Within the agricultural development sector, innovation has been identified as a primary pathway to achieve economic, social and environmental goals. Innovation is traditionally defined as a linear and relatively homogenous process involving the invention of a “new” technology that is then…

This paper identifies sixteen cases of large-scale actions in the agriculture and forestry sectors that have adaptation and/or mitigation outcomes, and distils lessons from the cases. The cases cover policy and strategy development (including where climate-smart objectives were not the initial…

Variable and low rainfall patterns combined with increasing population pressure have led to natural resources degradation in the Mopti region of Mali. This has forced both agricultural and pastoral communities to transform their production systems and social relations. To assess the adaptive…

Pour leur appropriation et l’e?mergence de nouveaux territoires de l’eau, la cre?ation des CLE devrait e?tre l’aboutissement d’un processus de territorialisation sur des espaces socialement construits et non des zones de compe?tence de?limite?es de fac?on technocratique.

Main message
Change is not the outcome of a simple “from”(research) “to” (policy) model. It is most likely to take place in the form of incremental adjustments, grounded in daily interactions between stakeholders.

Ghana is endowed with a lot of natural resources but these resources are depleting at rates that are worrisome. If care is not taken the environment will lose all these gifts of nature. However, most Ghanaians livelihoods are linked to these natural resources. The management of these natural…

Main message
Farmers in Volta Basin Development Challenge project sites are generally not developing brand new practices on their own. Information about new technologies is slowly spreading from projects to the wider community, but adoption of these technologies could be strengthened by…

Regional trade bears a great potential to improve food security in West Africa. Again and again, however, efforts made in this field by organisations such as ECOWAS and UEMOA are frustrated by the policies of individual countries.

Current water reforms in most African countries focus on decentralizing water management to the water users, as a way of improving water governance. The target of these reforms is equity, efficiency and sustainability. Unfortunately the reforms tend to concentrate on the use of statutory laws,…

The CGIAR Research Program Climate Change, Agriculture, Food Security (CCAFS) is a 10-year research initiative launched by CGIAR and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP). CCAFS seeks to overcome the threats to agriculture and food security in a changing climate, exploring new ways of…

Representatives of three of the five VBDC projects met for the following specific objectives:
- Review emerging messages from the projects and the audience category that could use the
messages
- Review emerging outcomes from the projects;
- Identify other ‘quick wins’…