Integrating gender into index-based agricultural insurance: a focus on South Africa

Index insurance is an agricultural risk management tool that can provide a safety net for smallholder farmers experiencing climate risk. While uptake and scale-out of index insurance may be slow among smallholders, we can learn from experiences that demonstrate where crop insurance can protect smallholders’ livelihoods from climate risk. Integrating gender into climate risk management is necessary to ensure that the benefits of index insurance are experienced by both men and women. A dedicated intention to integrate gender may be required. Taking South Africa as a case study, the potential for gender-sensitive index insurance scale-out among smallholders is investigated

Recommendations for climate services good practice

This working paper aims to provide recommendations and guidelines for climate services good practice. Building on CCAFS work and the broader academic literature, we distil knowledge and experience from interviews with project leaders and collaborators under Flagship 4, Climate Services and Safety Nets. Interviews provided information on designing, implementing and assessing climate services projects across the CCAFS regions; Asia, Africa and Latin America. Participants were encouraged to share challenges and opportunities from their experiences, particularly around dynamics of power and equity in the access and use of climate services. The resultant recommendations span across several different themes, scales and geographies, and are considered as most pertinent to the future of impactful climate services for smallholders, touching on potential future areas for investment

Climate Services supporting the adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture: Potential linkages between CSA adoption and climate services use

Climate services (CS) are defined by Vaughan et al. (2018) as “the production, translation, transfer and use of climate knowledge and information in climate-informed decision-making and climate-smart policy and planning”. CS support adaptation to climate variability and change in agriculture by informing farmer and institutional decision- making, producing local climate knowledge, supporting efforts to build resilience and manage climate risk, and improving the enabling environment for Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) adoption (Hansen et al., 2019). CSA practices target the three CSA pillars; increasing adaptation/resilience to climate change, increasing food production and, where feasible, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions (Aggarwal et al., 2018). CSA falls under Flagship 1 in CCAFS and climate services under Flagship 4

Lessons learnt in CCAFS Flagship 4 Phase II

This review of work conducted under Flagship Program 4 of CCAFS aims to document some of the challenges, opportunities and lessons learned in the past 5 years of research and implementation. Flagship 4 focuses on Climate Services and Safety Nets in Latin America, Asia and Africa, encompassing climate services design and implementation, insurance and early warning systems. An approach to quantifying lessons learned was developed, based on the climate services value chain and the institutions, assumptions and scaling strategies employed in the projects. Interviews with project leads offered insight into nuances and context-specific learning on implementing impactful projects. Results highlighted, amongst others, the importance of using varied metrics and strategies to measure impact; of considering timescales of the projects, from the macro-scale enabling environment to the granular decisions made by farmers; of actively working to understand the context of interventions; and of evaluating how climate information is used in decision-making

Digital Agriculture Profile: South Africa

This Digital Agriculture Profile for South Africa leverages the expertise of stakeholders to evaluate the current landscape of digital agriculture in the country, including key players across the value chains, the main barriers they face, and the potential to overcome those barriers through the adoption of innovative technologies

Decision matrix of a climate services global meta-analysis

Harmonizing the supply of climate information with the type of information needed by next-users is crucial for effective weather and climate services (CS). Understanding of information demand could help reshape supply side based CS that have dominated the field over the last few decades. Most CS have been developed using a ‘loading dock’ model, whereby products are designed by information suppliers with little input from or consultation with users of climate services. Notably, a focus on climate modelling and prediction has largely resulted in a lack of consideration of the demand-side when producing climate services. Here, we contribute to understanding of CS demand by presenting a global meta-analysis – a ‘decision matrix’ - of farmers’ climate influenced decisions. We identify 41 studies that encompass 186 decisions, three forecast timescales (weather, dekadal, seasonal), and five forecast variables (precipitation, temperature, wind, soil moisture and soil temperature). Several insights were offered by this literature review into the value of climate services and the way forward in considering users’ needs. We find that the seasonal precipitation is the most frequently used forecast variable for decision-making, particularly of crop sowing date. Forecasts such as temperature, soil moisture and soil temperature appeared to be less used by farmers, according to the decision matrix. It is apparent that more investigation is necessary into how farmers use climate information in their decision-making to better establish the value of CS. We suggest that different sectors should make their respective decision matrices to explore decision spaces and engage with users of climate information in various sectors

A global meta-analysis of climate services and decision-making in agriculture

Harmonizing the supply of climate information with the type of information needed by next-users is crucial for effective weather and climate services (CS). Understanding of information demand could help reshape supply-side based CS that have dominated the field over the last few decades. Most CS have been developed using a ‘loading dock’ model, whereby products are designed by information suppliers with little input from or consultation with users of climate services. Notably, a focus on climate modelling and prediction has largely resulted in a lack of consideration of the demand-side when producing climate services. Here, we contribute to understanding of CS demand by presenting a global meta-analysis – a ‘decision matrix’ - of farmers’ climate-influenced decisions. We identify 41 studies that encompass 186 decisions, three forecast timescales (weather, dekadal, seasonal), and five forecast variables (precipitation, temperature, wind, soil moisture and soil temperature). Several insights were offered by this literature review into the value of climate services and the way forward in considering users’ needs. We find that the seasonal precipitation is the most frequently used forecast variable for decision-making, particularly of crop sowing date. Forecasts such as temperature, soil moisture and soil temperature appeared to be less used by farmers, according to the decision matrix. It is apparent that more investigation is necessary into how farmers use climate information in their decision-making to better establish the value of CS. We suggest that different sectors should make their respective decision matrices to explore decision spaces and engage with users of climate information in various sectors