Climate-Smart VillagesGlobal

Background

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is working with a number of partners, including national governments and research institutions, to test a range of interventions in Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs) across West Africa, East Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. CCAFS also collaborates with local farmers, community-based organizations, national meteorological institutions, and private sector stakeholders. After potential sites are selected, a steering group of community representatives and researchers work together to identify appropriate CSA options for that village. The community chooses its preferred options through a process that is as participatory and inclusive as possible, encouraging women and more vulnerable groups to participate. For example, in 2014, in Lushoto, Tanzania, researchers worked with women and men farmers to gather local knowledge and skills and then developed CSA packages of practices appropriate for demonstration and adoption in the community.

Contributions to CSA

With a strong emphasis on inclusiveness, Climate-Smart Villages approaches lead to the identification of more appropriate CSA responses based on women and men’s differing farming needs and constraints. By targeting women and youth, CSA benefits are more likely to reach different household members in both male and female-headed households.

Impacts and lessons learned

Targeting women and youth and ensuring different stakeholders are included in making decisions on CSA options to adopt and it makes CSA benefits more sustainable and provides farmers with incentives to adopt CSA practices. Engaging different stakeholders to identify and understand their different knowledge, skills, interests and constraints provides new insights into farmers’ perceptions of CSA practices suitable for adoption. In Lushoto, efforts to date have shown how food security and resilience can be improved in the face of climate change and at the same time, suggest ways in which smallholder farmers across different communities can adapt their agricultural practices.

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CCAFS Climate-Smart Agriculture 101

Case Studies

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The basics

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an integrative approach to address these interlinked challenges of food security and climate change, that explicitly aims for three objectives:

A. Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity, to support equitable increases in farm incomes, food security and development;

B. Adapting and building resilience of agricultural and food security systems to climate change at multiple levels; and

C. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture (including crops, livestock and fisheries).

Entry points

Agriculture affects and is affected by climate change in a wide range of ways and there are numerous entry points for initiating CSA programmes or enhancing existing activities. Productivity, mitigation and adaptation actions can take place at different technological, organizational, institutional and political levels. To help you navigate these myriad entry points we have grouped them under three Thematic Areas: (i) CSA practices, (ii) CSA systems approaches, and (iii) Enabling environments for CSA. Each entry point is then described and analysed in terms of productivity, adoption and mitigation potential and is illustrated with cases studies, references and internet links for further information.

Develop a CSA plan

Planning for, implementing and monitoring CSA projects and programmes evolves around issues of understanding the context including identification of major problems/barriers and opportunities related to the focus of the programme; developing and prioritizing solutions and designing plans; implementation; and monitoring and evaluation. Most major development agencies have their own framework for project and programme formulation and management but CCAFS has developed a specific approach for planning, implementing and assessing CSA projects and programme called CSA plan. CSA plan was developed to provide a guide for operationalizing CSA planning, implementation and monitoring at scale. CSA plan consist of four major components: (1) Situation analysis; (2) Targeting and prioritizing; (3) Program support; and (4) Monitoring. evaluation and learning.

Finance

To meet the objectives of CSA, such as agricultural development, food security and climate change adaptation and mitigation, a number of potential funding sources are available. For instance, climate finance sources may be used to leverage agriculture finance and mainstream climate change into agricultural investments. This section offers an overview of potential sources of funding for activities in climate-smart agriculture (CSA) at national, regional and international levels and for a number of different potential ‘clients’ including governments, civil society, development organizations and others. Additionally, it includes options to search among a range of funding opportunities according to CSA focus area, sector and financing instrument.

Resource library

CSA Guide provides a short and concise introduction and overview of the multifaceted aspects of climate-smart agriculture. At the same time it offers links to references and key resources that allows for further investigations and understanding of specific topics of interest. In the resource library we have gathered all the references, key resources, terms and questions in one place for a quick overview and easy access that can be used as a part of or independently of the other sections of the website. The resource library is divided into six sections; (1) References – list all publications, links and blogs referred to on the website; (2) Tools – list all the CSA tools presented on the website; (3) Key terms – explains the most important and frequently used terms related to CSA; (4) Frequently asked questions (FAQ) – provides a rapid overview of the most common questions asked on climate-smart agriculture; (5) About – where you can find out more about the purpose and structure of, as well as on the organizations and authors behind the website; (6) Contact.

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