7 May 2015: The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has published its 2014 annual report, titled ‘Climate-smart agriculture: Acting locally, informing globally,’ on advancing the concept and practice of climate-smart agriculture in farmers’ fields and global initiatives, as well as through collaboration with farmers, civil society, governments and researchers.

The report consists of five main sections on: impact through policies and partnerships; capacity to deliver impact; breakthrough science and innovation; communications for development; and gender and social inequality.

Under impact through policies and partnerships, the report highlights CCAFS’s partnerships with nearly 900 organizations, including governments, research organizations and farmer networks, to bridge the gap between research and policy. With regard to enhancing capacity to deliver impact, the publication finds that enabling people to enhance their own capacity is likely to be more effective than attempting to ‘deliver’ capacity development, which is particularly important for less empowered stakeholder groups. On breakthrough science and innovation, the report underscores CCAFS’s collaboration with research organizations across the world to ensure that its science is well informed and inclusive. The report’s section on communications for development points out that CCAFS is developing tools that enable farmers to have access to climate information services, such as improved forecasting and information about historical climate patterns to assist them in decision making. To address gender and social inequality, CCAFS prioritizes the need to understand and transform gender dynamics in relation to climate change.

CCAFS has also published an online version of the report, which contains some additional information, including regional highlights for East Africa, West Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and South Asia. It also features a list of CCAFS’s publications on: low-emissions agriculture; scenarios, models and tools; global synthesis; climate-smart practice and policy; climate risk management; and gender and social inclusion. [CCAFS Press Release] [Publication: Climate-smart Agriculture: Acting Locally, Informing Globally] [Online Annual Report 2014 Site]