Irrigation expansion is critical for agricultural and rural development, food and nutrition security, and climate change adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Lack of accessible energy for irrigation development due to limited off- and on-grid infrastructure and the resulting dependence on costly fuel-based irrigation have been key inhibiting factors for irrigation expansion in the region. Off-grid solar-powered irrigation pumps (SIPs) can overcome many of the energy access and other challenges in the region, but their uptake has been slow.

Antibiotics have revolutionised medicine in the last century and enabled the prevention of bacterial infections that were previously deemed untreatable. However, in parallel, bacteria have increasingly developed resistance to antibiotics through various mechanisms. When resistant bacteria find their way into terrestrial and aquatic environments, animal and human exposures increase, e.g., via polluted soil, food, and water, and health risks multiply.

The cascading effects of biodiversity decline on human well-being present a pressing challenge for sustainable development. Conservation efforts often prioritize safeguarding specific species, habitats, or intact ecosystems but overlook biodiversity’s fundamental role in providing Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) in human-modified landscapes.

Biodiversity in all its dimensions is being threatened by climate change and the impact of human activities. Genetic diversity is a key dimension of biodiversity underlying adapta- tion to global changes. Here we assess the impact of climate change on plant genetic diver- sity in a region located in the southernmost portion of Argentina and Chile range. We com- piled available published research on population genetics of 22 plant species from forests, monte and steppe ecoregions and modelled the impact of future climates on their suitability distributions.

Plant diversity has long been linked to an increase in ecosystem productivity and function, but concrete examples in which ecosystem services are linked to diversity at the scale at which management decisions are taken are rare. We specifically tested for a correlation between plant diversity and provisioning ecosystem services estimated via the potential to produce meat and wool. We also tested whether higher levels of plant diversity conferred higher levels of ecosystem resistance to global change drivers, measured as the ability to sustain productivity across time.

Work package 4 maps rice areas using remote sensing, geographic information system (GIS), and crop modeling. This work builds on the Remote sensingbased Information and Insurance for Crops in Emerging economies (RIICE, http://www.riice.org/) co-developed by IRRI and implemented in South and Southeast Asian countries. RIICE technology is being introduced across Africa to enhance its rice monitoring system. A set of field protocols and forms was developed for seasonal field data collection.

AICCRA project provides pre-season and in-season advisories to farmers in the drylands through the Intelligent Systems Advisory Tool (iSAT). Leveraging historical climate trends and current/future weather conditions, iSAT develops weather advisories delivered via short message service (SMS) directly to farmers' mobile phones. This innovative approach empowers farmers with timely information, covering land preparation, crop selection, planting, weeding, and real-time pest and disease control and management updates.

Sustainable intensification practices suitable for smallholders in southern Africa will be needed to counteract the impact of future climate change and soil fertility decline in the region. Diversification of maize-based farming systems with grain legumes could play a key role. Here, we compared the performance of different maize-legume diversification strategies (single-row intercropping, strip cropping, and crop rotation) with sole cropped maize under conventional ploughing and Conservation Agriculture in four Zambian districts in the Eastern and Southern Provinces.

Work package 4 maps rice areas using remote sensing, geographic information system (GIS), and crop modeling. This work builds on the Remote sensing-based Information and Insurance for Crops in Emerging economies (RIICE, http://www.riice.org/) co-developed by IRRI and implemented in South and Southeast Asian countries. RIICE technology is being introduced across Africa to enhance its rice monitoring system. A set of field protocols and forms was developed for seasonal field data collection.