23 September 2019: The Government of Uruguay has developed a climate action plan to deal with the impacts of climate change faced by the agriculture sector, which will also help the country achieve its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and the SDGs.

The ‘Uruguayan National Adaptation Plan to Climate Variability and Change for the Agricultural Sector’ (NAP-Agro) proposes a strategy for 2050 and an action plan for 2025, with adaptation measures focused on production systems, ecosystems and natural resources, livelihoods and institutional capacities.

The Plan seeks to increase the adaptive capacity and resilience and improve the livelihoods of rural populations through adopting sustainable animal and plant production systems, developing and transferring technology, information systems, climate insurance, resilient infrastructure, promoting best practices, supporting networks and organizations of farmers and strengthening institutional capacities for adaptation.

The NAP-Agro was developed following a decade of studies and research that helped improve decision making on adaptation actions and formulate the NAP. Studies include: a case study on Uruguay, ‘Safeguarding Livelihoods and Promoting Resilience Through National Adaptation Plans,’ and ‘Making the Case for Gender-responsive Adaptation Planning in Uruguay: The Importance of Sex-disaggregated Data’; guides on applying cost-benefit analysis to adaptation measures in agriculture and for estimating losses and damages due to extreme climatic events in agriculture (in Spanish); and studies on gender and adaptation to climate change in agriculture and on climate projections through statistical downscaling (in Spanish).

The formulation of the NAP-Agro is the result of a three-year participatory process, which involved more than 950 people, to identify, order and prioritize climate actions. In 2017, a consultation process through a series of Adaptation Dialogues involved more than 200 people from the private and public sectors, academia and civil society. These Dialogues identified impacts of climate variability and change and priority adaptation strategies focusing on different productive systems, rural women and family farming. Adaptation workshops also took place in agricultural high schools across Uruguay, with nearly 450 youth participating. In July, the draft NAP-Agro received comments from stakeholders from public agricultural institutions, subnational governments, civil society, farmer organizations and academia.

The process was led by the Office of Agricultural Programming and Policy of the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, in coordination with the National System of Response to Climate Change and Variability. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) provided technical support, under the Integrating Agriculture into National Adaptation Plans (NAP-Ag) Program funded by the Government of Germany. [UNDP Press Release] [Uruguayan National Adaptation Plan to Climate Variability and Change for the Agricultural Sector (in Spanish)]