This report presents the outcomes of Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) Zambia Stakeholder Consultation Workshop for Additional Financing (AF). The consultation was held on September 21, 2023, from 09:00 to 14:00 CAT at the Inter-Continental Hotel, Lusaka. In total, 100 participants (31 females and 14 youth) participated in the consultation.

While many have extolled the potential impacts of digital advisory services for smallholder agriculture, the evidence for sustained uptake of such tools remains limited. This paper utilizes a survey of tool developers and researchers, as well as a systematic meta-analysis of prior studies, to assess the extent and challenges of scaling decision support tools for site-specific soil nutrient management (SSNM-DST) across smallholder farming systems, where “scaling” is defined as a significant increase in tool usage beyond pilot levels.

In this chapter, we propose a framework of market-based incentive mechanisms for the adoption and scaling of sustainable production standards throughout rice value chains and review evidence of two mechanisms that have been piloted in Vietnam: “internalizing” and “embodying.” The evidence suggests that sustainable production standards can be successfully “internalized” in rice value chains through policies (public governance) that provide an enabling environment for vertical coordination and private governance of standards (e.g., through contract farming).

Maize is widely used for food, animal feed, and industrial raw material in Nigeria. This paper documents the
important changes that characterize Nigeria’s maize production and area expansion along with contributing

The project intervention communities of The Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) in Ghana are vulnerable to climate variability and change, which continues to pose a threat to food crop production. Increasing the resilience of the communities includes building their capacity on climate smart agriculture practices (CSA), climate information services (CIS) and One-health (OH) innovations. A Training of Trainers workshop was organized and Thirty-six Master trainers (mainly extension officers) received training on CSA, CIS, and OH innovations.

Using radio for extension service has the potential to reach many rural women with the needed climate information services (CIS) and climate smart agriculture (CSA) innovations. However, radio extension is not necessarily gender neutral. In this Info Note we present insights from designing and implementing a gender-smart radio extensions programme in Ghana.

The International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), as part of Columbia Climate School at Columbia University organized an intensive three-week conference on subseasonal and seasonal forecasting using the updated NextGen (PyCPT2.5.5) approach at its Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory campus in Palisades, New York with staff from ICPAC and AGRHYMET, as well as the national meteorological services of six AICCRA countries and Lesotho.

An operational scale, efficacy tests of the optimal dose of the bioinsecticide Bb11 (Bba5653), including observation data on useful non-targets. Specifically, participatory trials with vegetable growers were carried out, at the Tuba Irrigation Site in the Ga West District of the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the biological insecticide Bba5653 under field conditions in Ghana. The demonstration also included the evaluation of BSF frass in cabbage production systems.

The approach was used to disseminate site-specific climate-information services, agro advisories, and climate-smart agriculture technologies for AICCRA Ghana Cluster priority value chains

The purpose of this case study is to draw lessons from the PTT for design of future research policy platforms or networks. The study provides an overview of the institutional context within which the PTT was established and carried out its work, reviews the organizational structure and functions of the think tank and presents some of the selected research activities that were carried out, plus their impacts. Finally, the case study draws out some lessons for future consideration when establishing science to policy platforms.