"They want it in a language they can understand"

In close collaboration with our partners, AICCRA is making the science and cutting-edge practices, technologies and tools developed by CGIAR available throughout Africa, especially in regions vulnerable to climate change.

We're convinced the adoption and use of these technologies will enhance the resilience of Africa's small-scale farmers and agricultural ecosystems and improve food security for the continent. 

In our news from February:

WATCH | We joined The World Bank 's 'What's Cooking?' digital agriculture learning series for a conversation with partners AGRHYMET REGIONAL CENTER and ICPAC on progressing from simply generating climate information to enabling small-scale farmers in Africa to actively use that information in their daily decision making.

LISTEN | For World Radio Day, we released a new podcast episode about how collaboration between the Ghana Meteorological Agency and community radio stations—supported by AICCRA Ghana—is boosting farmers’ climate resilience efforts.

EXPLORE | We've published an innovation story on mainstreaming climate change curricula in West Africa, a blog on how African agribusinesses can attract new investment by leveraging impact measurement, and a story on how seed cooperatives in Senegal are bringing farmers together.

Subscribe to our newsletter or follow AICCRA on social media to stay up to date.

In conversation with the World Bank's 'What's Cooking?' digital series

On the latest episode of the World Bank's 'What's Cooking?' learning series on digital agriculture, AICCRA co-hosted a conversation on how to progress from simply generating climate information to enabling smallholder farmers in Africa to actively use that information in their day-to-day decision-making, making them more resilient to climate change.

Speakers: Katie Kennedy Freeman (World Bank), Tufa Dinku (AICCRA & Columbia Climate School), Masilin Gudoshava (IGAD Climate Prediction & Applications Centre - ICPAC), Bernard Minoungou (Regional Centre for Training and Application in Agrometeorology and Operational Hydrology - AGRHYMET), Amanda Grossi (AICCRA & Columbia Climate School) and Abdrahmane Wane (AICCRA Senegal).

Learn more about the event and watch the conversation.

Connecting climate information to farmers through radio in Ghana

Radio is an effective tool for sharing timely agricultural information to farming communities, particularly in Africa. For #WorldRadioDay, we released a new episode of AICCRA’s Climate Smart Africa podcast, where Mina Okuru speaks to Gideon K Sarkodie Osei, Radio Presenter with Adars FM in Kintampo and Francisca Martey, Deputy Director, Ghana Meteorological Agency.

In this insightful conversation, Gideon explains why radio is an important medium for Ghanaian farmers, saying, “Farmers need climate information to be delivered in formats that can be easily understood and radio achieves this by delivering the information through voice and local languages...They want it in a language they can understand.”

And Francisca shares how this collaboration with AICCRA has “helped the Ghana Meteorological Agency to scale up the delivery of climate information to farmers.”

Mainstreaming climate information services and climate-smart agriculture in African higher education systems

In partnership with WASCAL and RUFORUM Network, over 1,500 university lecturers and staff—including 30 percent women—from 37 African countries have benefited from capacity development training on new modules on climate services and climate-smart agriculture.

This ensures the next generation can play a transformative role in scaling innovations and initiatives that make African agriculture more resilient to climate change.

The way for mainstreaming of climate change curricula has been paved with the inclusion of climate change modules at the Université Houphouet Boigny in Côte d'Ivoire, and AICCRA intends to support the effective implementation of these modules and ensure wider dissemination of the curricula in West African universities.  

AICCRA Gender-Smart Accelerator winner receives scaling investment

We're thrilled to share that one of AICCRA Senegal's Gender-Smart Accelerator Challenge (GSAC) grant winners, ACASEN Group , has received an investment of from WIC CAPITAL and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The financing will be used to strengthen the company's production capacity and support its transition to industrial scale.

Speaking of AICCRA's Gender-Smart Accelerator Challenge, ACASEN CEO Hermione Awounou said:

"We are very grateful because the GSAC program has made our dream come true. The GSAC allowed ACASEN to initiate our scaling process through the capacity building and grant received to better position us to mobilize funds from impact investors.”

Seed cooperatives in Senegal bring farmers together - especially women and young farmers

Recent initiatives through AICCRA Senegal support local farmers, especially women and youth, through the formalization of seed cooperatives. The creation of certified seed production cooperatives is a direct response to the growing demand for quality seed in Senegal for improving crop yields and guaranteeing food security.

The initiatives emerged from AICCRA's farmer field days with ANCAR , where farmers identified a major problem in accessing and using certified seeds, and were able see the significant differences in terms of production and profitability depending on which seeds were used.

"By pooling their resources and sharing responsibilities, farmers can access financial and technical resources more easily. It also strengthens their position on the market by enabling them to negotiate collective sales contracts and obtain better prices for their products." - Dr Fatimata Bintou Hassedine Diouf, Director of Research, Development, and Innovation at ANCAR

So far, nine management committees with more than 1,726 members have benefited from the formalization initiative.

How African agribusinesses can attract new investment by leveraging impact measurement in climate adaptation

Synergy between scientists and agribusinesses holds immense potential for transforming African agriculture. But the absence of standards for impact measurement highlights the need to develop and strengthen capacities for private sector actors to articulate and report contributions to climate change adaptation and climate-smart agriculture (CSA).

Technical support provided by AICCRA partnerships through our accelerator programs in Zambia, Senegal and elsewhere has equipped small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the agribusiness sector with the skills necessary to identify, prioritize, and track CSA activities, integrating them into their business models, and allowing them to assess financial viability, and impacts on end-users, especially farmers.

Revisiting CORAF's Market for Agricultural Innovations and Technologies conference

“Innovation platforms are a powerful means of achieving mass adoption of technologies and innovations,” said Dr Lamien Niéyidouba, CORAF's Programme Manager for Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Security explained of #MITA2023, organized by CORAF | West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development .

Representatives from AICCRA’s regional, country, and thematic teams were present at the conference as it was a key opportunity to convene partners from across West Africa—with both regional and country focus in Senegal, Mali, and Ghana—to engage in dynamic discussions and showcase AICCRA climate-smart agricultural innovations, that promote nutrition and are inclusive of women. 

Embracing Rice-Fish farming in Mali

Bernard Doumbia, a rice farmer in Mali’s Sikasso Region, successfully transitioned to an integrated rice-fish farming system, eliminating the need for expensive fertilizers and providing an additional revenue stream from fish. We visited Bernard’s farm to see the practical benefits of rice-fish farming on the ground.

Through the integrated rice-fish farm Bernard has in place, organic matter from the fish waste fertilizes the soil, and the rice provides a habitat for the fish, which in turn provides Bernard with an additional revenue stream alongside his rice.

Rodrigue Yossa, WorldFish Senior Scientist and a focal point for WorldFish with AICCRA in Mali, after the visit to Bernard’s farm said,

"Seeing the integrated rice-fish system in action reaffirms the power of merging traditional methods with innovative approaches to create practical and context-specific agricultural systems that are both ecologically sound and economically beneficial."

What we've been reading:

1. Research paper: Linking science with policy: the importance of incorporating clear roles for knowledge brokers into research-for-development organizations 

Knowledge brokers play a crucial role in ensuring research is taken up and incorporated into policy framework. In fact, in her new paper, AICCRA Policy Lead Laura Cramer says, "Agriculture and food systems research and international development work will not proceed at the necessary speed without clear attention to the role of knowledge brokers within science-policy-practice interfaces."

A key approach to meeting current and future challenges will be linking the research produced into decision-making processes so evidence can be used in formulating policies and developing priorities for investment - an emphasis made in AICCRA's work at national and regional levels.

Read here.

2. Stories from CGIAR Gender Platform's International Women's Day Campaign

Ahead of #IWD2024. explore research & innovations from across @CGIAR - including recent stories from AICCRA - on three key sub-themes: invest in making finance available to women, youth and Indigenous peoples; invest in women’s economic empowerment; and invest in agricultural solutions that work for women.

Explore the campaign.

Read these stories and more on our news page or follow us on social media (@CGIARAfrica) for ongoing updates.

Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) is a project that helps deliver a climate-smart African future driven by science and innovation in agriculture. It is led by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and supported by a grant from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank.