1

Climate Information Services: Experiences from CGIAR

Research Program on Climate

James HansenTheme 2 Leader: Adaptation through Managing Climate Risk

IRI, Columbia University, New York

ESA Climate Change, Land and Gender Workshop

Nairobi, Kenya, 17 October

24 Jun 2013

2

The What and Why of Climate Services

Message 1: Climate services can make

a contribution to climate-resilient

development investment.

3

The cost of climate variability

CR

ISIS

HA

RD

SH

IP

FOR

FEIT

ED

OPPO

RTU

NIT

Y

Climatic outcome (e.g. production, income)

Pro

ba

bili

ty d

en

sit

y

• Climate risk contributes to chronic poverty, vulnerability, food insecurity

• Downside risk: shocks

• Opportunity cost: uncertainty

• Affects farmers, markets, the food system, the “relief trap”

• Climate variability is increasing

• Several opportunities to help agriculture adapt are…

• Dependent on information

• Constrained by information gaps

4

Examples

• Adjusting farm management and input use

• Community-level early warning and response to rapid onset hazards (flood, storms)

• Characterize risks for targeting agricultural technology and management

• Index-based insurance to protect assets, increase access to credit and inputs

• Improve safety nets and food security interventions

• Government planning and budgeting?

• Understand climate change vs. natural variability vs. non-climatic changes to inform long-term planning

5

Salience: What kind of information do farmers need?

• Types of climate information:

• Historic observations

• Monitored

• Predictive, all lead times ≤ ~20 years

• Some generalizations:

• Downscaled, locally-relevant

• Tailored to types & timing of decisions

• “Value-added” climate information: impacts on agriculture, advisories

• Capacity to understand and act on complex information

6

Time scales: weather or climate?

• Depends on time horizon of decision

• Generalizations about increasing lead time:

• Decisions more context- and farmer-specific

• Information becomes more uncertain, hence more complex

• Therefore the scope of services needed increases

HOURS DAYS WEEKS MONTHS YEARS DECADES …

WEATHER CLIMATE

• Tillage

• Sowing

• Irrigation

• Crop protection

• Harvest

• Changing farming or livelihood system

• Major capital investment

• Migration

• Family succession

• Land allocation

• Crop selection

• Household labor allocation, seasonal migration

• Technology selection

• Financing for inputs

• Contract farming

7

Objective 2: Food System Risk

Management

Climate services in CCAFS Theme 2

Objective 1: Local Risk

Management

Scal

e Objective 3: Climate

Information and Services

Fill key gaps:• Knowledge• Tools & Methods• Evidence• Capacity• Coordination

GENDER & EQITY LENS

Enhanced climate services

Enhanced climate

services

Improved, climate-informed responses

Resilient food systems,Improved food security

Enhanced support for managing risk

Climate-resilient rural livelihoods

8

CCAFS climate services experience

Message 2: CCAFS is contributing to

bringing climate services to smallholder

farming and agricultural planning.

9

Piloting in Kenya, Senegal, …

• Learning laboratory

• Improved information design

• Workshop process

• Evidence of what is possible

• Demand for scaling up

10

Climate services for government planning in Ethiopia

• Engagement, analysis of subnational planning, budgeting process

• Social learning platform, testing, dissemination

• Targeted Outcome: climate-informed planning upstream of existing national emergency decision processes.

11

Training for agricultural extension, other intermediaries

12

Delivering through ICT and media

13

Tackling gender and social equity

• Women disadvantaged when scaling up climate services

• Ongoing project (U. Florida):

• Knowledge of how women are disadvantages and how to overcome bias

• Protocol for identifying and addressing inequity in climate communication

• Gender challenges incorporated into training for intermediaries

14

Making climate information useful to farmers

• Spatial scale problem

• Beyond seasonal averages

• Onset, length

• Dry spells

• Growing, chill degree-days

• Challenges

• Gaps in data

• Gaps in daily data

• Capacity of NMS

?

15

Making climate information useful to farmers

• Started in Ethiopia, with IRI, U. Reading, NMA, CCAFS

• Satellite + station, 10km grid, 30 year complete record

• “Maprooms” built on Data Library software

• Owned, implemented by NMS

STATION BLENDED SATELLITE

16

17

ENACTS at NMS (Ethiopia, Tanzania, Madagascar, …), AGRHYMET

Enables NMS to customize, generate and disseminate locally relevant climate

information without over-taxing limited human resource

18

Pulling the pieces together:World Vision-Tanzania

• World’s largest development NGO

• Secure the Future

Tanzania:

• Reach ~1.7M farmers + pastoralists

• 66 ADP offices• staff, partnership

• infrastructure

• Long-term commitment, where needed

19

Pulling the pieces together:GFCS in Tanzania, Malawi

20

Investing in Climate Services

Message 3: The right investment,

leveraging other efforts, can bring climate

services to smallholder farmers – at scale

21

What can we leverage?

• UN Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS)

• Climate Services Partnership (CSP)

• ClimDev-Africa

• Regional climate centers

• CCAFS Theme 2 hosted by IRI

22

What else is needed?Key challenges

• Salience: tailoring content, scale, format, lead-time to farm decision-making

• Legitimacy: giving farmers an effective voice in design and delivery

• Access: providing timely access to remote rural communities with marginal infrastructure

• Equity: ensuring that women, poor, socially marginalized benefit

• Integration: climate services as part of a larger package of support

23

What else is needed?Institutional arrangements

• Limitations of supply-driven climate services

• Expand the boundary to agricultural research and development

• Expand the boundaries to give farmers a voice

CLIMATE SERVICE

NMS(climate)

User (farmer)

INFORMATION

CLIMATE SERVICE

NMS(climate)

User (farmer)

VALUE-ADDEDINFORMATION

NARES(agriculture)PARTNERSHIP

CLIMATE SERVICE

NMS(climate)

Co-owner (farmer)

NARES(agriculture)PARTNERSHIP

24

Suggestions for investing in climate services for agriculture

• Address climate information supply, communication, use bottlenecks in parallel

• Improving information supply

• Low-hanging fruit for farmer-relevant climate information

• Caution about investing in observing infrastructure alone

• Two-fold path to communication capacity:

• Institutional: through agricultural extension, NGOs

• ICT and media

• Institutional coordination mechanisms. Who owns climate services for agriculture?

• Leverage and coordinate with GFCS, broader climate services community