The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has jeopardized the stability of agrifood systems and the welfare of the rural households that are actively engaged in the different components of these systems, particularly in developing countries. Efforts are underway to redress the negative impacts of the pandemic through investments to ‘build back better’. These efforts represent an enormous opportunity to make significant and lasting contribution to the longer-term resilience and sustainability of agrifood systems in the context of climate change. The objective of this [...]

Social protection transfers are the most widespread measures adopted to stabilize refugee households’ livelihoods and alleviate their food insecurity. This paper contributes to the literature on the effectiveness of different types of support on livelihoods and productivity outcomes of one of the largest refugee populations in Africa. Taking advantage of a unique panel dataset representative of the largest part of the 1.4 million people hosted in the Uganda refugees’ settlements, this paper investigates how different social protection interventions (cash and [...]

This paper uncovers the mechanisms shaping the impact of the public work component of the Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) on beneficiaries and communities’ food security and vulnerability to various shocks. From a policy perspective, the empirical findings recommend explicitly integrating environmental and climate considerations to design social protection programmes which target poor agricultural households highly vulnerable to weather shocks.

The adoption of climate-adaptive agricultural practices (CAAPs) among resource-poor smallholder households is typically hindered by liquidity and risk constraints. Using an inverse probability weighted estimator that uses three waves of nationally representative panel survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi and the United Republic of Tanzania, this article examines whether food transfers help overcome barriers to the adoption of selected CAAPs. The results show that in each country analysed, receiving food transfers increase the probability of adopting at least one CAAP.

In this work, we merge socio-economic data with data on deforestation to explore the interrelationship between rural migration, the development of commercial agricultural sector, and forest cover loss. Specifically we test the role of cash crop producers and inter-district migrants on the tree loss in the parish of residence, while controlling for several other household-level and parish-level contributing factors of deforestation, including population density, proximity to markets and protected areas. Also, we investigate the agricultural channel, specifically producing cash crops, [...]

This working paper analyses the financial cost and benefit of adopting two different bundles of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices, which are tailored for the diverse conditions that prevail in southern Malawi. The results show the integration of CSA practices, including soil conservation, agroforestry, and livestock diversification, into conventional maize-legume and maize monocrop systems is profitable for farmers. Moreover, the profitability of these systems increases under extreme weather conditions that occur with increasing frequency in the region. However, the upfront costs [...]

This paper presents a methodology for public expenditure review and analysis for climate change adaptation and mitigation in the agricultural sector. It outlines the basic methodological concepts, including the classification of public expenditures in the context of their links to climate change adaptation and mitigation. It also illustrates how such analysis can usefully contribute to policy decision making to better achieve the climate change adaptation and mitigation goals using the case study of Uganda. The proposed classification allows for analysing [...]

In many developing countries the adoption of climate sustainable practices is hindered by resource and risk barriers. This paper assesses the interactions between participation in Malawi’s largest public works programme, the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), and three widely promoted climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. The underlying hypotheses to be tested are: (a) that participation in the MASAF programme reduce both the budget and the risk constraints to the adoption of sustainable management practices; and (b) the joint treatment effect of [...]

Increased incidences of drought and water scarcity due to climate change is an important challenge facing Sri Lanka’s agricultural sector. Identifying farm practices that can reduce its adverse impacts on agricultural production and farmers’ livelihoods is a key policy objective in Sri Lanka. This paper makes use of household survey data collected in Anurādhapura District to evaluate the impacts of 11 drought adaptation practices adopted by farmers in the district. The impacts of the practices are estimated simultaneously along two [...]

Rising temperatures due to climate change pose a significant threat to agricultural systems and the livelihoods of farmers across the globe. Identifying farm management strategies that reduce sensitivity to high temperatures is, therefore, critical for moderating the adverse effects of climate change. In this paper, we use spatially granular climate data merged with four waves of household survey data in Uganda to examine empirically the relationships between high temperatures, agricultural production outcomes, and the adoption (including its duration) of three [...]