The Eastern Africa sub-region is among the regions in the world most affected by and vulnerable to climate change and climate related hazards. Rural livelihoods in the region are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to the majority of rural populations being poor and highly dependent on rain-fed agriculture. In Eastern Africa, agriculture is the engine for economic development, poverty eradication and the attainment of food and nutrition security. According to FAO1, the agriculture sector in Africa is increasingly being called on to raise food production to meet the food demand for a growing population. This formidable challenge will be further exacerbated by climate change which will have significant impacts on the various dimensions and determinants of food security. This is particularly so given that increasing and sustaining agricultural production and productivity, as well as developing the resilience of agricultural systems to adverse weather events and climate change is fundamental to achieving food security in the region.
African policymakers are thus being challenged to ensure that agriculture contributes to addressing food security, poverty alleviation and development as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation. In line with this, the concept of climate-smart agriculture emerged to describe agricultural systems that provide agricultural as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation benefits, and improved watershed and ecosystem management (FAO, 2010). While only recently framed as a concept for the climate change and agricultural development communities, climate-smart agriculture can include many of the field- and farm-based sustainable agricultural land management approaches already in literature and in use. Climate-smart agriculture includes proven practical techniques such as mulching, intercropping, conservation agriculture, crop rotation, integrated crop-livestock management, agroforestry, improved grazing and improved water management2 among many others. It also includes innovative practices such as better weather forecasting, early-warning systems and risk insurance. It is about getting existing technologies off the shelf and into the hands of farmers and developing new technologies such as drought- or flood-tolerant crops to meet the demands of a changing climate.
As the links between climate change adaptation and mitigation and agriculture have become better understood, policy efforts to support agricultural adaptation and mitigation have intensified. The Preamble of the Paris Agreement, adopted on 12 December 2015 by the 195 Parties to the UNFCCC, recognizes “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger, and the particular vulnerabilities of food production systems to the adverse effects of climate change”. In addition, countries in Eastern Africa
1 G. Branca,T. Tennigkeit, W. Mann and L. Lipper, Identifying Opportunities for Climate-smart Agriculture Investments in Africa (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2012)
2 Climate-Smart Agriculture Sourcebook
have all submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), most of which comprise adaptation and mitigation aspects in crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture with some explicitly citing climate-smart agriculture as a key approach. Therefore, in Eastern Africa, the agriculture sector offers great potential to unite hunger eradication and sustainable development goals with climate action, and this can be done within the framework of climate-smart agriculture. These developments present a great opportunity for countries in the sub-region to scale up climate-smart agriculture related initiatives through enhancing investment in climate-smart agriculture and at the same time ensuring that existing agricultural investments are climate-smart.
One of FAOs key areas of work involves the capacity building for member states and development partners on integrating climate-smart agriculture into national agricultural investment planning. In addition the Eastern Africa CSA Platform identified as some of its key areas of activities, the support to countries to operationalise climate-smart agriculture frameworks within the context of national agricultural investment plans, as well as the mapping of sources of CSA funding at national (including through national budgets), regional and global level and the development of resource mobilization strategies for climate-smart agriculture investments.
As such The FAO Sub-regional Office for Eastern Africa will be holding a sub-regional workshop on Investments in Climate-Smart Agriculture from 02 November 2016 – 03 November 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda.