Africa Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance Side Event

22 September 2014. New York, United States. The Africa Union Commission, the NEPAD Agency and Partner International NGOs had a special Side Event on the AU-NEPAD Agriculture Climate Change Programme and the transformative AU-NEPAD-iNGO CSA Alliance on the eve of the 2014 UN Climate Summit.

The side event facilitated interactions and sharing on Africa’s efforts, initiatives and strategies to scale-up CSA, focusing on three aspects, namely:

• the Africa CSA Alliance as an emerging, innovative and unique partnership between Africa’s Continental Development Agency and iNGOs with a shared goal to catalyze scaling up of CSA in Africa 
• An Africa-specific perspective and interpretation of CSA, which brings “people issues”, i.e. livelihoods and prosperity, as well resilience, to the core of CSA 
• Partnership opportunities including related principles and modalities for expended support to result-based efforts to scale-up CSA within the CAADP framework 

Additional to lead speakers including Ghana ex-President and UNSG Envoy on Climate Change, Mr John Kufuor; NEPAD Agency CEA, Dr Ibrahim A. Mayaki and H.E. Commissioner, Tumusiime Rhoda Peace; and a Panel of Prominent Leaders and Practitioners, the Side Event provided adequate time for open plenary debate.

Experience in climate services is already out there—the governments of India and Mali have been delivering weather and climate advisory services to their farmers for several decades. To learn from these experiences, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) surveyed these national programs and other innovative climate services initiatives across Africa and Asia. A new CCAFS report details the findings.

Background of the AFRICA CLIMATE-SMART AGRICULTURE ALLIANCE (ACSAA),

Join CCAFS and partners for key Climate-Smart Agriculture events at Climate Week NYC

The Africa Climate-Smart Agriculture Alliance (ACSAA) is a unique and innovative partnership led by the NEPAD Agency and five international NGOs (Catholic Relief Services; Concern Worldwide; CARE; World Vision; Oxfam) with technical support from a number of organizations including the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), FARA, FAO and FANRPAN.

As a research body, CCAFS role will be to:

• provide Africa with a perspective of CSA including determining climate specific risks and vulnerability; 
• help determine and validate the Africa-specific CSA tool box including modalities and parameters to monitor/measure adoption and sustained practice; 
• provide technical validation of the 25 million farm household target; conduct research to bring evidence-based understanding of both technical and political-economy issues to unblock accelerated adoption and sustained widespread practicing of CSA and lastly
• undertake and support analytical pieces on future scenarios to inform today’s policy decisions and programme interventions (or lack of it). 

All ACSAA will work in partnership to design and implements programmes that can stimulate adoption of promising CSA practices and drive agricultural policy reform.

Ethiopia, Zambia and Niger have been identified as the three most appropriate African countries for early scaling-up proposals.

• Alliance members are currently developing high-level concepts for each country. 
• Country sub-committees will be formed, including as far as possible all major stakeholders working in each country. 
• These sub-committees will refine concepts to ensure they are contextually appropriate and will develop detailed proposals.

Related:

Governance and Institutions Across Scales in Climate Resilient Food Systems from CCAFS | CGIAR program - Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security