Reducing the vulnerability of women rural producers to rising hydro-meteorological disasters in Senegal: are there gender-specific climate service needs?

The goal of my research is to investigate whether there is a need for gender-specific climate services in communities at risk of flooding, drought and other hydro-meteorological disasters that are on the rise in Africa since the mid-1990s. If there is a need, how can identifying these needs be incorporated into the design of gender-responsive adaptation policies that will serve to reduce the vulnerability of rural women producers towards rising climate-related shocks? Indeed, the past decade (1995-2005) has been characterized by increasing climate variability and more frequent extremes all over Africa (see fig. 1). Whether women’s specific vulnerability to these hazards could be mediated through an increased use of salient, timely and legitimate climate information is an important question to answer because this has critical implications for the climate research and development practice communities

Developing a methodology to evaluate climate services for farmers in Africa and South Asia workshop report

This report summarizes the proceedings of the international expert roundtable on “Developing a Methodology to Evaluate Climate Services for Farmers in Africa and South Asia” held in Kaffrine, Senegal on May 19-25, 2013. The roundtable brought together global experts in the area of gender-responsive impact assessment for farmers, to develop a useable monitoring and evaluation (M&E) protocol to guide baseline data collection, identify the locally-specific function, benefits, and beneficiaries of climate services, and measure the added-value of climate services for farmers. This protocol links to and informs the climate service evaluation framework developed during the expert meetings on evaluation of the Climate Services Partnership (CSP) and the World Meteorological Organization Socio-Economic Benefits of Climate Services group

Climate forecasting to serve communities in West Africa

The recent Red Cross experience acting on forecasts in west Africa provides examples of how climate information can be linked to decisions and serve development in low-income regions, and how climate and weather forecasts may become useful to communities at risk from climatic events, provided that the obstacles thwarting these communities’ access to and use of forecasts are clearly identified and overcome

Scaling Up Climate Services for Farmers in Africa and South Asia: Workshop Report

This report summarizes the proceedings of the workshop “Scaling Up Climate Services for Farmers in Africa and South Asia,” held in Saly, Senegal on December 10-12, 2012. The workshop brought together more than 100 experts from 30 countries and roughly 50 institutions to grapple with the challenge of supporting vulnerable farming communities through the production, communication, delivery and evaluation of effective agrometeorological information and advisory services; and to identify practical actions to address those challenges at scale

Does climate information matter? A proposed monitoring and evaluation framework for participatory assessment of the impact of climate services for male and female farmers

This report summarizes a new contextual and gender-responsive monitoring and evaluation framework (M&E) to assess the added value of climate information and advisory services for smallholder farming communities across the developing world. The proposed M&E is based on three primary goals for conducting an evaluation of climate services for farmers: 1) to inform design of a new climate service project; 2) to identify gaps in climate service delivery, and improve project effectiveness and service delivery quality; and 3) to assess impact of provided services for farmers, hypothesized to benefit from the climate service. In order to meet these goals, we developed a multi-step process for climate service impact evaluation, including a pre-assessment (PA) toolkit of ethnographic and evaluative tools, followed by guidelines for baseline data collection, monitoring, and evaluation of climate service projects. The PA serves to build understanding of background contextual issues that constrain or enable the usefulness of climate information services in any given community, such as information about farmer’s decision- making, socio-economic and cultural constraints behind behavioral changes, and gender roles and norms within a given community. These elements may have impacts on information use and changes in practices, skills and abilities that aid farmers’ adaptation to a changing climate, and uptake of information to make decisions under uncertainty. Once such understanding of farmers’ decision-making context is determined, evaluators will be better equipped to define a contextualized impact pathway of climate information for rural farmers. The PA is the first step in a larger process of developing a targeted, locally-specific and gender-responsive M&E framework. This M&E framework will enable project teams to evaluate the relevance of climate services to support smallholder farmer decision-making under an uncertain climate and improve local management of climate related risks at the farm-level

Workshop report: Developing a methodology to communicate climate services for farmers at scale

This report summarizes the proceedings of the workshop; “Developing a Methodology to Communicate Climate Services At Scale Through Intermediaries for Farmer Communities in Africa and South Asia,” held in Nairobi, Kenya on June 12-14, 2013. The workshop brought together experts from different countries and institutions to work together to develop tools and guidance materials to train various intermediary groups in climate service communication, including public extension services, professional communicators, media, rural radios, NGOs, CBOs, farmers’ organizations, women self help groups and other boundary organizations. Participants developed an outline of potential training modules, and committed to contributing and further developing materials for a training resource guidebook

Malawi Summary of Baseline Studies: Country Report for the GFCS Adaptation Program in Africa

This report reflects the summary of baseline findings in Malawi, under the auspices of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) Adaptation Programme in Africa. It identifies gaps in climate information access and use at the local level, types of climate services farmers and pastoralists need in Malawi, relevant channels to reach farmers with requested services, lead-time and gender-specific requirements for the design and delivery of climate services that matter to farmers. Scientific climate information is not used by the sampled farm households because they perceive this information as less reliable and not locally relevant to inform their cropping activities. Farmers need to be advised on improved cropping systems and agricultural technologies to minimize crop failure. In addition to information on climate, they would like to receive additional information on crop management and improved technologies. In addition, ensuring effective supply and availability of farm inputs (fertilizer, seeds) at the market will enhance farmers’ ability to act on the information received. Across districts, we found that women have access to climate information, but to a lesser extent than men. The reason may lie in the fact that women own fewer communication assets, particularly radios, and may be often too busy with household chores. A limited number of women are able to use the advice bundled with the climate information because of their lower control of productive resources and training. Several key insights can be derived from this analysis and can inform the design of climate services activities in the districts targeted. First, climate information for households should rely primarily on radio and extension workers both from government and NGOs. Second, training key informants on climate forecast concepts and integrating them into agricultural activities is essential for the effective dissemination of climate information services. Third, supply of the markets with farm inputs will enable farmers to better act on the climate information received. Fourth, climate services products delivered to farmers should include forecasts on the onset of rainfall, frequency of extreme events, distribution of rainfall over the agricultural season and the end of the rainy season. Fifth, traditional indicators should be valued and integrated into the conventional climate forecasts to promote farmers’ use of scientific climate information in conjunction with their own indigenous knowledge. Finally and mostly critically, dialogue between national meteorology services, extension agents and farmers will represent an effective platform for the co-production of relevant and useful climate services for farmers

Tanzania Summary of Baseline Studies: Country Report for the GFCS Adaptation Program in Africa

This report reflects upon the consolidated findings from the baseline and scoping studies conducted under the auspices of Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) Adaptation Programme in Africa. It identifies gaps in climate information access and use at the local level, type of climate services farmers and pastoralists need in Tanzania, relevant channels to reach farmers with requested services, lead-time and gender specific requirements. We find that farmers and pastoralists in Tanzania rely more on their indigenous knowledge and personal experience than on science-based climate information to inform their crop and livestock decisions. Fewer than half of surveyed households in Kiteto and Longido acknowledged receiving climate information (with an even lower proportion in Longido). The most common climate information products currently received are seasonal rainfall onset and extreme event forecasts. Major gender differences emerged between districts; for example, in Kiteto 42% of male-headed households received forecasts versus 38% of those headed by females. In Longido, an area mainly populated by nomadic pastoralists, 42% of female- headed households received forecasts versus 25% of male-headed households. Some challenges to the use of climate information are a lack of trust in forecasts of climate events that do not unfold as predicted, timing, accuracy and the spatial scale of information. The types of climate services farmers and pastoralists need in Tanzania are as following, ranked by order of importance: onset of rains, expected rainfall over the season, end of rainy season, number of days of rainfall and probability of extreme events. In Kiteto, men and women rank these the same way, while in Longido, men and women have different priorities. For women, forecast of expected rainfall over the season is their first priority (82%), followed by forecast of the start of the rains (59%). However the reverse is the case with men. They ranked forecast of the start of the rains first (63%) and forecast of expected rainfall over the season second (57%). In all districts, radio emerges as the most important delivery channel. Subsequent to radio, rural women prefer to receive climate advisories and alerts as voice messages on cellphones, while men prefer extension agent visits. 47% of women own a radio while 70% of women own cell phones. Other non-negligible sources of climate information include visits from government extension workers, NGOs, word of mouth, friends and neighbours

Workshop Report: Scaling Up Climate Information Services for Farmers and Pastoralists in Tanzania through ICTs and Rural Radio

Under the auspices of this GFCS Adaptation Programme in Africa, the World Food Program (WFP) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) co-organized a two-day ICT and Radio Stakeholders’ Consultation Workshop in Tanzania to define a nationally appropriate strategy for scaling up climate information services for farmers and pastoralists in Tanzania through ICTs and interactive rural radio. This national ICT and radio consultation workshop brought together 28 participants representing government MDAs, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), UN agencies, academic and research institutions, farmer based organizations, and telecom operators to brainstorm best options to streamline delivering tailored climate information to end users. The two-day workshop was held in Dar es Salaam on 27-28, April 2015. The workshop began with a brief overview of the objectives, methodology, and key recommendations from each study. This was followed by a summary of important findings, and then a question-and-answer session in which participants agreed with the key recommendations and overall findings. Participants were introduced to a draft information flow model that includes three important components: production, delivery and feedback. The plenary session gave participants room to share feedback from discussion groups. Final consensus was built on the role of each stakeholder and type of intervention needed on the ground in the short- and longer terms to enhance the delivery of climate information services for farmers and pastoralists in Tanzania. The model derived from this workshop gives a clear picture of the information flow needed to communicate agro-advisories and other climate information services at a large scale in the country. The model has three important components: the production side, delivery side, and feedback side. Particular stakeholders and technological interventions were identified for each of these components. Successful stories from India and Africa, that are relevant to the Tanzanian context, were presented to strengthen the discussions. These case studies prompted discussions on the financial sustainability of the business models, and triggered the idea to adopt similar innovations in Tanzania