Capacity development is an important part of the Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) strategy to make climate services and climate-smart agriculture more accessible to millions of smallholder farmers across Africa.

Breeding maize lines with the improved level of desired agronomic traits under optimum and drought conditions as well as increased levels of resistance to several diseases such as maize lethal necrosis (MLN) is one of the most sustainable approaches for the sub-Saharan African region. In this study, 879 doubled haploid (DH) lines derived from 26 biparental populations were evaluated under artificial inoculation of MLN, as well as under well-watered (WW) and water-stressed (WS) conditions for grain yield and other agronomic traits.

Ethiopia is the world’s second largest producer of faba bean (Vicia faba L.), and the crop has largest share of area and production of all pulses grown in Ethiopia. Faba bean is valued for its source of protein, income, and animal feedstock, and an important rotational crop. However, its current productivity is very low due to an emerging faba bean gall (FBG) disease and other biotic constraints. Initially, FBG disease-causing pathogen remained unconfirmed, but it was assumed to be caused by Olpidium sp.

The aim of the dissertation was to undertake phenotypic and genetic characterization and design community-based breeding programs for two indigenous goat populations in Ethiopia, namely Arab and Oromo. The dissertation was based on five manuscripts. Papers I, II, IV and V were based on data generated from production system, morphological characterization and ranking experiments. Paper III was based on whole genome data generated from three indigenous goat populations (Arab, Fellata and Oromo).

This paper analyses the ways in which CGIAR Centers use digital sequence information (DSI) in their efforts to conserve and sustainably utilize the world’s most important crop and livestock genetic diversity.

High temperature and water deficit are among the major limitations reducing lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) yield in many growing regions. In addition, increasing atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (VPD) due to global warming causes a severe challenge by influencing the water balance of the plants, thus also affecting growth and yield.

This paper highlights how farmers in a northern Lao village transformed their customary land rights – in the face of incoherent overlapping state territorialization attempts – into a territorial strategy to secure their land tenure. By planting rubber, some villagers have engaged in a crop boom to lay claim to land which has recently been zoned for upland rice cultivation (and conservation) as part of a state-led land use planning initiative.

The objective of this study is to map community solutions to deal with climate variability and how information is mobilized into or interfaces with the next layer of government interventions that brings new perspectives in understanding how local solutions can be better mobilized into external solutions to climate change adaptation through horizontal and vertical integration processes, with a focus on living community-based water tenure in rural Zambia.

CCDA-X1, hosted by the Government of Namibia, convened on the theme: “Just transitions for a Climate-Resilient Development in Africa – Transforming Dialogue into Action” in collaboration with Africa’s civil society organisations, academia, development partners, regional and international organisations and the private sector.
The conference resulted in the following key messages to be taken forward to COP27 by Namibia.

ClimBeR Governance 4 Resilience (Work Package 4) developed a framework to scale innovations for transformative impact. The framework has four elements: 1) Changing the narrative, 2) Deepening the analysis, 3) Strengthening the alliances, 4) The process of change: applying lessons learned. This framework is being applied to ClimBeR research on governance in Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, Guatemala and the Philippines.