Briefs

Farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) has been part of the farming system for hundreds of years, but has only recently attracted increased attention from government institutions, donors and development organizations. Yet, despite its vast potential, FLID has only been expanding slowly. Barriers to scaling include inadequate policy and legal frameworks, underdeveloped irrigation technology and supply chains, a lack of affordable finance, and limited access to input and output markets. Transformative scaling of FLID requires identifying the sociotechnical innovation bundles that fit, designing and implementing effective scaling strategies, and fostering multi-actor engagement and partnerships to achieve impact and trigger changes across farm, local, national, regional and global scales.

While Ethiopia contributes only 0.53% to global greenhouse gas emissions, the effect of climate change on the livelihoods of Ethiopian smallholder farmers, who have weak adaptive capacity, is adverse. Ethiopia’s climate projections show continued warming and unpredictable changes in rainfall patterns. The country is characterized by the frequency of droughts and other extreme events affecting agriculture, health and water. Projections indicate that climate change will reduce the productivity of the agriculture sector in the coming decades. Agriculture is recognized as a highly vulnerable sector to climate change, and the risks from climatic variations pose an imminent danger to food security and sustainability of livelihoods globally, requiring climate-smart adaptation interventions.

This brief summarizes key recommendations from a decade of research to help overcome some of the governance challenges that hinder the effective implementation of landscape management practices. This study was supported by projects, such as the European Union’s Supporting Horn of Africa Resilience (SHARE) I and II projects, and the Nature-Based Solutions for Sustainable and Inclusive Development (NSSID) program which is built on the outputs of the Growth for Future (G4F) project. At the onset, the brief describes the concepts of landscape and landscape management. Thereafter, the context, policy actions and gaps in agricultural landscape management in Ethiopia are explained followed by the findings on landscape management practices such as PFM, freshwater ecosystem conservation, protected area management, hydro-sediment monitoring, and changes in ESVs due to land conversion relating to the ecoregional development framework are detailed. Lastly, the brief provides recommendations for policymakers and other stakeholders to build community and environmental resilience, giving due consideration to diverse practices that benefit both humans and nature.

Despite the high potential of and strong demand for wider adoption of agricultural innovations in Ethiopia, scaling efforts have often been ineffective, and innovation adoption remains limited. Successful and sustainable innovation scaling requires co-identifying and co-developing best-fit solutions for farmers and other actors in the value chain. Bundling these solutions, such as solar-powered irrigation pumps, with pay-as-you-go financing has improved the enabling environment for adoption. Identifying the farmer segments interested in investing in such bundles and strengthening linkages along the irrigation value chains are essential for matching demand and supply and creating the conditions to reach scale.

There is an increasing awareness about the threats posed to the water resources of the Ziway-Shala lakes sub-basin (ZSSB) due to uncontrolled water use and the resulting ecological degradation. To respond to these threats, there are ongoing collaborative efforts to prepare and implement Water Allocation Plans (WAP) for the sub-basin. However, the success of these efforts is being undermined by several barriers, including a lack of sound scientific knowledge, data, tools, inadequate water governance, and socioeconomic challenges. The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and other members of the SaWeL (Safeguarding Sahelian Wetlands for Food Security) consortium conducted studies to address these sets of challenges. These studies included the identification of data gaps and opportunities for hydrological monitoring, water balance and water allocation. A framework for ecologically sustainable agricultural water management was developed, and training as well as other capacity-building activities were conducted. The findings of these studies indicate the need to strengthen existing hydrological monitoring, realize opportunities provided by emerging data sources, follow a conflict-sensitive approach to WAP, and follow innovative and collaborative approaches to capacity building of the basin administration office. Ongoing WAP preparation and implementation efforts for the sub-basin would greatly benefit from the knowledge, data and tools generated by the SaWeL consortium members and other efforts. This brief highlights the key challenges of the WAP process and the evidence generated, thereby presenting key recommendations to improve implementation of WAP.

In Ethiopia, forest landscapes and freshwater ecosystems are important for biodiversity conservation, providing a range of benefits and services that are fundamental to the environment, society and economy. However, human activities such as agricultural expansion, land-use and land-cover changes, together with climate change have impacted these ecosystems and the services they provide. Despite these challenges, 4 years of field studies (2019-2023) of the SaWeL (Safeguarding Sahelian Wetlands for Food Security) project in the western catchment of Lake Ziway, one of the freshwater ecosystems in Ethiopia, demonstrates various opportunities that exist to better manage the forest landscapes and freshwater ecosystems. This brief provides recommendations on how to improve the planning, design and implementation of landscape management practices, and how to use the Ecologically Sustainable Agricultural Water Management (ESAWM) framework. The brief is also intended to help local-level practitioners (government, Nongovernmental organizations [NGOs], and private sectors) realize existing opportunities for sustainable landscape management.

Rising from mountains of food waste to soil and water contamination, and a changing climate, the perils loom large. Global food security and sustainability are hanging by a delicate thread that commands attention. For sustainable Agri-Food Systems, the black soldier fly larvae (BSF) technology has emerged as a transformative force and a potential game-changer in waste management, soil health enhancement, animal feed production, water savings, carbon mitigation, agricultural and environmental sustainability. BSF technology is the circular economy’s’ new hero, turning waste into protein, fertilizer, oil, plastics, and more! But safety, regulations, smarter and cost-effective production are key. Let’s invest in innovative R amp; D, scale up production, highlight the quality and nutritional food, and jobs that the technology can create, prioritize strategic planning to bolster market penetration, credibility, and competitiveness.

As the climate heats up, the water cycle is twisting and contorting, unleashing a torrent of disruptions. More frequent, ferocious floods and droughts, unpredictable downpours, and gnawing erosion are just the tip of the iceberg. Poor water quality, disease outbreaks, and a host of uncertainties are all conspiring to rip apart the delicate web of life that sustains us. Nigeria is recognized as vulnerable to climate change impacts and ranked 160 out of 181 countries due to a combination of political, geographic, and social factors in the 2020 ND-GAIN Indexii . The ND-GAIN ranks 181 countries using a score which calculates a country’s vulnerability to climate change and other global challenges as well as their readiness to improve resilience. The socio-economic impact of floods in Nigeria has been colossal. In 2012 more than 2.3 million people were displaced, 363 lost their lives and 16 million people were impacted in various waysiii . The economic value of the loss was over US$16.9 billioniv . Again ten years later in 2022, another major flood led to the loss of 600 lives. Also, 3.2 million people were affected across 34 of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. The Nigeria Bureau of Statistics in 2023v reported the devastating impact of the 2022 flood to be in the range of US$3.79 billion to $9.12 billion, with the best (median) estimate at $6.68 billion. The economic value of the agricultural-related losses due to the 2022 floods was about N700 billion. Agricultural lands, crops, infrastructure, and rural livelihood continue to be destroyed almost annually. Past efforts to mitigate flood risks in Nigeria from prevention to preparedness, have often been hampered by poor coordination, inadequate resources, and lack of cutting-edge tools, limited platform to integrate relevant data where such needed data are available. As climate change intensifies, the expected increase in extreme weather events leaves the country vulnerable. Now, a critical examination of all relevant disaster management organizations, technical institutions, humanitarian organizations, and civil societies needs to have robust coordination in promoting holistic and systemic flood risk management is crucial. Nigeria’s government and institutions must identify gaps and deploy more concrete, workable approaches to shield vulnerable Nigerians and their livelihoods from the devastating impacts of future floods.

Inclusive community participation in bottom-up polycentric governance is at the heart of recognitional, procedural, distributional and inter-generational equity and of integrity of international, national and district-scale interventions to improve climate resilience in marginalized rural areas. This Technical Brief summarizes evidence of four ClimBeR and ACTION initiatives in Kenya, in collaboration with the Water Integrity Network, and in Zambia that operationalized these concepts into a concrete diagnosis of local water tenure as basis for the identification of solutions and their funding and implementation. At the interface between communities and government or other external support agencies, this step-wise process of co-design and implementation mobilized communities’ assets and agency of their horizontal, age-old and yet dynamic, integrated water, land and other resource governance. Typical siloes in formal vertical governance were overcome. Such community participation is probably the single most important condition for effective and sustainable performance.

This Briefing Note proposes a framework for status assessment and performance evaluation of social ecological landscapes. Two important application of this framework is envisaged: (a) It can facilitate inclusive decision-making by multiple stakeholders working in the same landscape by explaining interactions, synergies, and trade-offs among SEL goals and landscape components; and (b) When SEL related bundles of innovations are successful (or otherwise), the framework can help document same, reinforcing the case for (not) adopting and scaling up/out.

This technical note outlines a framework for the co-design of inclusive landscape management plans (ILMPs) by local governments and other implementers. The co-design process is iterative, incorporating the perspectives of all stakeholders, piloting, and learning through monitoring, and evaluation. The framework ensures that the co-signed ILMPs are adaptive, one health-sensitive, promote sustainable intensification, and are embedded in local and national governance systems.

The Mekong Delta is a vast region that is crucial for providing food to millions of people. However, climate change and human activities are causing water scarcity, floods and soil salinization, which are a threat to food security and livelihoods. To tackle these issues, the CGIAR Initiative on Asian Mega-Deltas (AMD) is working towards creating more resilient, inclusive and productive deltas that can adapt to climate change and other challenges. As part of the AMD initiative’s activities, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is conducting local-scale hydrological modeling in two delta regions, namely Ganges and Mekong.; This innovation brief outlines the methodology that will be used to develop satellite-based crop water use estimates for targeted irrigation schemes in the Mekong Delta. Through local partnerships, the AMD initiative hopes to generate site-specific knowledge that can be used to understand water use patterns, optimize water management at scales, increase agricultural productivity and ensure the long-term sustainability of this important deltaic system.

The Ganges Delta has large agricultural landscapes that provide food for millions of people. However, changes in climate and anthropogenic activities are causing water scarcity, floods and soil salinization, threatening food security and putting livelihoods at risk. To address these challenges, the CGIAR Initiative on Asian Mega-Deltas (AMD) is working to create more resilient, inclusive and productive deltas that can adapt to climate change and other stressors. The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is undertaking local-scale hydrological modeling and developing Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered salinity forecasting in the Ganges Delta Region to evaluate water and salinity dynamics. This innovation brief outlines the methodological framework that will be used to develop a salinity forecasting system for the polders in Bangladesh using machine learning techniques, surface water and groundwater flow, and contaminant transport modeling to understand water and salinity dynamics and balances in the respective polders. The overall aim is to generate polder-specific knowledge that can optimize water management, increase agricultural productivity and ensure the long-term sustainability of this crucial deltaic system.

The AWARE platform disseminates information on climate, market, health, nutrition, and population displacement, to promote collaborative efforts by multiple partners at local-to-national scales to enhance preparedness, response, advocacy, and resource mobilisation in times of high climate risk.

The Climate-Smart Governance Dashboard provides accurate data on climate-related hazards, population vulnerability, forecast climate scenarios, sector-relevant data (water, health, agriculture, ecosystem), infrastructure and climate-related projects to support coordinated mid- to long-term adaptation planning aligned to global development goals.

This innovation brief presents a methodology that was developed and empirically applied in Morocco to support the “setting up (of) a multiscale polycentric governance framework for promoting transformative adaptation options for climate change” as part of the overarching goal of Work Package #4 (WP4) of the CGIAR Initiative on Climate Resilience (also known as ClimBeR). The empirical application to Morocco underlines the importance of the dynamic aspects of this process by bringing together all relevant elements, i.e., climate change, adaptation options, governance structure, impact transmission mechanism, and welfare into a single analytical framework for assessing the transmission of climate change impacts on rural welfare.

This innovation brief presents a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) to operationalize multiscale polycentric governance (MPG) in using transformative adaptation options (TAOs) to enhance systemic resilience against climate change. The SOPs deal with identifying the transformative characteristics of adaptation options, the institutions involved in an MPG system, and the framework for assessing the ex-ante governance influence of TAOs in enhancing climate resilience via various intermediate impact dimensions. Such an evaluation can help in the allocation of investments in potential governance components to ensure enhanced intermediate outputs, leading to sustainable outcomes of climate resilience and rural welfare.

This policy report is based on an analysis that delineates possible impacts pathways characterized by various configurations of climatic, economic, policy, technical, institutional, infrastructural, and welfare-related variables through which climate change’s impacts are transmitted ultimately on rural welfare at the grassroots level. The analytical framework provides an excellent operational context for evaluating the roles of Multiscale Polycentric Governance (MPG) in mediating and enhancing the climate resilience impacts of Transformative Adaptation Options (TAOs) both across regional scales and sectoral contexts. Empirical application of the framework to Morocco’s Beni Mellal region in the Oum Er-Rbia Basin shows linkages and synergies of TAOs and governance components that enhance the effectiveness of TAOs. Transition to effective forms of governance through institutional improvements can help the existing water institutions in the basin which are under extreme pressure due to the challenges of climate change.

The Power Walk is a group role-playing exercise designed to prompt reflection on power dynamics, privilege, and social inequalities, adapted for the water sector context. The activity simulates a society where individuals have an equal starting point but depending on their social identities end up in different positions. The game is meant to convey gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) concepts in the water sector.

Waste management has become a pivotal public health and environmental question, particularly in developing nations, due to rapid industrialization, population growth, and inadequate policy. To foster a long-term pattern of progress, global trends are encouraging governments, policymakers, and international organizations to explore pathways for transitioning from linear to circular economy business models. Resource Recovery and Reuse (RRR) offers viable pathways with multiple value propositions beyond environmental benefits. However, the decision-making processes involved in the shaping and selection of business models often require weighing costs and benefits and making trade-offs among alternatives and competing priorities. Some costs and benefits are clearly identifiable and can be numerically expressed, yet many others cannot be readily determined. This technical report presents the conceptual framework underlying a multi-criteria-based decision support tool tailored to enable decisionmakers and practitioners to select appropriate and sustainable CE business models in the RRR context with positive social, economic, and environmental outcomes.

Landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa faces increasing pressure from both anthropogenic activities and climate change. The agrifood system struggles to utilize the landscapeapos;s potential. Misconceptions in landscape management practices, such as neglecting socio-ecological and participatory concepts, hinder sustainable development. Socio-ecological landscape management, which integrates social and ecological systems and promotes collaboration among stakeholders, innovation, resilience to risks, resource sustainability, and community satisfaction, is gaining acceptance. This technical note is to describe adaptive, inclusive landscape management plans that are sensitive to both ecological and health metrics and could be incorporated into governmental frameworks. The design process is iterative with 6 steps, incorporating the perspectives of local stakeholders, governance bodies, researchers, and local experts. The pathway culminates in a comprehensive Inclusive Landscape Management Plan (ILMP) that is both actionable and reflective of community needs.

This policy brief — produced under the CGIAR Initiative on Asian Mega-Deltas (AMD) — emphasizes the urgent need for promoting inclusive governance in Bangladeshapos;s agri-food systems to enhance resilience in the face of escalating climate risks. Although Bangladesh is transitioning toward climate-resilient agri-food systems, this shift faces challenges. There is notable variation among policies and interventions pertaining to food, water and environmental systems in their acknowledgment of socio-ecological interdependencies and representation of marginalized communities. This highlights the need for policies that address interlinked social, economic and political inequalities within the agri-food sector and translating the policies into practice. A gap also exists between local experiences of food insecurity and climate resilience and expert-led innovations. Key recommendations in this brief call for the promotion of nature-based solutions, leveraging the progressive National Adaptation Plan, and establishing a robust gender-focused fiscal system. These recommendations, which are aligned with the eight principles of locally led adaptation, underscore the vital role of empowering local communities to lead effective climate change adaptation efforts, ultimately fostering a more sustainable and resilient agri-food sector in Bangladesh.

The CGIAR Initiative on Aquatic Foods partnered with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s Water Research Institute (CSIR-WRI), the Fisheries Commission, and collaborated with local government departments and local communities to implement fish cage culture in selected small reservoirs in Ghana. This brief highlights the technical and institutional principles that were applied in these sites for inclusive and sustainable aquatic food production in the year 2023.

Water management in Egypt presents unique challenges. Being waterscarce, the country needs to use its limited freshwater reserves efficiently and effectively, particularly for irrigation, which accounts for over 70% of the total freshwater availability. Egypt has a network of irrigation canals and water-reuse drains that were built since the introduction of cotton cultivation in the colonial era to enable agricultural drainage and the reuse of water for irrigation. This facilitated expansion of the cultivated area with a view to improving food security and income. However, the design of efficient water reuse for irrigation does not come without attendant challenges. With more and more farmers coming to rely on polluted drainage water for irrigation, an alarming inconsistency in the quality of treated drainage water is now evident (Ashour et al. 2021). The focus of our study, which was funded by the CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform, was to understand the gendered implications of these changes and challenges. Adopting a feminist political ecology approach, we analyze the gendered power dynamics within productive, irrigated agriculture, focusing on the everyday lived experiences of diverse groups of women, farmers and irrigators.

The Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) offers subsidies for off-grid Solar Irrigation Pumps (SIPs) to promote sustainable irrigation practices. The utilization of these off-grid SIPs is low due to irrigation demand patterns. The potential for gridconnected solar irrigation is increasing as Nepalapos;s national utility grid network grows. Nevertheless, despite net metering regulations, off-grid SIPs are not integrated into the national grid. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is implementing a pilot project called Solar Irrigation for Agriculture Resilience in South Asia (SoLAR-SA). The project aims to explore gridconnected solar irrigation and answer policy questions on the best techno-institutional model for grid integration in Nepal. Collaboration among major stakeholders during the implementation of pilot projects will contribute to developing guiding policies for grid-connected solar irrigation. Establishing specific policies for net metering targeted at agriculture meters is crucial for the scalability of grid-connected solar irrigation.

The increasing use of Solar Irrigation Pumps (SIPs) has raised concerns about the overexploitation of groundwater. So, this study aims to evaluate the impact of SIPs on pumping behaviour of farmers and its subsequent effect on overall groundwater resources in Bangladesh and India. In Bangladesh, the study is being carried out in the intensively irrigated North-West region, where the government is promoting the feefor- service model for solar irrigation. This model creates a solar irrigation command area by setting up centralized sponsored SIPs. In India, the study is being conducted in the state of Gujarat, where the grid-connected solar irrigation pump model has been implemented under the Suryashakti Kisan Yojana (SKY) scheme.

Locally led climate action has emerged as a critical approach to address the challenges posed by climate change at the grassroots level. As the impacts of climate change intensify, communities around the world face a wide range of vulnerabilities such as extreme weather events, water scarcity, rising sea levels, and disruptions to lives and livelihoods. In this context, locally led climate action emphasizes the importance of empowering local communities to take ownership of their adaptation strategies. Research interventions therefore need to focus on transformative measures to ensure the longer-term resilience of local communities to the continued effects of climate change.

Economic crises take different forms and occur for various reasons, such as political conflicts and pandemics. What all these crises have in common is that they cause disruption to rural-urban food supply chains, resulting in food shortages for the urban poor, with the most direct impact being an increase in food prices. It is within this challenging context that we present empirical examples of the role of urban agriculture.

This brief provides a summary of research and findings on the impacts of rapid rural electrification in Bangladesh on the informal water markets during the last decade and how these markets in turn have affected irrigation access among smallholder farmers. The note emphasizes the importance of energy sources in determining the nature of groundwater access in Bangladesh, where groundwater remains central to irrigated agriculture and food production.

The mitigation benefits of solar irrigation pumps (SIPs), when those SIPs replace diesel pumps, are well understood. What is not equally known are the adaptation co-benefits of SIPs. This brief evaluates the co-benefits of using SIPs instead of widely used diesel pumps for farmers in Bangladesh. It estimates the impact of access to SIP on household and crop levels outcomes for improving farmer livelihoods and food security. In doing so, it explores the potential pathways of these impacts.

Rapid climate change is causing weather extremes in every region of the world. The global water cycle is now experiencing a structural change not seen since the last Ice Age, leaving human systems struggling to adapt and respond. Some events will have noticeable consequences in the short term, such as increased flooding from changing precipitation patterns. Others will be more long term, such as the desertification of cropland. All will have major implications for future human security. We can view climate security as climatic stressors that amplify existing risks in society and influence the security of humans, ecosystems, economies, infrastructure and societies. In that sense, climate security is directly connected to water security defined as the ability of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water.

Women play an increasingly greater role in agriculture. Ensuring that they have opportunities—equal to those of men—to participate in transforming agriculture is a prerequisite for sustainable intensification. Increased gender equity in agriculture is both a practical and a social justice issue: practical because women are responsible for much of the production by smallholders; and social justice because in many cases they currently do not have rights over land and water resources, nor full access to markets, and often they do not even control the crops they produce. Strategies to promote gender equity must be tailored carefully to the social and economic context.

The CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) has conducted innovative research in the upper watersheds of the Ganges, Mekong, Red and Nile river basins. WLE sought to identify how to improve people’s livelihoods in ways that are equitable, profitable and sustainable, while also improving ecosystem services locally and downstream. The research specifically examined the impact of interventions spanning several sectors, including water, food, energy and trade. This brief presents results, insights and tools that can be adopted and applied elsewhere. Escaping from the confines of narrow sectoral investments and adopting an integrated, ecosystems-focused approach can lead to more sustainable, profitable and equitable use and development of upper watershed landscapes.

The residents of the Ganges and Mekong River deltas face serious challenges from rising sea levels, saltwater intrusion, pollution from upstream sources, growing populations, and infrastructure that no longer works as planned. In both deltas, scientists working for nearly two decades with communities, local governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have demonstrated the potential to overcome these challenges and substantially improve people’s livelihoods. There are cost-effective solutions to improving the totality of ecosystem services and market opportunities for young women and men.

Farmer-led investments in agricultural land and water management (ALWM) are transforming livelihoods and food security across South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Potential exists for even greater benefits, for even more beneficiaries. Understanding what factors influence adoption and impact of ALWM interventions can help ensure sustainable, positive effects of future investments. WLE has designed a suite of tools and investment models to support policy makers and development agents to leverage and extend the investments farmers are already making.

Dams provide numerous economic benefits and can mitigate the adverse impacts of water variability and extreme climate events. However, such large-scale water infrastructure has also caused significant social and environmental costs, prompting calls for alternative, nature-based solutions. WLE suggests that collections of built and natural infrastructure, combined with participatory management approaches, can support water and food security, while enhancing livelihoods and environmental outcomes.

Healthy soils are essential for productive and resilient agricultural systems. They are also increasingly recognized as a means to mitigate climate change risks. While solutions for restoring degraded soils and landscapes do exist, improved knowledge and tools are needed to enhance their impacts over time and at scale. WLE has assessed the impacts of various land restoration initiatives and developed a range of tools to better tailor and target investments and interventions to local contexts.

Using groundwater for agricultural production has the potential to build resilience in food insecure regions of the world. Use of groundwater can boost agricultural production, improve rural incomes and strengthen farmers’ ability to withstand climate shocks and water variability. However, for groundwater to contribute to sustainable intensification of agriculture, it is essential to know where to invest in groundwater development and how to sustainably manage groundwater resources. WLE has identified potentially usable groundwater resources in Africa, supported important policy changes to enhance the sustainable use of groundwater in eastern India, and has developed maps and new tools that can be used to implement new policies supporting sustainable use of groundwater.

IWMI-ADB Project

IWMI-ADB Project

IWMI-ADB Project. Pro poor Country brief

IWMI-ADB Project. Pro poor Country brief

IWMI-ADB Project. Pro poor executive summary