Technologies and practices for agriculture and food system adaptation to climate change in The Gambia

Agriculture is a major source of livelihood and income in The Gambia. Despite its socioeconomic importance, the sector faces many institutional, technological, and biophysical challenges limiting its contribution to economic development. The situation is exacerbated by adverse effects of climate change, which is undermining national efforts, making The Gambia one of the most vulnerable to climate change. This report documents and synthesizes available climate-smart agriculture (CSA) options that can inform adaptation planning in The Gambian agriculture and food system. We analysed the relevance of the documented options in sustainably increasing productivity and income while building climate resilience and reducing GHGs emissions in food systems. Through a mixed approach integrating multiple sources, a total of 28 technologies and practices has been identified as relevant adaptation options for The Gambia agriculture and food system. These options are grouped into nine adaptation categories including Crop diversity use and management, Soil and nutrient management, Soil & Water Conservation and Irrigation, Agroforestry systems, Livestock-based systems, agro-climatic information services, Social network and institutional support, and Livelihood diversification. Except for post-failure coping strategies known to be ineffective and unsustainable, all the identified options have some potentials to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and income while adapting and building resilience to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This synthesis provides evidence of potential climate-smartness of the selected adaptation options and could be important to inform adaptation planning and prioritization

National action plan on gender, climate change and agriculture in Senegal

The main objective of this report is to support the development of a national action plan on gender and climate change for Senegal. It examines gender inequalities and will assess the status, gaps and opportunities for women to advocate for gender equality in Senegal. In doing so, the action plan demonstrates the value of a gender-sensitive approach in the various sectors of the fight against climate change, and the alignment with the policies of Senegal and Africa in terms of gender and climate chang

Interrogating 'effectiveness' in climate change adaptation: 11 guiding principles for adaptation research and practice

The Paris Agreement articulates a global goal on adaptation, which aims to ensure an ‘adequate adaptation response’ to the ‘global temperature goal’, and requires countries to report progress through periodic global stocktakes. However, there remain conceptual and methodological challenges in defining an adaptation goal and mixed evidence on what effective adaptation looks like and how it can be enabled. In this review, we demonstrate how different normative views on adaptation outcomes, arising from different epistemological and disciplinary entry points, can lead to very different interpretations of adaptation effectiveness. We argue that how effectiveness is framed will significantly impact adaptation implementation and outcomes. This, furthermore, represents a way of exercising influence in adaptation decision-making. Eleven principles of effective adaptation are distilled as a way to pluralize guidance in international processes such as the Global Stocktake as well as national and sub-national exercises on tracking and monitoring adaptation

The impacts of weather and climate information services on technical efficiency and farm productivity among smallholder farmers in the Upper West Region of Ghana

This study evaluates the impacts of a pilot project that introduced weather and climate information services (CIS) on technical efficiency (TE) and sorghum productivity (Y) using a total of 210 plotlevel data comprising of 92 users and 118 nonusers of CIS in the Upper West Region of Ghana. First, we estimate a Stochastic Frontier model to measure the level of TE using a Cobb-Douglas functional form with the assumption of an exponential distribution for the identification of TE scores. Secondly, we measure the impact of the adoption of CIS on TE and Y separately by addressing the potential bias stemming from the existence of unobserved characteristics using a Control Function estimator. Thirdly, we employ a Recursive Structural Equation System to deal with the simultaneous problems of the endogenous treatment of CIS into Y, the endogenous covariate of TE into Y, and the reverse causality between Y and TE. Overall, our findings are robust to the different methodologies with strong evidence that the pilot project through the adoption of CIS has a substantial positive effect on improving TE and Y in the study area. Our empirical results consistently estimate approximately 6% increase in TE and 35% sorghum yield improvement corresponding to 150 Kg/Ha increased productivity among CIS users. Furthermore, when we simultaneously estimate the combined effects of the adoption of CIS and the level of TE on sorghum productivity with and without the problem of reverse causation between Y and TE, the median value of the average treatment effects (ATE) is 10%. Also, improving the level of TE has a higher payoff among users than nonusers of CIS resulting in increased sorghum productivity of 5% when we compare the average treatment effects on the treated (ATET) and the average treatment effects on the untreated (ATEU). These results underscore a valuable policy insight and the importance of privileging the wide adoption of CIS and promoting the efficient use of inputs with best-recommended climate-smart agricultural practices such as crop management and increasing trainings to raise awareness in future project expansion. However, it appears that the magnitudes of the impacts of the adoption of CIS on Y using the ATE, ATET, and ATEU are sensitive to whether we address the potential reverse causality between Y and TE. These findings indicate that more caution should be considered in the evaluation of the impacts of a project that promotes agricultural innovations including information communication technologies on farm productivity and technical efficiency

Regional Foresight Community of Practice Training Toolkit: Module 4 – Building Scenarios

This regional foresight training toolkit aims to support a regional foresight community of practice to practically apply the range of foresight tools and methods for innovative strategic planning and policy formulation in their respective institutions. The Module 4 introduces scenarios and building multiple scenarios to consider in future plannin

Building on CORAF’s scaling mechanisms to spillover climate-smart agriculture technologies and innovations across West and Central Africa

CORAF’s conceptual approach for scaling-up Technologies and Innovations (T&Is) across West & Central Africa (WCA) includes three main steps: (i) packaging of T&Is ready to go, (ii) marketing of packaged T&Is, (iii) availing T&Is for large-scale adoption. Application of this approach is done using four main scaling strategies: (i) physical platforms (Market of Agricultural Innovations and Technologies: in-person meetings, Technologies parks and regional exchange of technologies), (ii) Online platforms (online MITA and FeSeRWAM), (iii) Innovation Platforms (IPs), (iv) Public-Private-Producers-Partnerships (PPPP). These scaling mechanisms are instrumental to accelerating the uptake and spillover of climate-smart agriculture innovations in WCA and beyond. To date, CORAF and partners have generated about 327 technologies that are under scaling process in the region by applying the aforementioned mechanisms. As part of the MITA in-person technologies market, CORAF convenes every year about 200 participants from 23 countries to discuss, exchange technologies and business opportunities. The online MITA (to date) displays 243 technologies and has recorded up to date about millions of views/visitors, with more than 10 recent intentions to purchase been analyzed. CORAF has set-up about 323 IPs and 4 PPPPs in different countries across the region to serve as drivers of dissemination of proven innovative technologies and practices

Applying foresight analysis in West and Central Africa: Capacity needs assessment from a regional engagement process

Identifying transformative adaptation pathways requires mainstreaming foresight analysis in both research and development planning for climate change adaptation. As a regional institution coordinating agricultural research in West and Central Africa, CORAF aims to provide leadership on strategic foresight planning in the region beyond individual projects, as emphasized in its 2018-2027 Strategic Plan. Based on the capacity needs assessment workshop, a training of trainers of the Community of Practice of Expert Foresight Facilitators will be carried out. Workshop participants identified substantive topics for which to apply foresight analysis in the region. Inclusion of gender and youth social groups in foresight analysis is a key priority focus. This includes the use of gender disaggregated quantitative and qualitative data in the situational analysis. The West and Central Africa region will benefit from a network of existing foresight initiatives, curricula development and certification efforts to support the Community of Practice

Regional Foresight Community of Practice Training Toolkit: Module 1 – Introduction to foresight

This regional foresight training toolkit aims to support a regional foresight community of practice to practically apply the range of foresight tools and methods for innovative strategic planning and policy formulation in their respective institutions. This Module 1 provides an Introduction to applying foresight approaches for climate-resilient agricultural developmen

Regional Foresight Community of Practice Training Toolkit: Module 3 – Visioning and Causal Analysis

This regional foresight training toolkit aims to support a regional foresight community of practice to practically apply the range of foresight tools and methods for innovative strategic planning and policy formulation in their respective institutions. This Module 3 focuses on visioning, causal analysis and integrating climate resilience into future plannin

Regional Foresight Community of Practice Training Toolkit: Module 6 – Reflection and Strategy

This regional foresight training toolkit aims to support a regional foresight community of practice to practically apply the range of foresight tools and methods for innovative strategic planning and policy formulation in their respective institutions. The Module 6 review key foresight methods and tools and tailoring practical action to agriculture and climate change future planning and implementation in the West and Central Africa (WCA) regio