This article investigates the empirical linkages between crop and livelihood diversification strategies,extreme weather events, and household welfare using a unique dataset that integrates harmonized,national representative household surveys and geo-referenced climatic information collected inMalawi, Niger and Zambia. In doing so, the paper addresses the potential endogeneity arising from theselection bias and the heterogeneity of the effect across the quantiles of the income distribution.Results show that exposure to extreme rainfall events is positively associated with either crop or liveli-hood diversification in all [...]

This paper examines the impacts of the El Niño during the 2015/2016 season on maize productivity and income in rural Zambia. The analysis aims at identifying whether and how sustainable land management (SLM) practices and livelihood diversification strategies have contributed to moderate the impacts of such a weather shock. The analysis was conducted using a specifically designed survey called the El Niño Impact Assessment Survey (ENIAS), which is combined with the 2015 wave of the Rural Agricultural Livelihoods Surveys (RALS), [...]

This brief provides empirically-based insights to help identify and prioritize policies and investments that can increase the benefitsfrom cropping system diversification and improve adoption of more profitable and resilient cropping systems. Specifically,the brief focuses on smallholder maize producers, the most widely grown crop in Mozambique, and identifies policies optionsbased on an analysis of: a) the factors that influence the adoption of relatively more subsistence or market oriented croppingsystems; and b) the effects of adopting different cropping systems on farm income, [...]

This brief aims to assist policy-makers and cooperating partners in Malawi to identify diversification pathways that can producemeasurable benefits in terms of productivity and crop income resilience for small-scale farmers, and to identify investmentsand policy options to promote the adoption of beneficial crop diversification. In particular, this brief examines a) the householdlevel factors to influence the adoption of different cropping systems; and b) the effect of adopting a particular cropping systemon maize productivity and crop income volatility in order to [...]

This study seeks to expand our understanding of the implications of weather shocks on thewelfare of livestock owning households in Kyrgyzstan and to identify policy options that canenhance the resilience of these vulnerable households. More specifically, the study has threeobjectives. First, it examines the short (one year) and medium-term (four years) impacts of theharsh winter on the welfare of livestock owning household (measured in terms of foodconsumption expenditure) using a unique, multi-year panel data set. Measuring the impact attwo points [...]

This paper explores the resilience capacity of rural Ethiopian households after the drought shock occurred in 2011. The work develops an original empirical framework able to capture the policy and socio-economic determinants of households’ resilience capacity by making parametric statistical assumption on the resilience distribution. To this end, the analysis employs a two-wave representative panel dataset aligned with detailed weather records while controlling for a large set of household- and community-level characteristics. The analysis shows that the majority of these [...]

The brief uses a unique set of data from Zambia collected from smallholders before and after the 2015/2016 ENSO event, which was widely anticipated by regional and global forecast services to contribute to dry conditions in southern Zambia and an overall shorter growing season. Three findings emerge from the analysis. Farmers receiving seasonal weather forecasts are more likely to adopt cropping systems and seed varieties that are adapted to the expected weather conditions, yet access to weather information remains limited. [...]

This manual is designed for a four-day training course on climate-smart agriculture that would take the learner from the basics of climate science to the impacts of climate change and the linkages among climate, agriculture and food security. It contains four modules, each addressing a particular aspect and consisting of several sessions that are held either in plenary, as one group, or in smaller work groups. The content and structure of this manual has been developed and tested through fieldwork [...]

Kyrgyzstan experienced an extremely cold winter in 2012, with heavy snowfall followed by a significant spring run-off. This harsh winter led to considerable livestock mortality and price rises for animal products, with a substantial impact on the welfare of livestock herding households. On average, households affected by the harsh winter experienced a 5 percent reduction in food consumption expenditure in the first year following the shock, and 8 percent reduction four years later with respect to households not exposed to [...]

Crop diversification is an important policy objective to promote climate change adaptation, yet the drivers and impacts of crop diversification vary considerably depending on the specific combinations of crops a farmer grows. This paper examines adoption determinants of seven different cropping systems in Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique, and the impact of their adoption on maize productivity and income volatility – using a multinomial endogenous treatment effect model. These cropping systems consist in different combinations of four categories of crops: dominate [...]