Agriculture’s growing prominence in climate priorities is a major opportunity to enhance IFAD’s positive impact on smallholders’ engagement in value chains. Value chain projects face multiple climate risks – and offer novel ways to manage risk.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) held a learning event on 25 February 2016 in Rome to discuss knowledge-based approaches to develop value chains programs that address climate risks. In the opening introductions, IFAD attendees indicated that in their work they are trying to maximise the economic benefits of value chains to smallholders under rapid environmental change. Thus they need tools, tactics and approaches to manage climate risks and opportunities at the design and implementation phases of value chain investment projects. A key conclusion of the learning event was that building in-country capacity to use relevant tools for real decisions is even more important than building the tools.
Key messages:
- a number of tools and resources are available to support decision makers at various stages in value chain development
- mainstreaming climate risk management approaches in different stages of value chain development helps increase resilience of smallholder farmers
- the IFAD-CCAFS learning alliance generates and shares knowledge to support IFAD’s programming needs