Capacity Enhancement

Capacity enhancement is a priority for CCAFS. The overall aim of the CCAFS capacity enhancement strategy is to develop capacity among different stakeholder groups to overcome the additional threats posed by a changing climate to achieving food security, enhancing livelihoods and improving environmental management.

CCAFS will seek to raise both the capacity of research partners and the capacity of others to demand and use that research effectively. Activities with researchers will include training in and co-development of scientific tools and models, a network of research students to share methods, support for women in their workplaces, and south-south and south-north exchanges. Activities with decision-makers will include knowledge-sharing platforms, critical science-policy dialogues, support to attend key decision-making forums at regional and global levels, awareness-raising on decision-support tools and other CCAFS outputs, and multi-stakeholder development of regional scenarios looking forward to 2030. 

Current initiatives

CLIFF PhD Student Network

In 2010, CCAFS with the University of Copenhagen initiated a PhD student network called CLIFF (Climate, food and farming network) to share research methods and access international expertise around three themes that centre on smallholder agricultural mitigation (mitigation potential, monitoring and measuring, incentive systems). Through a competitive process, eight students have been given small field grants towards their current topics (see attached). Later in 2011 there will be an international meeting to bring together the students and the set of international university collaborators interested in developing the network. CLIFF will be actively fundraising this year and the future scale and style of the network depends on funds raised. CLIFF welcomes suggestions for collaboration – please contact coordinator myles [at] life [dot] ku [dot] dk (Myles Oelofse) cc ewollenb [at] uvm [dot] edu (Lini Wollenberg) and sjv [at] life [dot] ku [dot] dk (Sonja Vermeulen). 

Small Grant Awards: Gender, Climate Change, Agriculture, & Food Security

CCAFS has created a new competitive small grants program established for gender-responsive CCAFS research. Funding will be awarded to female scientists doing research on CCAFS priorities. This effort will help to demonstrate and contribute to understanding the linkages between climate change and gender more specifically, while developing policy-relevant findings on climate change, agriculture, and food security more generally. This will also help build research capacity of women scientists in partner institutions and increase their representation in agricultural research. Read more...
 


What is capacity enhancement?

Capacity enhancement means a person or organization increasing their own ability to achieve their objectives effectively and efficiently. This usually involves building internal capacity: the skills and knowledge of an individual, or the systems of an organization. Improved capacity may be a set of behaviours (ability to ask the right questions, ability to interpret, ability to learn) rather than a set of information or manuals for action. Enabling people to enhance their own capacity is likely to be more effective than attempting to "deliver" capacity development. This is especially important for less empowered stakeholder groups, such as resource--‐poor farmers, who have considerable capacity on which to build, sometimes unrecognized or stalled by institutional barriers. Stronger internal capacity might not be enough where extrinsic factors, such as inadequate capital or entrenched power relationships, are limiting. Herefore capacity enhancement in its fullest sense needs to address both internal competencies and wider institutional capacity.

For futher information download the full capacity enhancement strategy.