policy

The build up to the Bhutan Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas received unprecedented response last week with the completion of expert group meetings on the key themes of water, biodiversity, food security and energy.

The Bhutan Climate Summit is an initiative of the Royal Government of Bhutan, and will bring together leaders, decision makers and technical experts from Government agencies as well as research and development organizations to identify key issues and priorities for climate change adaptation in the eastern Himalayas, and foster partnerships and networking to facilitate sharing of information and experiences. Read more »

If poor farmers are to contribute to climate change mitigation, mitigation options need to have a positive impact on livelihoods. In fact, what may be needed are livelihood options that produce mitigation co-benefits, as well as and carbon finance schemes that provide additional incentives to help farmers to meet both livelihood and environmental objectives.

To better understand the current state of climate change mitigation and adaptation projects and policies in our focal regions, the CGIAR Climate program is collaborating with students from Harvard University's Kennedy School who have are spending their summers in West Africa and South Asia to talk to policy makers, development organizations and farmers about mitigation and adaptation activities. Read more »

by Charlotte Lau

India is one of the great food security puzzles of our age. By all accounts, the country’s economy is growing rapidly, incomes are reaching historical highs, and between the 1980s and 2005 food prices declined relative to the prices of other goods—yet people are eating less.

Per capita calorie consumption and nutrient consumption in India have declined over the last couple decades, a pattern that began precisely when relative food prices were falling. Indeed, people spend less on food today than they did thirty years ago, but not because they're eating enough. Child nourishment is poor, anemia is rampant, and body-mass indices are among the lowest in the world, leading 20% of children to be so skinny they would be classified by the WHO as “wasting.”

What is going on? Read more »

Although scientists have come a long way in identifying the best practises for adapting agriculture to climate change, a significant gap remains for translating this into policy change.

CCAFS director Bruce Campbell pitches in with a guest article at IISD's Climate Change Policy and Practice website:

"The sheer variety of perspectives on the best ways to adapt agriculture to climate change and reduce emissions while boosting carbon storage in the soil has resulted in a confusing mix of messages, which are leading to inaction or, worse still, the wrong actions.

We need new approaches for sharing knowledge and tools between scientists and decision makers at all levels, including farmers and the organizations that represent them. The idea is to make science more comprehensible and to involve all key actors in decisions about how its results are interpreted and used."

Bruce points to the new international Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change that CCAFS is setting up this year, which plans to pull together concrete policy recommendations from the myriad of reports and research that already exists.

Read the full guest article.