hansen ccafs approach climate services

Jim Hansen, CCAFS Flagship 2 Leader, IRI

Strengthening Regional Capacity for Climate Services in Africa, Victoria Falls,27 October 2015

CCAFS Strategy for Climate Services

• Strategic partnership among CGIAR Centers and research partners, in strategic partnership with FutureEarth

What is CCAFS?

• Strategic partnership among CGIAR Centers and research partners, in strategic partnership with FutureEarth

• World’s largest research program addressing the challenge of climate change and food security

What is CCAFS?

Mechanism for organizing, funding climate-related work across CGIAR

Involves all 15 CGIAR Centers

• Strategic partnership among CGIAR Centers and research partners, in strategic partnership with FutureEarth

• World’s largest research program addressing the challenge of climate change and food security

• 5 target regions across the developing world

What is CCAFS?

Flagship 2 research areas

• Climate information and seasonal agricultural prediction for risk management

• Equitable rural climate information and advisory services

• Weather-related agricultural insurance products and programs

• Early warning and decision systems for food security planning and response to climate shocks

• Guidance and evidence for climate service investment

• Regional and national meteorological institutions better meet the demands of climate service beneficiaries

• Agricultural extension and climate information providers expand and improve climate service provision

• Financial service providers improve design, targeting and scaling of insurance for smallholder farmers

• Food security response organizations and safety net programs use improved information to better manage shocks

• Regional and global development organizations invest in climate services for agriculture, with greater impact,

Research areas: Target outcomes:

South Asia

Flagship 2 Portfolio

East Africa

West Africa

Latin America

Southeast Asia

Capacitating African

Smallholders with Climate Advisories

and Insurance Development

(ICRISAT/ICRAF)

Early warning for climate sensitive

diseases in Vietnam and Laos

(ILRI)

Adaptive capacity of women and minorities thru agro-climate information

(CARE/ICRAF)

Flood Index Insurance for marginalized smallholder communities

(IWMI)

USAID-Africa Climate Services Support

Integrated Agricultural and Food Security Forecasting for

East Africa (CIMMYT)

Tailored Agro-Climate Services for Latin America (CIAT, Bioversity)

Index insurance to enhance adoption of climate-adapted

germplasm (CIMMYT)

Index insurance complementing

other risk management

strategies (IFPRI)

GFCS Adaptation Program in Africa Climate-informed, ICTbased agroadvisory

service for crops in South and Southeast Asia (IRRI)

Gender and climate services (U. Florida)

Climate services engagement and coordination (Arame Tall, IFPRI)

Development of CRAFT: CCAFS Regional Agricultural Forecasting Toolbox (Washington State U.)

Key challenges to making climate services work for smallholder farmers

• Credibility: investing in quality, accuracy

• Salience: tailoring content, scale, format, lead-time to needs

• Legitimacy: giving farmers an effective voice in design, delivery

• Access: providing timely access to remote rural communities

• Equity: ensuring that women, poor, socially marginalized benefit

• Integration: climate services as part of a larger package of support

What will it take for climate services to benefit

smallholder farmers – at scale?

• NMS capacity to provide actionable information

• Scalable communication channels

• Engage and target the vulnerable

• Balance scalable services with context-specific needs

• Institutional arrangements for co-production of services

• The right kind of investment

Building capacity to provide actionable information

• Salience challenges:

Spatial scale

Beyond seasonal averages

Uncertainty, communicated in context of history

Impacts and management

• Challenges African NMS face:

Parent ministry mandate

Human capacity

Sparse historic observations

Data policy, incentives

?

Building capacity to provide actionable information

ENACTS (Enhancing National Climate Services):

• Started in Ethiopia

• Satellite + station, ~5 km grid, 30-50 year complete record

• Data Library platform to build “maproom” products from data

• Owned, implemented by NMS

Ethiopia, Tanzania, Madagascar; & AGRHYMET regionally

Under development in Mali, Ghana, Zambia

STATION

BLENDED

SATELLIT

E

• Enables NHMS to customize,

generate, disseminate locally relevant

information without over-taxing limited

human resources.

• Implications for climate services for

farmers

• Changing how NMS are doing

business

Scalable communication channels

• Institutional channels

Proven effectiveness of face-to-face interaction for seasonal planning

Scale successful approaches through training for agricultural extension, other intermediaries

Integrate climate into existing farmer information and advisory systems

PICSA+

Scalable communication channels

• Institutional channels

• Media and ICT

Complement face-to-face

communication

Extend the reach of human

interaction

Opportunities to make radio-

based communication more

interactive

Mobile phone revolution

Overcoming climate service “market atrophy”

• Invest in capacity of NMS to routinely provide farmer-relevant climate information

• Invest in communication processes and capacity to use farmer-relevant climate information

• Evidence and guidance for investment in climate services

• What can regional climate institutions and processes do?

Jim Hansen: jhansen@iri.columbia.edu

Thank you!