Large scale investment is needed to create climate-smart agriculture (CSA) systems. While many government and development agencies are integrating CSA into their policies, programmes, plans and projects, there is little guidance for operational planning and implementation on ways to be climate-smart. Here we present “CSA-Plan”. CSA-Plan frames actions needed to design and execute CSA programs into four components—1) situation analysis, 2) targeting and prioritizing, 3) program design, and 4) monitoring and evaluation. Each component yields concrete information to operationalize CSA development separating it from traditional agriculture development. Already, CSA-Plan has shown the capacity to change the discussion around CSA implementation. With iterative co-development, the approaches will become only more useful, relevant and legitimate to governments, civil society and the private sector alike
