• Energy Research

Climate change impacts on agriculture have become evident, and threaten the achievement of global food security. On the other hand, the agricultural sector itself is a cause of climate change, and if actions are not taken, the sector might impede the achievement of global climate goals. Science-policy engagement efforts are crucial to ensure that scientific findings from agricultural research for development inform actions of governments, private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international development partners, accelerating progress toward global goals. However, knowledge gaps on what works limit progress. In this paper, we analyzed 34 case studies of science-policy engagement efforts, drawn from six years of agricultural research for development efforts around climate-smart agriculture by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Based on lessons derived from these case studies, we critically assessed and refined the program theory of the CCAFS program, leading to a revised and improved program theory for science-policy engagement for agriculture research for development under climate change. This program theory offers a pragmatic pathway to enhance credibility, salience and legitimacy of research, which relies on engagement (participatory and demand-driven research processes), evidence (building scientific credibility while adopting an opportunistic and flexible approach) and outreach (effective communication and capacity building).

Assessing global progress on human adaptation to climate change is an urgent priority. Although the literature on adaptation to climate change is rapidly expanding, little is known about the actual extent of implementation. We systematically screened >48,000 articles using machine learning methods and a global network of 126 researchers. Our synthesis of the resulting 1,682 articles presents a systematic and comprehensive global stocktake of implemented human adaptation to climate change. Documented adaptations were largely fragmented, local and incremental, with limited evidence of transformational adaptation and negligible evidence of risk reduction outcomes. We identify eight priorities for global adaptation research: assess the effectiveness of adaptation responses, enhance the understanding of limits to adaptation, enable individuals and civil society to adapt, include missing places, scholars and scholarship, understand private sector responses, improve methods for synthesizing different forms of evidence, assess the adaptation at different temperature thresholds, and improve the inclusion of timescale and the dynamics of 536 responses.

Semi-Arid Regions (SARs) of West Africa are considered climate change “hotspots” where strong ecological, economic and social impacts converge to make socio-ecological systems particularly vulnerable. While both climatic and non-climatic drivers interact across scales to influence vulnerability, traditionally, this inter-connectedness has received little attention in vulnerability assessments in the region. This study adopted the vulnerability patterns framework, operationalized using the Multidimensional Livelihood Vulnerability approach to include both climatic and non-climatic stressors to analyze differential household vulnerability in SARs of Mali. Findings showed that while drought was the most mentioned climate-related stressor, households were also exposed to a diversity of environmental and socio-economic stressors, including food scarcity, livestock disease, labour unavailability, crop damage, and erratic rainfall patterns. The typology revealed three vulnerability archetypes differentiated by adaptive capacity and sensitivity. Availability of productive household members, household resource endowments, livelihood diversification and social networks were the main discriminant factors of household adaptive capacity, while challenges relating to food and water security make households more sensitive to stressors. The analysis highlighted the heterogeneity in household vulnerability patterns within and across communities. Failing to account for this heterogeneity in adaptation planning might result in a mismatch between adaptation needs and interventions, and potentially in maladaptation.

Adaptation pathways have experienced growing popularity as a decision-focussed approach in climate adaptation research and planning. Despite the increasing and broadening use of adaptation pathways reported in the literature, there has not yet been a systematic attempt to review, compare and contrast approaches to adaptation pathways design and their application. In this paper we address this gap through a literature review of conceptual and applied studies of adaptation pathways in the context of climate change. Adaptation pathways started to be conceptualised in 2010. They have become recognised as sequences of actions, which can be implemented progressively, depending on how the future unfolds and the development of knowledge. A difference between scholars is whether pathways are understood as alternative sequences of measures to realise a well-defined adaptation objective, or as broad directions of change for different strategic aims or outcomes. Analysis of case studies on adaptation pathways development showed three clusters of approaches: (a) performance-threshold oriented, (b) multi-stakeholder oriented, and (c) transformation oriented approaches. These broadly correspond to three desired outcomes of pathways development: (i) meeting short and long-term adaptation needs, (ii) promoting collaborative learning, adaptive planning and adaptive capacity, (iii) accounting for complexity and long-term change, including a potential need for transformation. Yet, as of now there is little evidence of the utility of different approaches for pathways development in different decision contexts. Scholars appear to be guided more by how they understand the adaptation problem and by what approaches are known to them, than by the context of the case. Attention is needed on who defines objectives and outcomes for pathway development. Based on the review, we present a learning framework to guide systematic reflection about why and how adaptation pathways are developed. Lessons learned by application of the framework will enable refinement of pathways approaches to make full use of the potential in different decision contexts.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is increasingly seen as a promising approach to feed the growing world population under climate change. The review explored how institutional perspectives are reflected in the CSA literature. In total, 137 publications were analyzed using institutional analysis framework, of which 55.5% make specific reference to institutional dimensions. While the CSA concept encompasses three pillars (productivity, adaptation, and mitigation), the literature has hardly addressed them in an integrated way. The development status of study sites also seems to influence which pillars are promoted. Mitigation was predominantly addressed in high-income countries, while productivity and adaptation were priorities for middle and low-income countries. Interest in institutional aspects has been gradual in the CSA literature. It has largely focused on knowledge infrastructure, market structure, and hard institutional aspects. There has been less attention to understand whether investments in physical infrastructure and actors’ interaction, or how historical, political, and social context may influence the uptake of CSA options. Rethinking the approach to promoting CSA technologies by integrating technology packages and institutional enabling factors can provide potential opportunities for effective scaling of CSA options.

This study was designed and carried out to ascertain the situation and perceptions of end users of cassava flash drying equipment in Nigeria with the aim of giving suggestions to policies and approaches for improved technology. Forty-one processing firms were selected and interviewed. Descriptive analyses were used and a logistic regression model was estimated. The results revealed that 49% of the firms stopped using their flash dryers due to the low demand for high-quality cassava flour (HQCF) resulting from the high cost of processing occasioned by an inefficient heat-generating component. The estimated model provides evidence that cost effectiveness (p < 0.05) and energy cost (p < 0.10) are the two major determinants of the continuous usage of flash dryers in the study area. Forty-one percent of the firms indicated willingness to pay for any technical adjustment of their flash dryers, supposing such adjustment would improve on drying and the energy efficiency of the equipment up to 40%. The study recommends that machine fabricators in Nigeria and other African countries should be trained on the production of energy- and cost-efficient small-scale flash dryers. Again, the design and commercialization of flash dryers that can be mounted on mobile trucks for farm-gate processing should be encouraged to facilitate farm-gate processing, thereby reducing postharvest losses resulting from transporting perishable and bulky roots over a long distance.