Scenarios

by Joost Vervoort and Gopal Datt Bhatta

In South Asia, the impacts of future climate change on the livelihoods of the rural poor, on regional food security and on environmental change are very uncertain and depend on the development of future technologies, economies, institutions and communities.  What actions could be taken to tackle climate change through cooperation among South Asian nations that might not have been possible in the past? 

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is facilitating a process to explore how key socio-economic uncertainties relate to the uncertainty of future climate change. An international workshop was organized in late November in Colombo, Sri Lanka, wherein regional facilitators from governments, private sector, academia, media and civil society related to food systems and environments met to explore key uncertainties for future food security, environments and livelihoods in South Asia up to 2050.

Read more »

By Caity Peterson

One of the best examples of the inter-connectedness of the three themes for this year’s Gobal Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2) is the Global Foresight Hub, re-introduced on Wednesday by Joost Vervoort, Scenarios Leader at the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

Vervoort’s take home message? You can have all the foresight you want, but if it’s not integrated across multiple scales and multiple stakeholders it won’t do anybody any good. In fact, the “Hub” exemplifies the inseparable nature of the Foresight and Partnership themes; their inter-dependence is the key to the practical application of foresight in agricultural research and development. Read more »

by Moushumi Chaudhury

How do technical advisors to policy makers in East Africa view the region in 2020 and 2030? Will they come up with drastically different scenarios from those in civil society who participated in the scenarios visioning workshop in Nairobi in June 2012? These kinds of questions were explored in the East Africa Strategic Futures Workshop that was held in Arusha, Tanzania and hosted by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), in partnership with the Society for International Development and Panos Eastern Africa. Read more about the previous scenarios workshop held in Nairobi, Kenya, “Exploring regional strategies for a more sustainable, food secure East Africa”.

Over two and half days, participants from various ministries in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Ethiopia developed a strategic vision of the future and explored feasible strategies towards this vision by testing them using scenarios of plausible alternate futures. Read more »

By Joost Vervoort and Abdoulaye Moussa

What if governments in West Africa take a long-term perspective and play an active role in the development of climate-smart agriculture on a large scale - but also want to invest in women’s education, infrastructure, health care, the environment and other sectors? What are the socio-economic and political implications that would come up for such a broad push for development? What if catastrophe – such as a destructive crop disease - hits before governments have had the time to develop the capacity needed to adapt and respond to such crises? Conversely – what about a world where states are not proactive but where non-state actors (the private sector, NGOs, civil society) drive change, for better or for worse? What would be the limits and challenges in that case? What would be the consequences for agricultural development- such as changes to crop yields, changes in livestock production systems and agricultural land expansion- in any of these scenarios?  How would these different worlds respond to the increasing pressures of climate change?

Why develop scenarios?

Read more »