Future socioeconomic changes

Development of socio-economic scenarios and translating them into suitable storylines and provide an overview of potential data to be used for a quantification of future disease vulnerabilitie

Moving from Knowledge to Action: Blogging research and outcome highlights

This blog book tells the story of CCAFS research theme ‘Linking Knowledge with Action’; its approach and lessons learned throughout the years, especially 2014, while illustrating its many achievements through blogs and photos

Lessons in theory of change: monitoring, learning and evaluating Knowledge to Action

In 2010 the research theme on Knowledge to Action (K2A) at CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) developed a plan of work, using a log frame structure. Our objective was to explore and jointly apply approaches and methods that enhance K2A linkages with a wide range of partners at local, regional and global levels. Since then, the K2A theme has supported a variety of projects with the potential to catalyse action from research-generated knowledge. These projects were cutting edge; high risk but with potential for real impact should they succeed

Cambiando el paradigma: las narrativas del futuro guían el desarrollo de la INDC de Costa Rica

Este resumen de política presenta el proceso y los principales resultados del desarrollo de la INDC de Costa Rica a través de un proceso participativo en el que la construcción y uso de escenarios futuros fue el primer paso de un diálogo nacional para definir, probar y mejorar las medidas de mitigación para la reducción de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero

Shifting the paradigm: Narratives of the future guide the development of Costa Rica's INDC

This policy brief summarizes the process and main results of the development of Costa Rica´s INDC through a participatory process in which the building and use of future scenarios was the first step in a national dialogue to define, test and improve mitigation measures to lower emissions of greenhouse gases

Anticipatory climate governance in Southeast Asia

This report presents the RE-IMAGINE research in one of its four regions: Southeast 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. Anticipating the possible impacts of climate change has become a key global focus. 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 decision-making becomes increasingly important. How can the benefits and challenges of these processes of anticipation be better understood as governance interventions? Research into anticipatory climate governance processes in the Global South has remained very limited, while these regions are most vulnerable to climate change. This report therefore examines processes of anticipation in Southeast Asia. The research question we answer is: ‘through what approaches are diverse processes of anticipation used to govern climate change in diverse Southeast Asian contexts?’. 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

The role of regional scenarios in CCAFS cross-scale research, planning and action toward improved food security, environments and livelihoods

Research and action toward better food security, environmental health and rural livelihoods under climate change in the developing world must deal with interacting natural and human systems change processes across multiple dimensions (e.g. biophysical, economic, policy, temporal) and scales (e.g. local, regional, short-term variability, long-term change) in food systems and their contexts. The CGIAR research program Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) engages in a wide range of research and capacity building activities focusing on climate change adaptation and mitigation across dimensions and scales. In this context, this document outlines the key potential of the CCAFS regional scenarios process as a tool for cross-scale and multi-disciplinary food systems research, planning and action

Crash-testing policies; How scenarios can support climate change policy formulation A methodological guide with case studies from Latin America

The objective of this handbook is to guide policy makers and practitioners from the public, private and research sector in the development and use of scenarios to support the inclusive formulation of policies and other decision-making processes related to complex issues taking place in changing environments. The lessons shared are based on nine policy formulation processes for climate in Latin America supported by the CCAFS future scenarios project since 2013. Five of these cases are discussed to exemplify the steps described to use scenarios and support the development of policies

Transformative spaces in the making: key lessons from nine cases in the Global South

Creating a just and sustainable planet will require not only small changes, but also systemic transformations in how humans relate to the planet and to each other, i.e., social–ecological transformations. We suggest there is a need for collaborative environments where experimentation with new configurations of social–ecological systems can occur, and we refer to these as transformative spaces. In this paper, we seek a better understanding of how to design and enable the creation of transformative spaces in a development context. We analyse nine case studies from a previous special issue on Designing Transformative Spaces that aimed to collect examples of cutting-edge action-oriented research on transformations from the Global South. The analysis showed five design phases as being essential: Problem Definition Phase; Operationalisation Phase; Tactical Phase; Outcome Phase; and Reflection Phase. From this synthesis, we distilled five key messages that should be considered when designing research, including: (a) there are ethical dilemmas associated with creating a transformative space in a system; (b) it is important to assess the readiness of the system for change before engaging in it; (c) there is a need to balance between ‘safe’ and ‘safe-enough’ spaces for transformation; (d) convening a transformative space requires an assemblage of diverse methodological frameworks and tools; and (e) transformative spaces can act as a starting point for institutionalising transformative change. Many researchers are now engaging in transdisciplinary transformations research, and are finding themselves at the knowledge–action interface contributing to transformative space-making. We hope that by analysing experiences from across different geographies we can contribute towards better understanding of how to navigate the processes needed for the urgent global transformations that are being called for to create a more equitable and sustainable planet Earth

The future of food security, environments and livelihoods in Eastern Africa: four socio-economic scenarios

This report presents 4 scenarios for the future of food security, agriculture, livelihoods and environments in East Africa. These scenarios were developed by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security in collaboration with a wide range of regional stakeholders. The report discusses the theory and development process of the scenarios, then presents detailed scenario narratives, semi-quantitative assumptions for a range of indicators, and finally outputs generated by 2 agricultural economic models, IMPACT and GLOBIOM. The report goes on to discuss the key results from the scenarios and then to describe the use of the scenarios in processes to guide decision-making in the context of East African food security and climate adaptation