On May 12 in Abuja, Nigeria, two CGIAR initiatives – Fragility, Conflict, and Migration (FCM) and National Policies and Strategies (NPS) – brought together policymakers, researchers, and representatives from the private sector and civil society to discuss how to advance food systems resilience amid crises while empowering women and youth, in the context of Nigeria. The workshop featured presentations from six other CGIAR research initiatives working in Nigeria and fostered lively discussions.

Climate impacts in Sub-Saharan Africa are severe and will increase. Agriculture is a cornerstone of the economies of most countries and yet is dominated by climate-vulnerable rainfed systems. Meeting the food demands of the growing African population will require significant adjustments in food production systems and unfortunately, current adaptation efforts across the continent are insufficient to meet the climate challenge.

The Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) Initiative supports the evaluation and scaling of mechanized direct seeding in Cambodia. To enhance its existing scaling strategy, a workshop on Innovation Packaging and Scaling Readiness (IPSR) was held on 25 August in Phnom Penh. The workshop focused on the challenges, solutions, innovation readiness and innovation use of mechanized direct seeded rice (mDSR) in Cambodia. Around 30 participants coming from the government, private sector and NGO attended the event.

Processing biomass from different waste streams into marketable products such as organic fertilizer and bio-energy is increasingly realized through public-private partnerships (PPPs). In developing countries, the private sector can be expected to contribute technical skills, organizational capabilities and marketing expertise, and leverage capital inflow. In contrast, the public sector will provide the regulatory framework and help its enforcement, plan public investment, involve and educate stakeholders, and ensure waste supply.

On July 24, 2023, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute (LARI) under the Ministry of Agriculture organized a Multistakeholder Workshop on “National Alliance of Stakeholders for the Wheat Sector in Lebanon”. The agenda of the workshop is provided in Appendix 1.

The Gender Equality Initiative (HER+) conducts innovative gender and social science research to develop actionable solutions to enhance climate resilience and the empowerment of women in Africa and Asia. As there is no one-size-fits-all solution to these challenges, HER+ identifies and models diverse scenarios for co-creation of socio-technical innovations. According to Barret et al 2022, co-creation of bundled approaches is essential to enable new technologies and practices to emerge, adapt, and be upscaled within and across diverse contexts.

The African Union Commission (AUC) hosted the Strategic Climate Investment Partnership roundtable from 19-20 June 2023 at the African Union (AU) Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This roundtable, attended by key development partners, financial organisations, technical bodies, the private sector, and other institutions, was organised to leverage partnerships and align investment opportunities to support the operationalisation of the African Union Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan (2022-2032).

The Ethiopian government has recently convened a national conference on ‘Shaping Agriculture for Greater Impact’ to map the path forward in a renewed commitment towards agricultural transformation through resilient agriculture and food systems. These include forging innovative partnerships, public policy, food value chain and livelihood, and on-farm and productive landscape solutions.

In this brief, we present AICCRA Zambia's scaling vision. Our scaling strategy employs a number of interconnected and mutually reinforcing channels. These include public and private sector scaling partnerships, individual and collective investments, financing mechanism for SMEs, institutional capacity building and multistakeholder dialogues (Figure 2). AICCRA works with Zambian partners to scale actionable climate smart agriculture (CSA) and climate information services (CIS) innovation bundles that contribute to smallholder farmers’ water and food security and build resilience.

Effective scaling up is a key measure of success for these innovations. Too often, however, the decision to scale up is made with incomplete information. Given the high costs involved, decision-makers (governments, development partners, NGOs, and the private sector) must carefully decide which innovations are ready for investment. A good understanding of the scaling-up process and a conceptual framework that informs the scaling vision, analysis of the scaling readiness of innovations, and impact pathways to achieve that vision are critical for informed decision-making.

Demand-driven capacity strengthening programs prepare skills and competencies for the young labor force to work in the private sector, filling the gap of suitable workforce.

Rice production is an integral commodity to global food security, but it also contributes considerably to greenhouse
gas emissions (GHG). There are a variety of options to mitigate GHG emissions from paddy rice production but the
impacts and opportunities to finance such activities are not well-known or well-understood for global investors, and
much remains to be done to ensure that international climate finance can be used to attract private sector