Initial steps towards the formation of an Eastern African sub-regional working group on Climate Smart Agriculture was initiated during a meeting held between 29 September 2014 – 01 October 2014hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Eastern Africa, and supported by the East African Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) -Southern African Development Community climate change programme.

In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Climate Change has already taken effect and the impacts are expected to worsen in the coming decades. The Eastern Africa sub-region is among the most affected and also among the most vulnerable regions in the world. Rural livelihoods in the region are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to the majority of rural people being poor and highly dependent on rain-fed agriculture

There is sufficient evidence that practices such as Conservation Agriculture and other climate-smart agriculture practices (for example agroforestry and integrated pest management) are some of the promising options that, over time can sustainably increase the productivity of smallholder production systems, increase profitability and resilience without compromising the environment. These CSA systems are however, not widely used in the Eastern Africa Sub-region, partly because there is limited awareness, capacity, knowledge and policy support for the widespread use of CSA technologies. There is therefore a need to scale up such practices across the Eastern Africa countries and the Eastern African sub-region as a whole.

To promote the scale up of CSA at both national and sub-regional level, there is a need for the existence of functional and effective national CA coordination platforms as well as a means for countries within the sub-region (whether they have national CA programmes and coordination platforms or not) to learn from one another. Additionally in March 2014 at the 1^st African Congress on Conservation Agriculture, convened by the African Conservation Tillage Network participants recognised that there is a need to strengthen partnerships, ensure communication and information flow within the CA and CSA community of practice at national and sub-regional levels, and that the sharing of new knowledge and experiences were an important resource for the uptake and spread of CA. As such, all participants agreed to also hold sub-regional level meetings and workshops in order to facilitate information exchange, networking and planning at the sub-regional level.

Eastern Africa Sub-regional working group on Climate-Smart Agriculture is expected to be composed of regional agricultural experts from Ethiopia, Southern Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. The formation of the working group that will enable millions of farmers in the region to practice climate smart agriculture and thereby strengthen food security and improve farmers’ livelihoods. “The concept of Climate Smart Agriculture, initiated by FAO, addresses the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change, with the objective to increase agricultural productivity, adapt and build resilience of agricultural and food security systems to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture,”

Borrowing from the experiences of the Southern Africa Conservation Agriculture Regional Working Group, it is expected that this working group will provide a platform for the coordination of stakeholders working at a regional level to tackle the various constraints related to Climate Smart Agriculture. Part of the activities during this meeting involved a visit to a Fish farm at Sagana a small town in Kirinyaga District, Central Kenya, along the Nairobi-Nyeri highway, 100 kilometres north of Nairobi. This farmer was doing fish farming in his compound as well as ornamental fish farming including export fish business. He explained that this was also a strategy to withstand the shocks that come with climate variability.