Context and backgroundWith many physical and human potentials, the Bamun country in the western highlands of Cameroon, which is an agricultural area excellence is today experiencing serious socio-economic and spatial transformations. The coffee crises, growth in cash crop production and demographic pressure within the former agricultural spaces has favored the movement of producers towards pioneer fronts. The availability of land capital in these new agricultural spaces attracts migrants from other horizons.

The only specialized multilateral development institution focused exclusively on rural development, IFAD has successfully used agriculture as a means of poverty reduction – contributing ~USD 22 billion in funding to date1 . About 90% of IFAD's portfolio is focused on Low to Middle Income (LMI) countries. IFAD stands out with its nutrition and gender-sensitive lenses coupled with investments in climate resilient agriculture – mainstreaming nutrition, gender, and climate change work in agriculture.

The effects of climate change and variability cause a shift in climatic patterns and increasing shocks. These changes and shocks are affecting soil that is the backbone of many, particularly the farming communities. Climate-Smart soil (CSS) practices among farmers are known to rehabilitate and protect it. These practices will improve soil fertility, increase crop productivity and mitigate climate change as soil act as carbon sinks.

Forage-based cattle systems play a key role in rural economies of developing countries in terms of food security and poverty alleviation. However, they can generate negative environmental impacts by contributing to increased greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, and reduction of biodiversity.

In most developing countries, agriculture plays a crucial role in livelihoods and economic development.
The sector employs between 60 to 80% of active populations in least developed countries (LDCs) and
contributes to a large share in the national GDP (Huyer 2016). However, there is growing evidence that
climate change is interacting with multiple stressors of the agricultural sectors of LDCs, challenging
efforts to achieving food and nutrition security targets of the sustainable development goals [Partey et al.

The climate-smart agriculture (CSA) concept reflects an ambition to improve the integration of agriculture development and climate responsiveness. CSA aims to achieve food security and broader development goals under a changing climate and increasing food demand. CSA initiatives can sustainably increase productivity, enhance resilience, and reduce/remove greenhouse gases (GHGs), but require planning to address trade-offs and synergies between the three CSA pillars, namely: productivity, adaptation, and mitigation(1).

The Sahel region holds both challenges and opportunities for smallholder agriculture/agropastoralism. Market opportunities for food producers in the region have improved due to population growth, urbanization, income growth, dietary diversification and higher output prices.

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are policy instruments, mandated under the Paris Agreement, to set out a country’s selfdetermined plans to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and enhance resilience by 2030. They are bottom-up processes in which countries contextualise and self-differentiate their climate targets and contributions based on their national circumstances and priorities.

Coherence between different policy and programming objectives, instruments, and implementation has long been an important goal of multilateral governance and development efforts. Policy coherence – as defined by the OECD – can be understood as the systematic promotion of mutually reinforcing policy actions across government departments and agencies, creating synergies towards achieving agreed objectives (Trinity Dublin College, 2017).