptide-binding assay, 14 were positive by the IFN-γ ELISPOT assay. Positive epitopes for HLA A11 were located at amino acid positions 103–111, 332–340, 342–350, and 373–381 of the L1 protein; and at 27–35 and 86–94 of the E6 protein; and at 1–9 and 27–35 of the E7 protein. A24-specific epitopes included 60–68 and 98–106 of the L1 protein, 42–50 and 59–67 of the E6 protein, and 24–32 of the E7 protein. Only one epitope (99–107) of the E6 protein showed positive responses for HLA A2 subjects. Overall, T-cell responses against L1 were observed mainly in subjects who had cleared infection; whereas responses against E6 and E7 were confined mainly to subjects who had developed cervical neoplasia. The proportion of subjects showing detectable T-cell responses was low across all grades of cervical neoplasia suggesting that immune evasion mechanisms had set on early in the course of disease progression. This study provides the first set of T-cell epitopes mapped for HPV 52, which can be considered for further evaluation as targets for immunotherapy

T-Cell Response to Human Papillomavirus Type 58 L1, E6, and E7 Peptides in Women with Cleared Infection, Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia, or Invasive Cancer▿

Human papillomavirus type 58 (HPV-58) exists in a relatively high prevalence in certain parts of the world, including East Asia. This study examined the T-cell response to HPV-58 L1, E6, and E7 peptides among women with cleared infection, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 (CIN2) or CIN3, or invasive cervical cancer (ICC). Peptides found to be reactive in the in vitro peptide binding assay or mouse-stimulating study were tested with a gamma interferon (IFN-γ) enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay to detect peptide-specific responses from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) collected from 91 HPV-58-infected women (32 with cleared infection, 16 CIN2, 15 CIN3, and 28 ICC). Four HLA-A11-restricted HPV-58 L1 peptides, located at amino acid positions 296 to 304, 327 to 335, 101 to 109, and 469 to 477, showed positive IFN-γ ELISPOT results and were mainly from women with cleared infection. Two HLA-A11-restricted E6 peptides (amino acid positions 64 to 72 and 94 to 102) and three HLA-A11-restricted E7 peptides (amino acid positions 78 to 86, 74 to 82, and 88 to 96) showed a positive response. A response to E6 and E7 peptides was mainly observed from subjects with CIN2 or above. One HLA-A2-restricted E6 peptide, located at amino acid position 99 to 107, elicited a positive response in two CIN2 subjects. One HLA-A24-restricted L1 peptide, located at amino acid position 468 to 476, also elicited a positive response in two CIN2 subjects. In summary, this study has identified a few immunogenic epitopes for HPV-58 E6 and E7 proteins. It is worthwhile to further investigate whether responses to these epitopes have a role in clearing an established cervical lesion