Projects

EU project: Developing climate-smart value chains and landscapes for increased resilient livelihood in West Africa

Completed
Photo: Dansira Dembélé (CCAFS West Africa)

Project description 

This project aims to develop climate-smart value chains and landscapes for increased resilience in Ghana, Mali, Niger and Senegal. The project is built around three main activities including :

  •  analysis of value chains to identify 3-5 promising climate-smart value chains including European Union, IFAD and other bilateral funded projects, to identify key players in each value chain for the development of multi-stakeholders innovation platforms, building on current initiatives where feasible, to identify bottlenecks and opportunities along the value chains and to identify the critical climate risk in the value chains to address
  • mainstreaming of evidence-based climate smart agriculture (CSA) options within the selected value chains through testing CSA options through the innovation platforms and 
  • development of a conceptual framework for climate smart value chain analysis. The project will generate technological or institutional CSA options usable by value chain actors to enhance value chain's contribution to income and food security in West Africa

Activities

  • Selection of appropriated value chains
  • Analysis of selected value chains
  • Mainstreaming of evidence-based CSA options within the value chains
  • Development of a climate smart-value analysis framework

Partners

  • International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
  • Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique du Niger (INRAN) 
  • Institut Senegalais de Recherche Agricole (ISRA)
  • Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI)
  • Institut d’Economie Rurale (IER)

Expected outcomes

  • 50 site-specific targeted CSA options (technologies, practices and services) tested and examined for their gender implications
  • 15 sub-national public/private initiatives providing access to novel financial services and supporting innovative CSA business models
  • 6 million farm households receiving incentives (training, financial, programmatic, policy-related) for adopting CSA related practices and technologies that potentially reduce production risks with increased benefits for women

Gender

Mainstreaming gender into climate-smart value chain development will be crucial for generating knowledge that informs the scaling up of gender-responsive CSA technologies and policies that benefit men, women and youth. The selection of value chain to be promoted with CSA options will be based among other criteria on the ability of the value chain to increase the resilience of the poorest and most vulnerable populations associated with the targeted value chain.

More Information

For more information, please contact Dr. Robert Zougmoré (r.zougmore@cgiar.org) or Dr. Mathieu Ouedraogo (m.ouedraogo@cgiar.org) 

Funding for this project is provided by:

Project Activities

From the review of EU funded projects in Ghana, Mali, Niger and Senegal 2 to 3 value chain (VC) projects will be selected based on several criteria ((a) viability of the VC under climate change; (b) contribution of the VC to drivers of climate-related impacts; and (c) ability of the VC to increase the resilience of the poorest and most vulnerable populations). The selected VC will be analyzed using the value chain analysis approach (VCA) and the climate risk analysis will be done to identify bottlenecks and opportunities along the value chains. The VCA will consist of a stakeholder analysis along the value chain, an economic analysis and analysis of strengths and weaknesses. The climate risk analysis will be conducted to identify the critical climate risk in the value chain. Climate risks will be prioritized and a top set of them will be selected and addressed with specific climate-smart interventions.

From the VCA, a short list of technological CSA options from CSVs work (2011-2018) in West Africa will be identified and promoted through the multi-stakeholder innovation platform. The most effective technological options will be identified taking into account three main elements: (i) Diversification: Inclusion of a wider set of options to increase farmers’ livelihood, farming and environmental management portfolios as a risk management strategy; (ii) Climate-proofing: Specific interventions to make key stages of the VC more climate resilient in ways that bring livelihood and resilience benefits to farmers and (iii) Supply chain efficiencies: Measures that increase efficiency, deliver higher profitability to farmers and small businesses in the VC, and generate mitigation co-benefits. For this last element, a sensitivity analysis could be used to simulate the effect of CSA options within the VC using Policy Analysis Matrix method.
The VC actors will be capacitated in CSA through a series of trainings.

The learnings from the project (selection of value chain, identification of constraints and opportunities, identification of critical climate risks, selection of most climate-smart interventions) will be used to conceptualize a general and comprehensive framework for climate smart-value chain analysis. This framework will used guidance and tools developed by CCAFS (as part of the partnership with IFAD, to make IFAD's value chain investments 'climate-smart') and the classical value chain analysis method. The approach developed by CCAFS includes the following activities : selection of a viable value chain, sometimes informed by climate risk analysis; identification of climate risks affecting the value chain; selection of appropriate adaptation measures; targeting to the most vulnerable; and identification of pathways to reach scale beyond the immediate project investment. This will be improved by adding an economic analysis component to come with a holistic framework for climate-smart value chain analysis.

Project Deliverables

2019
2020