2012 International Research Workshop on Institutions for Inclusive Climate-Smart Agriculture

September 10 - 14, 2012, Nairobi, Kenya

The CGIAR research programs on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) and Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) held a research workshop on the topic of “Institutions for Inclusive Climate Smart Agriculture” in Nairobi, Kenya, in September 2012.

A growing recognition of agriculture’s central role in efforts to increase global food security, enhance farmers’ ability to adapt to a changing climate, and mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases has led to a converging agenda of “climate-smart” agriculture (CSA). Climate-smart agricultural practices are those which contribute to all three of the above goals, thus offering “triple wins” in the areas of food security, adaptation, and mitigation. Such practices include techniques for soil and water management, pest control, conservation of genetic resources, and combining crops, trees, livestock, and fisheries into integrated production systems. The importance of CSA in addressing climate change was affirmed at the COP17/CMP7 meetings in Durban, South Africa. (For more information on CSA, see www.climatesmartagriculture.org)

The extent to which the CSA agenda is able to realize its ambitious goals will depend in large part on the institutional environments in which it is implemented (with institutions broadly defined as the “rules of the game”). In particular, a wealth of research and experience demonstrates that property rights institutions become increasingly important for agricultural innovations that require a longer time horizon and collective action institutions (e.g. effective groups) are necessary to coordinate efforts over large spatial scales (see the figure below). While innovations such as improved (e.g. drought and/or heat tolerant) seed varieties can be adopted by an individual farmer on a single plot for a single growing season, many CSA practices require an ecosystem perspective, working at the landscape scale over an extended period of time. These latter efforts are unlikely to be successful unless farmers, pastoralists, and other resource users hold secure property rights and are able to coordinate activities across localities and sectors.

Figure 1: The role of institutions in climate change responses]

[figure 1: The role of institutions in climate change responses]

Additionally, institutional innovations intending to advance the goals of CSA, such as national technology promotion efforts and rewards or payments for ecosystems services (PES) schemes, must be designed in such a way as to avoid the exclusion of women and marginalized groups and ensure that potential benefits are distributed equitably among participants. Individuals who hold customary use and access rights to a plot of land or patch of forest, for example, will be unable to participate in PES schemes that recognize only statutory ownership rights. Other CSA approaches include, for example, index insurance schemes, collective food storage initiatives, small-scale irrigation, agricultural water storage and management projects, promotion of agroforestry, improved pasture systems, conservation agriculture, and soil and water conservation efforts. Gender-blind programs and those that identify participants at the level of the household are likely to systematically exclude women and deliver benefits disproportionately to the (usually male) “head of household.” In order to avoid these pitfalls CSA efforts must make take deliberate steps toward ensuring that programs are inclusive and sensitive to gender issues.

The international workshop focused on the following question:

What kinds of institutional arrangements are effective in supporting and encouraging inclusive climate-smart agricultural activities?

The purpose of this workshop was to strengthen the capacity of the CGIAR and partners to address institutional issues for inclusive CSA by (1) raising awareness and recognition of the most salient institutional issues related to CSA and (2) providing insight on how researchers and practitioners can best account for and address these issues in their activities.

The workshop was co-sponsored by the CGIAR research programs on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) and Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and was made possible through program funding to CAPRi from the governments of Norway and Italy, and to CCAFS from CIDA, DANIDA, MFAT (NewZealand), EU, USAID, DFID , Irish AID and IFAD.

Presentation

Newton et al. from CAPRi

Workshop Publications

Interventions for Achieving Sustainability in Tropical Forest and Agricultural Landscapesby Peter Newton, Arun Agrawal, and Lini Wollenberg. CAPRi Working Paper 110. Washington, DC: IFPRI. 2013
Workshop presentation | | Full Text (PDF)

Presentation

Workshop Publications

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