Guiding policy-makers by exploring the future of food security under climate change in South Asia
Joost Vervoort and S. Gopikrishna Warrier (Future Scenarios)
A few months back, our Future Scenarios team organised a workshop at Nagarkot, Nepal, bringing together expert stakeholders from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as well as international experts. The team got the opportunity to explored the future of food security, livelihoods and environments in South Asia under climate change. Participants in the South Asia scenarios process worked hard to ensure the usefulness of the alternate future contexts for decision-makers.
"Originally I thought it was about predictions, but scenarios is totally different. It gives you a broad picture, and this picture is integrated in the sense that all disciplines are given weight," says Professor Abdul Saboor in this video, illustrating the work and discussions that took place during the Scenarios workshop in Nepal:
In short, scenarios are multiple plausible futures used to help policy-makers plan with uncertain issues such as climate change. As we know, in order to plan for the future policy-makers need credible, science-based scenarios about the possible trajectories their countries could take in the future. Supported by verified scenarios, policy-makers can help create climate-resilient societies and economies and make better investments.
Going forward, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) will merge the regional scenarios with the IPCC’s climate change scenarios. The consolidated scenarios will help guide public decision-making. They will also be useful for private decision-makers to target investments, and research and development areas. The scenarios will also provide indicators, enabling decision makers to judge how development trajectories are changing.
Watch photos from the Scenarions Workshop:
Learn more about our Scenarios research here.
This story was prepared by Joost Vervoort, leading the Scenarios research and S. Gopikrishna Warrier, who is a regional environment manager with Panos South Asia. The story was edited by Cecilia Schubert, CCAFS Communications Assistant. The video was produced by Elisabeth van de Grift and Adeyemi Ademiluyi.
