An insightful session on the topic “Decentralized Solutions for Water Management” was organized at India Water Week on 3rd November 2022 under CGIAR Initiative on National Policies & Strategies (NPS). The session was chaired by Dr. Anu Garg, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Water Resources, Odisha and Ms. Archana Verma, Mission Director, National Water Mission. The session emphasized the need to identify decentralized solutions for managing water through appropriate technologies and new ideas.

The Africa Union Commission (AUC) drafted an African Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan (AFSH) and a Soil Initiative for Africa (SIA) for launching at the Africa Fertilizer summit in June 2023. The AFSH is a ten-year (2023-2033) plan to provide guidance on integrated soil fertility maintenance, including the correct use of fertilizer to ensure soil health in Africa. The SIA is a practical initiative to develop an African system for soil management and to implement actions at the continental, sub-regional, and country levels.

This workshop provided a platform for indigenous peoples’ representatives to outline their priority needs to input into Third National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP, 2023-27) that is led by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry through the Climate Change Directorate. An accelerated programme of the finalisation has targeted the government launch of the NCCAP 2023-2027 at the Africa Climate Summit, in Kenya, in September 2023.

Strengthening the production and processing of key food commodities forms the basis of agricultural development in Africa. These value chains follow a quasi-linear progression across seven main segments: farm planning > land preparation and crop establishment > field production > harvest > post-harvest handling > marketing > and value addition. Each of these consists of sub-segments whose improvement depends upon promotion and adoption of specific modernizing technologies.

This report is part of a study series offering insights into the potential of Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) Use Cases to adjust the
agronomic solutions offered through the Minimum Viable Products (MVP) to better Reach, Benefit, and Empower women and
youth, and to Transform gender and generational norms. The analysis covers the study area of two Use Cases in Ethiopia: Digital
Green Ethiopia (DGE), and Fertilizer Ethiopia (FE), focusing on Ethiopia’s Amhara, Oromia, and SNNP regions. DGE focuses on

The adoption of sustainable agricultural mechanization (SAM) can sustainably increase productivity, and increase ecosystem resilience. Thirty (30) baby trials and One mother trial were established to expand access to smallholder farmers to SAM technologies and generate and share scientific evidence on the performance of SAM technologies, services and information in Ghana. The demonstration trials utilize participatory research and extension approaches by using existing partnerships.

Digital innovations, for instance, in extension, finance, and logistics can play an important role in agri-food systems. They can address bottlenecks in access to extension services, marketing systems, suitable financial products, reliable weather information, transport services and logistics as well as supply chain management. For the benefits of digital innovations to be realized, the innovations must be adopted at scale.

The Gender Equality Initiative (HER+) Work Package 2 (WP 2) - EMPOWER targets to co-identify and model diverse scenarios for bundling climate-smart technologies to empower women, men and youths to be partners and drivers of climate change solutions. HER+ WP2 aims to integrate social innovations in existing Ukama Ustawi initiative (UU) sites or what we are calling learning labs to contribute to climate change resilience and women’s empowerment.

The Gender Equality Initiative (HER+) conducts innovative gender and social science research to develop actionable solutions to enhance climate resilience and empowerment of women in Africa and Asia. As one-size-fits-all solutions do not exist, HER+ identifies and develops diverse scenarios for co-creation of bundling socio-technical innovations. In Ethiopia, the initiative is closely working with the Veggies for Planet and People (V4P&P) project implemented by the World Vegetable

Research on gender inequality in seed systems has underscored the need to build more inclusive interventions. For gender-transformative (GT) interventions in seed systems to succeed, there is urgent need to test new models which should be guided by empirical evidence. We present findings from research that unraveled the underlying causes that prevent women and youth from actively participating and benefiting as cassava seed entrepreneurs (CSEs). This study underpins the designing and testing of GT interventions as part of the Muhogo Bora cassava seed systems project in Tanzania.