The document discusses the development of decision support tools to help prioritize climate-smart agriculture investments and actions. It outlines the need for such tools from governments and donors to move beyond lists of options to identify portfolios of practices. The proposed prioritization tool would use a climate-smart agriculture compendium database and indicators to assess tradeoffs between options across social, economic and environmental dimensions. The tool development process is participatory and aimed at identifying best-bet climate-smart agriculture portfolios for specific contexts through pilots in 2014.

1. © CIMMYT
© Reuters
© CIAT
PRIORITIZING
CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE
Development of decision support tools

2. Liderado por
Significant
Demand
• Action at the national level moves from vulnerability
analysis to adaptation
• Governments looking for means to prioritise
adaptation options: from shopping lists to portfolios
of actions
• Climate finance and multi-lateral donors looking for
tools to direct their investment (IFAD, WorldBank,
USAID)
1 January 2013

3. Scalable climate smart technologies….

5. A MAC curve for CSA adaptation

6. Liderado por
Components of a
CSA prioritisation
tool
• Indicators: what are we trying to achieve with a
climate smart practice, technology, or program?
• Adaptation, mitigation, food security
• CSA Compendium: What options are available?
• Prioritisation: Which options (or portfolio of options)
are worth investing in?
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•
•
•
Partnership: WorldBank, IFAD, FAO, CARE, USAID
Theme 1, Theme 4, LAM, SA, ICRAF, CIAT
University of the Andes, Clemsen University
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
(Colombia)
1 January 2013

7. CSA
Drivers
Food
Security &
Productivity
Mitigation
Adaptation
Performanc
e Areas
Social
Economic
Environment
al

9. Some “simple” indicators to start with..
Social
Food
security
Productivity
Employment
Adaptation
Mitigation
Institutional
Enhancement
Environmental
Economic
Eco-efficiency
Benefit-generation
Potential
Product Historical
Variability
Erosion
Land Use Changes
Mitigation
Benefits Generation
Potential

12. CSA Compendium:
What is the evidence behind CSA?
Sept 2012 –
Ongoing
•
•
•
•
Forward
looking, stateof-the-art
Litmus test of
CGIAR
engagement
Mostly inprogress
research
Subject to
(self) selection
and sampling
bias
•
Includes nonCGIAR research
•
Scientifically
verified through
peer-review
•
Quantitative
assessment of
evidence
•
Virtual library
currently over
1200 peerreviewed
articles in
Mendeley
•
Subject to
publication bias
CGIAR expert survey
Capture recent
or ongoing
research
Evaluate
previously
completed
research
Meta-analysis of
peer-reviewed lit.
Robust evidence base defining the potential ‘what and where’ for CSA

13. Crowdsourcing evidence for CSA and
climate resilient practice
Bioversity
, CCAFS, & ICR
Extendabl
e
Searchable
relational
database of
evidence
supplied by
users
www.agrobiodiversity.org/refar

14. Quantitative assessment of Farm-level CSA
evidence
(Meta-analysis)
Potential
articles located
(#)
Articles matching
selection criteria
(#)
Obs. in current
database (#)
Integrated
nutrient
management
162
57
1332
Agroforestry
129
44
414
Manure
management
159
18
408
Pasture
management
166
25
667
1276
-
Practice
1Includes
Total1
>3000
a range of practices
ICRAF, CIAT

15. Virtual library of peer-reviewed CSA articles
ICRAF, CIAT
FRE
E!
`
1,276
>1200
paper
s
Searchabl
e

16. CSA Compendium
Informs CSA prioritization tool
• Overcome barrier of lack of information about
possible CSA options in a given context
Informs future research agendas
• Identify gaps in the literature based on CSA
pillar, CSA practice, geographic region, etc.
Knowledge Hub for CSA researchers and
practitioners
• Crowdsourcing to develop database, with
reliability of data marked

17. CSA Prioritization Tool
• Users: National policy makers, Ministries, Donors
• Objective: Meet demand to move from shopping lists of
•
•
•
•
•
CSA options to best-bet portfolios
Stakeholder driven: inclusive participatory process
Simple: timeline 3-6 months
Flexible: process can be modified based on level of detail
desired and constraints in data, capacity, time, and
resources, and still provide decision support
Capture Tradeoffs between CSA pillars and social,
environmental, economic dimensions of pillars
Barriers and Constraints to adoption addressed related to
portfolio options to improve implementation

18. CSA Prioritization Tool - Process
Assess tradeoffs
• for each practice between
indicators of CSA pillars and
social, economic, and
environmental domains
• between practices within a
portfolio
Pilots will be conducted
starting mid-2014 in Mali,
Viet Nam, and Colombia

19. The Climate Smart Agriculture Decision Support Platform was constructed to provide
access to a broad database of CSA practices that have been tested around the world.
This information is aimed at aiding endeavors such as identifying what CSA options exist
for different contexts and gaps in research. We welcome you to search our database and
contribute your own information to the compendium. Our prioritization tool we
developed to identify best options for specific contexts.
Latin America
Journal Articles
Colombia
- All -
- All -
- All -
- All -

20. CSA CSA Compendium Search Results
Compendium Search Results
EEF
HVP
PRO
EEF
FBP
HVP
ERS
RES
LUC
MIT
EMP
Indicators
Productivity (PRO)
Eco-Efficiency (EEF)
Financial Benefit Potential (FBP)
Historic Variability in Production (HVP)
Erosion (ERS)
Resilience Building (RES)
Land Use Change (LUC)
Mitigation (MIT)
Employment (EMP)

21. CSA CSA Compendium Search Results
Compendium Search Results
EEF
EEF
HVP
HVP
PRO
EEF
FBP
HVP
ERS
RES
LUC
MIT
EMP
Indicators
Productivity (PRO)
Eco-Efficiency (EEF)
Financial Benefit Potential (FBP)
Historic Variability in Production (HVP)
Erosion (ERS)
Resilience Building (RES)
Land Use Change (LUC)
Mitigation (MIT)
Employment (EMP)

22. CSA Compendium Search Results
EEF
EEF
HVP
HVP
PRO
EEF
FBP
HVP
ERS
RES
LUC
MIT
EMP
Indicators
Productivity (PRO)
Eco-Efficiency (EEF)
Financial Benefit Potential (FBP)
Historic Variability in Production (HVP)
Erosion (ERS)
Resilience Building (RES)
Land Use Change (LUC)
Mitigation (MIT)
Employment (EMP)

23. CSA Compendium Search Results

24. Dimensions of
CSA Pillars
CSA Pillars

27. Ranked List of Practices
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
9
Practice
Silvopastoral Systems
Efficient Use of Fertilizer
Improved Forages
Biogas
Grass-Legume Association
Water harvest structure
Silage, haylage and nutritional blocks
Early warning systems
CBA
1.5
1.4
1.3
1.2
1.2
1.2
1
1
Quality
2.11
2.87
2.85
2.36
2.11
2.08
2.01
1.89

29. The Enabling Environment – AgClim
Readiness
• Enabling governance and business contexts. Governments need
•
•
•
•
to establish an environment where farmers and the farming and food
services sector can operate productively.
Functioning agriculture and food sectors. One pre-condition for
scaling up climate-smart agriculture is a functioning agriculture and
food sector.
Supportive national climate change policies and institutions.
Governments need to recognise the general climate change
challenge and put in place mechanisms to support climate change
action and to inform the citizenry about climate change impacts and
options to address the challenge.
Enabling policies and institutions for building climate resilience
in agriculture and in rural livelihoods. A range of policies and
institutions need to be in place to support the scaling up of climate
smart agriculture.
Attention to the mitigation challenge in agriculture. Climate-smart
agricultural initiatives should at least recognise the emission
challenges in agriculture.

30. Conclusions
• Simple approaches that can be applied at national levels
•
•
•
•
to make complex decisions
A challenge to strike the balance: practical, actionable
information for very complex range of issues
Participatory processes for prioritization enable buy-in for
implementation, but also fills key information gaps
Need for holistic view: indicators, CSA compendium,
prioritization tools
Solve two problems in one:
• Prioritize CSA
• Generate more data and evidence on CSA
• We are looking for pilots to trial this out in 2014!