Publications

There is growing optimism about the potential of digital innovations to support climate action and transform agricultural markets. We review and characterize the landscape of digital innovations in the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region. We highlight major success stories associated with the potential of digital innovations to facilitate rural market transformation and support climate action, including adaptation and mitigation. Our desk and landscape review identifies various digital innovations used in Egypt, Morocco, and Uzbekistan. We then create a typology of digital innovations based on seven broad service categorizations: weather and climate; agricultural finance; energy and early warning systems; data and crowdsourcing; market information and market place; extension and advisory information; and supply chain coordination. Three technical and validation workshops supplement this review. Our review shows that digital innovations have the potential to build resilience to climate change and increase market access, but their adoption remains low and varying across contexts. Significant heterogeneity and differences exist across these countries, possibly due to different institutional and regulatory frameworks that guide demand and capacity. We identify several supply and demand-side constraints facing the digital ecosystem in the region. There is the existence of a significant digital divide fueled by gender, literacy gaps, and related socioeconomic and psychosocial constraints. A seeming disconnect also exists between pilots and scale-ups, as most existing digital applications are unsuccessful in expanding beyond the pilot phase.

The aim of this guide is to facilitate the utilization of Black Soldier Fly (BSF) as an alternative protein and fertilizer source, contributing to employment generation and poverty reduction. It is designed to support farmers, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Extension Agents, and other stakeholders in acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills to engage in BSF farming as a viable business opportunity. Serving as an all-encompassing guide, it systematically outlines the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind each stage of the BSF production cycle, starting from initial startup (point zero) to the successful harvesting phase. The manual also delves into the science of BSF farming, elucidates the steps for establishment, covers best practices, and provides insights into potential challenges within the production chain, along with strategies for ensuring the sustainability of the BSF enterprise.

Water resources management under a changing climate requires a multi-scale water resources understanding of a given basin. The Awash River Basin of Ethiopia is experiencing various water management challenges due to its complex hydro-climatological conditions and a range of water users, hence understanding the anthropogenic impacts on hydrological changes is complex. The study is aimed at improving the climate resilience of water management practices at multiple spatial scales. This report is a synthesis of the multi-scale water resources assessment of the Awash Basin. The objectives are: (1) characterization of the basin’s distribution and availability of water; (2) identification of the existing water resources planning and management practices; (3) challenges at multiple scales; and (4) developing recommendations to address observed gaps. The approach used to meet these objectives is a water resources assessment from the landscape to the basin-scale. This is to understand the current practices on water management through field observation, stakeholder consultations, and the analysis of existing data and literature on water resources of the basin. Field observations were conducted on selected learning watersheds in three sub-basins: Borkena, Mille and Awash Terminal. The specific watersheds are Felana, Lake Maybar and Gelana, and Ewa and Afambo. The key challenges to water resources management that were observed at basin, sub-basin and watershed levels are: (1) inadequate data and information on key hydrological variables that led to a lack of recent knowledge on water availability, actual water use, types and potentials of water sources; (2) lack of decision-support tools that would provide strategic and operational level information for risk-based planning and management of water resources (3) lack of appropriate water infrastructure and context-specific technologies that can support small-scale producers (SSPs) and basin-level water managers; (4) lack of well-coordinated institutions to govern and manage water resources from catchment to basin levels; and (5) lack of technical skills and knowledge on how to monitor water availability, water use, and the application of tools. The implications of these challenges are visible in water scarcity observed during dry seasons for different sectors; low agricultural productivity; upstream-downstream tension on water; flooding damages in peak rainfall seasons; and deterioration in water quality that impacts agriculture and drinking water supply. This study finds out that the practice of water resources management in the basin requires substantial strengthening to make it climate resilient. The study proposes strategies that would help in making climate-smart water resources management practices in the basin. Climate-smart water resources management is defined as the practice that would maximize the goods and services that can be produced from limited water resources; minimize the impact of climate ext

Africaapos;s agriculture sector is vital for food security, employment, and economic growth. Women and young people, who contribute to innovation, diversification, and income, face limited opportunities in the sector due to social and economic power imbalances. This disparity wastes resources and impedes agricultural value chain development (VCD). Inclusive VCD aims to empower women, men and youth from diverse social groups and strengthen the agriculture sector. However, the literature on inclusive VCD in Africa is limited due to urban biases, and the lack of a framework to address gender inequality and poverty. This study explores how livelihood assets, strategies for accessing the assets, and enabling and discouraging factors in the value chain shapes the inclusion of women and youth in on-farm, off-farm and non-farm activities. It is based on the Safeguarding Sahelian Wetlands for Food Security (SaWeL) program that aims to make the market work for the poor through inclusive VCD in the Ziway-Shalla Sub-basin of Ethiopia, and Wegnia and Sourou basins in Mali. A qualitative dataset of 32 focus group discussions, 48 key informant interviews and 40 in-depth interviews were analyzed. We identified investment and cultivation inclusion strategies that demonstrates how women and youth from diverse social groups actualize business opportunities, overcome challenges and create new opportunities for inclusion. Investment strategies involve women and youth from better-off households with good access to natural, social, political and physical capital for capital-intensive roles. On the other hand, cultivation strategies involve women and youth from resource-poor households who can harness natural, social and political capital to participate in off-farm and non-farm activities. Our results show that women and youth who adopt either one of the strategies are encouraged by good support from social networks, cooperatives, Government Organizations, Nongovernmental Organizations and private sector actors. However, access to productive resources and services for women and youth adopting any strategies is hampered by gender and intergenerational norms, poverty and insufficient institutional capacity. We argue that it is essential to understand how social disparities and local environments interact to inform the design and implementation of inclusive value chains. Additionally, inclusive value chains necessitate building capacities of institutions at different scales.

This report aims to explore the multidimensional challenges and opportunities for youth in agripreneurship in Malawi for a better understanding of interventions for youth in agribusiness. It examines the enabling and disenabling environment for young agripreneurs and how best to engage youth within the agribusiness sector. The report draws on in-depth interviews, workshops, and secondary literature to highlight key issues and strategies to engage youth agripreneurs in Malawi. It also offers recommendations for actors, practitioners, and policymakers to enhance transformative interventions for youth participation in agribusiness. Suggested measures include improving access to input, market, and equipment, setting up quota systems targeting youth agripreneurs, and better coordinating youth programs between ministries and the private sectors. The report also emphasized that these strategies are not just to achieve youth inclusion in agribusiness but also for the sustainability of youth programs which contribute to building resilient societies.

Water governance demands multi-sector participation beyond the state; and, appropriate laws, policies, regulations, and institutions need to be developed and put in place for sustainable use of water resources. A good water policy, a critical and integral instrument of water governance, guides water use schemes and ensures equitable water distribution among users. The Ethiopian Central Rift Valley (CRV) is rich in water resources, but these water resources are currently under severe strain owing to an imbalance in human-water interactions. This study examined the state of water resources governance framework, policy coherence, actors’ engagement and transparency, accountability, and participation in irrigation water supply in the CRV of Ethiopia. Key informant interviews (KII), focused group discussions, and document reviews were used to gather data for the study. The NVivo 11 program was used to organize, code, and analyze the data. The results revealed that water resources governance practices such as water allocation and apportionment, water resources protection, and conservation activities were inappropriately exercised. Water resources management policy mechanisms were not fully put in place. Lack of coherence in water policy implementation, absence of clear roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, absence of transparency and accountability in irrigation water service delivery, and lack of meaningful participation of key actors in water governance decision-making were observed. As a result, over-abstraction, deterioration of buffer zone areas, and chemical erosion from surrounding farming are attributed to the reduction in water volume and quality in the CRV. These challenges have influenced aquatic ecosystem services and threaten the livelihoods of the surrounding communities. Hence, reforms relating to policy coherence and enforcement, stakeholder engagement, water distribution strategies, and the implementation of water governance principles must be given adequate emphasis.

This paper presents the composite drought indicator (CDI) that Jordanian, Lebanese, Moroccan, and Tunisian government agencies now produce monthly to support operational drought management decision making, and it describes their iterative co-development processes. The CDI is primarily intended to monitor agricultural and ecological drought on a seasonal time scale. It uses remote sensing and modelled data inputs, and it reflects anomalies in precipitation, vegetation, soil moisture, and evapotranspiration. Following quantitative and qualitative validation assessments, engagements with policymakers, and consideration of agencies’ technical and institutional capabilities and constraints, we made changes to CDI input data, modelling procedures, and integration to tailor the system for each national context. We summarize validation results, drought modelling challenges and how we overcame them through CDI improvements, and we describe the monthly CDI production process and outputs. Finally, we synthesize procedural and technical aspects of CDI development and reflect on the constraints we faced as well as trade-offs made to optimize the CDI for operational monitoring to support policy decision-making—including aspects of salience, credibility, and legitimacy—within each national context.

This methodology brief, developed within the CGIAR initiative on National Policies and Strategies, tackles essential questions about how gender is woven (or not) into the fabric of a policy document – and how to interpret and understand the results. This tool, centered around a list of questions to use systematically whilst interrogating policy documents, is primarily designed for policy researchers, but the questions can also act as a guide during policy design for policy makers.

Global warming is projected to result in changes in streamflow in West Africa with implications for frequent droughts and floods. This study investigates projected shifting in the timing, seasonality and magnitude of mean annual minimum (MAM) and annual maximum flows (AMF) in the Volta River basin (VRB) under climate change, using the method of circular statistics. River flow is simulated with the mesoscale hydrologic model (mHM), forced with bias-corrected climate projection datasets consisting of 43 regional and global climate model combinations under three representative concentration pathways (RCPs). Projected changes indicate that AMF increases between + 1 % and +80 % across sub-basins, particularly in the near future (2021–2050), whereas MAM decreases between -19 % and -7 %, mainly from the late century (2071–2100), depending on RCPs. The date of occurrence of AMF is projected to change between -4 and +3 d, while MAM could shift between -4 and +14 d depending on scenarios over the 21st century. Annual high flows denote a strong seasonality with negligible future changes, whereas the seasonality of low flows has a higher variation, with a slight drop in the future.

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.

This paper analyses groundwater governance within a transfrontier conservation landscape. Given the current heightened interest in groundwater development, it is imperative that more thought be given to how groundwater resources can best be managed in different contexts for multiple uses and users. Transfrontier conservation areas are areas of vast biological diversity whose functioning and ecosystem integrity depends on the availability of water to sustain ecosystems and subsequently derive economic benefit. Further, climate vulnerable rural communities depend on and form an important part of this landscape. The work highlighted in this paper is based on a study conducted in parts of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA), the largest TFCA in the world. Climate induced challenges such as droughts and general poor land use planning have resulted in threats to long term sustainability of freshwater ecosystems and increased incidences of human-wildlife conflicts over limited water resources. Effective groundwater governance can potentially provide pathways for alleviating these challenges. ; Building on the theoretical fundamentals of polycentric governance, this paper analyses the case of the KAZA TFCA in which multiple levels of governance exist. The paper discusses how to achieve coordination and accountability within a shared landscape to foster sustainable use and management of groundwater. Groundwater within a TFCA context has the potential to alleviate human-wildlife conflict over freshwater, support groundwater dependant ecosystems and sustain smallholder agriculture for the rural communities. Understanding this role of groundwater adds to the framing of freshwater governance and conservation efforts within a TFCA and the identification and development of platforms for the integrated management of groundwater. Bringing together freshwater and conservation institutions in a multi-country context towards integrated water resource management is an initial and novel attempt which forms the foundation for achieving optimal governance approaches in the commons.

Agriculture plays a critical role in ensuring food and nutrition security, livelihood, and rural employment in Nepal. Despite substantial investments and institutional reforms, irrigation projects have faced consistently low performance. While existing studies have shed light on technical aspects of irrigation performance, they often focus on specific themes rather than holistic evaluations of sustainability. This research systematically assesses barriers and challenges to effective irrigation water management in Nepal by assessing and ranking the challenges faced by three irrigation systems located in western Nepal: Mahakali, Rani Jamara Kulariya, and Babai. To investigate these challenges, we collected data from 449 households, which provided insights into 33 indicators representing key barriers to effective irrigation and agricultural management. The identified challenges were categorized into four broad thematic areas: physical and structural, agricultural and water, socioeconomic and market, and gender and governance. A comprehensive evaluation was conducted to compare these challenges among the three irrigation schemes, different thematic areas, and various locations within each scheme (namely, the head, mid, and tail sections of the system). The findings revealed that timely access and availability of fertilizers, spring water availability and fair market prices of agricultural products are the most significant challenges. The Babai irrigation system faced the most substantial challenges among the three systems, particularly in the middle section. These findings emphasize the interconnectedness of these challenges, highlighting the need for a holistic approach to planning, implementation, and management. Integrated strategies are essential to address socioeconomic, market, and endogenous farming issues, ensuring reliable irrigation water availability for sustainable agricultural production.

This article presents a cultural competence-based (CCB) framework to analyse contemporary science culture. Starting from the observation that two separate views of culture-as-context and culture-as-practice cannot address the ongoing transitions in the contemporary sciences towards esoteric–exoteric trans-sphere governance and multicultural science, we introduce key ideas from ‘older’ varieties of competence-based culture theories. We argue that a spectrum of cultural and sociocultural systems shapes contemporary science culture by being (un)supportive of individual scientists acquiring cultural competence and guiding scientists’ research practices. In contrast, individual scientists’ cultural competence shapes the fabrication of cultural and sociocultural systems through their scientific practices, thereby shaping contemporary science cultures. We also synthesize different concepts of science culture, reflect the transitions in contemporary sciences and construct three dimensions of the cultural system, sociocultural system and cultural competence from various elements. By providing a conceptual framework that contributes to a better understanding and management of contemporary science culture, we hope to enhance effective work ethics and fit-for-purpose science knowledge to address emerging ‘wicked’ societal challenges.

Agroecological approaches are increasingly promoted for food systems transformation by applying ecological principles, regeneratively using natural resources and ecosystem services, and addressing the need for socially equitable food systems. Yet, despite widespread support from social movements, agroecological transition (AET) is still constrained by a lack of holistic performance metrics, top-down incentives and investments, and limited capacity to engage with private-public finance models, businesses, and policy processes. Large-scale AET requires empowering diverse actors and organizations to exercise their choices and roles to develop individual and institutional capability pipelines to create and harness opportunities for new businesses to capture more value from agriculture and food systems.

There is growing evidence that climate-related risk is increasing, and this will affect the livelihoods of small-scale producers (SSPs), with the effects being more severe in agropastoral and pastoral farming systems. In the Awash River Basin, the vulnerability of SSPs is mounting because of anthropogenic and climatic factors. Investigating the impact of landscape management practices and the interaction of SSPs with natural resources would inform sustainable planning, implementing and managing interventions.; This study was conducted in four watersheds in the Awash River Basin: Maybar-Felana, Gelana, Ewa and Afambo. The overarching objective was to assess the biophysical and socioeconomic impacts and gender dimensions of landscape management practices. The researchers also investigated the links between natural resource degradation and the vulnerability of natural resource-dependent people, and the contributions of landscape management practices to address these issues.; The study analyzed data gathered through 500 household surveys, 51 key informant interviews, 96 in-depth household interviews, 36 focus group discussions, and Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing techniques. The results indicated that diverse household-, farm- and watershed-level landscape management practices were adopted in the four watersheds. The findings indicated that implementing these practices could improve natural resources and the services they provide. The adopted practices contributed to reducing livelihood vulnerability by minimizing the effects of weather extremes (floods and droughts), improving food and water security, enhancing resource availability and building livelihood assets. Practicing small-scale irrigation (SSI) has a positive and significant effect on the household Food Consumption Score (FCS) and the Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS). Stone bunds and SSI have a significant impact on lowering the score on the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS).; The findings suggest that women and other marginalized groups (children, the elderly and resource-poor households) are the most affected by climate change and natural resource degradation. Government and non-government organizations recognize the needs of women and marginalized social groups in designing and implementing landscape management initiatives by prioritizing their participation in initiatives to empower them economically (e.g., involving them in income-generating activities) and socially (e.g., building social capital).; Despite efforts to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment in landscape management initiatives, women and marginalized social groups remain vulnerable and benefit less due to various factors, including social norms and limited institutional capacities. Gender norms, values and practices embedded within individuals, households, communities and institutions hinder progress. Limited institutional capacities, such as financial and human capaci

The concept of integrated water resource management requires an in-depth analysis of water inflows into a river basin. Population growth and the uncertainties associated with climate change are causing increased water stress and droughts, which are impacting agriculture. Hence the need for studies on the impact of climate change on demand-supply interactions in river basins. In this study, a generic decision support system, ModSim, was used; for the first time in the region; to examine the agricultural water usage and demands over Souss basin in Morocco. ModSim was calibrated over the period from 1990 to 2019 using recorded data about physical processes and hydraulic infrastructures features and management. The simulations succeeded in replicating different deficit episodes at the various irrigated perimeters. During the simulated period from 2012 to 2019, it was observed that the water supplies for the different dams in the basin experienced a decline ranging from 38% to 89%. As a result, the average total unmet demand for surface water from reservoirs in irrigated areas reached 201 mm3 between 1990 and 2019 and the monthly average demand increases by 55% in the dry season, compared to the demands in the rest of the year. The significant amount of unmet demand across all sites suggests that demands are satisfied by the withdrawal of water from groundwater resources. The adopted approach has proven to be a useful decision support tool to understand water resources planning challenges. Water managers require such reliable tools to represent the basinapos;s water trade-offs. Thus, additional investigation to improve the representation of groundwater/surface water interaction approaches is required to enhance the evaluation of the consequences of different uses, especially in arid and semi-arid regions with significant water stress such as Souss. A conceptual framework as well as a detailed discussion have been produced in order to guide efficient water management and governance.

The positive impact of stakeholder engagement (SE) in smart city development initiatives has received notable scholarly attention over the past decade. Researchers of stakeholder engagement have investigated various aspects of the engagement process from different theoretical perspectives, yet the complexity and dynamism of inclusion, especially at the societal level and in the context of smart city development, continue to inspire more research. Drawing from the intersection of open strategy (OS) and SE, we seek to enhance understanding of the open strategizing process by elucidating stakeholder inclusion practices in a smart city initiative, focusing on food systems in Da Nang, Vietnam. Our participatory action research draws on 114 semi-structured interviews and four stakeholder workshops to analyze the way stakeholder inclusion practices unfold in the strategic decision-making process of a smart city initiative. Our analysis reveals that stakeholder inclusion is complex and involves four interdependent practices at different stages of the strategizing process. These practices are trust formation, common language creation, role transformation, and expectation alignment. Together, they culminate in the creation of an interactive social space for the strategy-making process. The proposed analytical framework highlights the interdependencies among practices and their outcomes at different stages of the open strategizing process and could serve as a guideline in a context in which stakeholder inclusion at the planning phase is necessary to achieve systemic change.

Sound water management decisions are required to address the effects of climate change on water and, through this, enhance resilience to its impacts. Timely, context-specific and reliable climate and water data and information are prerequisites for sound water management decisions that aim to enhance the climate resilience of small-scale agricultural producers. Climate change impacts water by exacerbating scarcity, increasing the frequency and intensity of extremes – droughts and floods – and increasing the interannual variability of rainfall, on which the livelihoods of most rural households in Ethiopia depend. While the climate and water monitoring networks and database systems constitute the basic data infrastructure, institutional practices are equally important, if not more important, to ensure water and climate data are collected, processed and used to support water management decisions at multiple institutional levels.; A review of current institutional practices in the collection, organization, dissemination and use in decision-making of climate and water data was conducted as part of the project, through which several gaps were identified that need to be addressed to improve the climate resilience of small-scale agricultural producers. They include fragmentation of data, lack of adequate human and institutional capacity, frequent restructuring or reform of institutions, the absence of a well-coordinated knowledge management system and the absence of clear boundaries or linkage mechanisms between federal-level institutions and those operating within the basin or sub-basin levels.; Three options are proposed in this report that are aimed at strengthening institutional mechanisms for improved collection, organization, sharing and dissemination of climate and water data and decision support tools. Option 1 focuses on substantially strengthening existing data collection, organization and dissemination infrastructure, coupled with fit-for-purpose coordination arrangements among the key government agencies through task forces and working groups. Option 2 focuses on substantially strengthening the multi-level organization structure and scope of the institutional arrangement for the National Framework for Climate Services of Ethiopia (NFCS-E). The scope of climate services needs to be expanded to include water information services, which are underserved in the current structure. The central proposal under Option 3 is to have a dedicated multi-ministerial institution on climate and water data and analytics.; The options can be considered as stand-alone alternatives. They can also be understood to be stages in a phased transformation of the institutional settings for climate and water data and decision support services. Option 1, being the least disruptive, can be considered the first or starting point. A successful implementation of Option 1 would mean robust climate and water data monitoring networks combined with a strong information and communi

Introduction: Land degradation is a significant environmental challenge across sub-Saharan Africa. In recent decades, efforts have been undertaken, with varying successes, to rehabilitate degraded rural landscapes. However, there needs to be more evidence on the outcomes regarding enhanced productivity, environmental management, and socio-economic benefits. Methods: This study uses a case study approach, using contrasting sites from Ethiopia and Mali to appraise restoration innovations implemented through various programs. Two distinct sites were chosen from each of the study cases, and an extensive literature search was conducted to document the evidence, focusing on the sustainability gains derived from integrated landscape management (ILM). For this, the sustainable intensification assessment framework (SIAF) was used, encompassing five domains, namely productivity, economic, environmental, social, and human condition, and featuring scales from plot to landscape, all facilitated by simplified yet robust indicators such as yield, soil loss, net income, land access, and food availability. Results: Results highlighted a higher productivity gain (35% to 55%) and an improved socio-economic benefit (gt;20%). The ILM in the Ethiopian highlands enabled a significant improvement in wheat and barley yield (p lt; 0.01). Introducing new crop varieties integrated with the in-situ and ex-situ practices enabled diversifying crops across the landscape and significantly reduced runoff and soil loss (p lt; 0.05). By increasing the cultivable land by 44%, household income was increased by selling potatoes and agroforestry products. In Mali, ILM practices reduced soil loss to 4.97t/ha from 12.1t/ha. In addition to the improvements in the yield of sorghum and maize (33% and 63%, respectively), rehabilitating the once marginal and abandoned landscape in Mali enabled landless and female-headed households to work together, improving the social cohesion among the groups. The introduction of irrigation facilities enabled widowed women to increase household vegetable consumption by 55% and increase their income by 24%. Discussion: The study showed positive evidence from ILM practices in the two contrasting landscapes. However, there is a need to address challenges related to the absence of timely data monitoring and documentation of successful practices. For this, the generation of evidence-based data and the use of advanced geo-spatial tools such as Remote Sensing and GPS-installed drones are recommended.

Smallholder farms are major contributors to agricultural production, food security, and socioeconomic growth in many developing countries. However, they generally lack the resources to fully maximize their potential. Subsequently they require innovative, evidence-based and lowercost solutions to optimize their productivity. Recently, precision agricultural practices facilitated by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have gained traction in the agricultural sector and have great potential for smallholder farm applications. Furthermore, advances in geospatial cloud computing have opened new and exciting possibilities in the remote sensing arena. In light of these recent developments, the focus of this study was to explore and demonstrate the utility of using the advanced image processing capabilities of the Google Earth Engine (GEE) geospatial cloud computing platform to process and analyse a very high spatial resolution multispectral UAV image for mapping land use land cover (LULC) within smallholder farms. The results showed that LULC could be mapped at a 0.50 m spatial resolution with an overall accuracy of 91%. Overall, we found GEE to be an extremely useful platform for conducting advanced image analysis on UAV imagery and rapid communication of results. Notwithstanding the limitations of the study, the findings presented herein are quite promising and clearly demonstrate how modern agricultural practices can be implemented to facilitate improved agricultural management in smallholder farmers.

Adopting One Health approaches is key for addressing interconnected health challenges. Yet, how to best put One Health into practice in research-for-development initiatives aiming to ‘deliver impacts’ remains unclear. Drawing on the CGIAR Initiative on One Health – a global initiative to address zoonotic diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and food and water safety – we reflect on challenges during program conception and implementation, prompting us to suggest improvements in multisectoral collaboration, coordination, and communication. Our approach involves conducting a researcher-centered process evaluation, comprising individual interviews that are subsequently thematically analyzed and synthesized. The key takeaway is that limited time for planning processes and short program timelines compared to envisioned development impacts may impede research-for-development efforts. Yet, collaborative work can be successful when adequate time and resources are allocated for planning with minimal disruption throughout implementation. Additionally, due to the multifaceted nature of One Health initiatives, it is important to pay attention to co-benefits and trade-offs, where taking action in one aspect may yield advantages and disadvantages in another, aiding to identify sustainable One Health development pathways. Forming close partnerships with national governments and local stakeholders is essential not only to promote sustainability but also to ensure local relevance, enhancing the potential for meaningful impact. Finally, regularly assessing progress toward development goals is critical as development stands as an overarching objective.

A convergence of several risk drivers creates the compound crises we see across the globe today. At the same time, the global humanitarian community and national institutions in affected countries are increasingly resource constrained. In this context, existing financing mechanisms should be evaluated for their potential to create synergies between social protection, peace, and inclusion objectives on the one hand and climate resilience outcomes on the other. The existing international architecture of climate change mitigation and adaptation policy and financing holds, in principle, the potential to address not only its main purpose of climate action, but also to contribute to development outcomes and address multiple risk drivers. Examples of this exist, but for these mutual benefits to emerge, and for climate finance to contribute more significantly to crises prevention, the agendas must become more aligned. Aligning several factors may enable coherence: i) Timeframes, from short-term response to multi-year programming; ii) Planning and targeting, moving towards conflict-sensitive area-based approaches and universal access to services; iii) Institutional arrangements and partnerships, coordinated national planning and jointly implemented local action.

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.

Water is the medium through which most impacts of climate change on people’s livelihoods and ecosystems are transmitted. Climate change can lead to increasing scarcity of water, intensify variability in rainfall and, thereby, river discharge; and exacerbate the severity of flood, drought and heatwave extremes. Reducing climate-induced water scarcity and enhancing climate resilience to water-related hazards requires well-thought-out actions that include water infrastructure development, putting in place adaptive institutional frameworks, and increasingly developing and employing innovations and future-oriented climate and water data and decision support systems. This report is one of the outputs of the study conducted by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) as part of the project Prioritization of Climate-smart Water Management Practices. The aim of the study has been to develop recommendations for addressing two of the critical gaps identified for improving climate resilience of water resources management in Ethiopia, namely, (1) inadequate data and information on key hydrological variables that have led to a lack of recent knowledge on water availability, actual water use, water source types and potentials; and (2) a lack of decision support tools that would provide strategic and operational level information and capacity for risk-based planning and management of water resources. The report is based on an analysis of collected data, information gleaned through stakeholder consultations and a review of existing literature on climate and water data, and decision support tools in use in the Awash River Basin and at national level in Ethiopia. This synthesis report focuses on the technical aspects of climate and water data and decision support tools, while the institutional aspects are presented in Sanchez Ramirez et al. 2024. ; This study conceptualizes climate-smart water management as having three reinforcing objectives: maximize the goods and services that can be produced from the limited water resources; minimize the impact of climate extremes — floods and droughts at multiple scales; curtail the impact of rainfall variability across scales, including small-scale agricultural producers, and enhance water resources planning and management at the basin scale. ; Key challenges that have been identified include inadequate spatial coverage of hydrometeorological networks; short and, very often, intermittent river discharge data; almost nonexistent water use monitoring; fragmentation of data and inadequate capacity of skilled personnel. There are a number of ongoing efforts by the Ministry of Water and Energy with the aim of addressing these challenges. Weather forecasts are made regularly by the Ethiopian Meteorology Institute (EMI) with attempts to translate these forecasts into their potential impacts on agriculture, water and health. These forecasts and their translation into sector-specific implications need to be improved to make

In this paper, we present an analysis of summertime atmospheric simulation (June–July 2016) for southern West Africa (sWA) using the RegCM 4.7.1 regional climate model to describe the atmospheric behaviour over the region, and also engage comparisons between the modelled data and observed upper air data acquired during the DACCIWA (Dynamics–Aerosol–Chemistry– Cloud Interactions in West Africa) field campaign period. First, assessments of relative humidity and zonal wind profiles were made for selected coastal and inland stations, to infer the relative vertical and temporal atmospheric differences for both locations. Thereafter, the model’s performance was evaluated, capturing an excessive wet bias in RH profiles of the model with accompanying reduced zonal winds at the Tropical Easterly Jet (TEJ) region and thus produces excessive upper tropospheric cloud liquid water content. Also, in the lower troposphere (particularly, the monsoon layer), RegCM 4.7.1 model captures adequate spatial differences in both RH and zonal wind profiles along the coast and inland. We judge this outcome to be a valuable contribution on the path to rendering RegCM4 a good tool for simulating atmospheric and climate dynamics in sWA.