CGIAR Climate Action science program

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/163089

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Now showing 1 - 11 of 11

De-risking livestock systems through bundled index insurance: why it is important to promote market development for productivity-enhancing inputs
(Brief, 2025-05-30) Ochenje, Ibrahim; Shikuku, Kelvin Mashisia; Banerjee, Rupsha R.
Livestock keepers in East Africa grapple with multiple compounding and cascading risks including extreme weather events, pests and diseases, price fluctuations, and conflict. While several risk management solutions have been implemented mostly as standalone interventions, it is increasingly clear that bundling financial and sociotechnical innovations will be crucial for transforming agri-food systems to address the multiple risks simultaneously, enhance resilience, and improve livelihoods. This brief explains the role of private sector service providers of productivity-enhancing inputs in the diffusion and scaling of bundled index-based livestock insurance crucial for de-risking livestock systems and livelihoods.
Hits and misses: water-based climate change adaptation interventions for agriculture in South Asia
(Journal Article, 2025-03-04) Lakshmikantha, N.R.; Shah, Rinan; Srinivasan, Veena; Mukherji, Aditi
South Asia's small and marginal farmers are vulnerable to climate change. This is a pressing concern due to the region's heavy dependence on agriculture. There is an urgent need to invest in adaptations that are effective. This study conducts an in-depth analysis of climate change adaptation interventions in the context of South Asia's unique challenges. In this meta-review of existing literature, we evaluated 70 selected papers focused on water-related climate adaptations in the agriculture sector in South Asia. Our analysis highlights both positive outcomes and unintended consequences. We found that interventions focusing on on-farm practices and water management showed positive impacts on productivity and livelihoods. However, many adaptation interventions did not consider environmental sustainability or equity enough. Notably, the study shows that much of the burden of adaptation fell on farmers. Interventions entailed behaviour change but were accompanied by relatively little policy or financing support. To achieve farm-scale adaptation, enabling policies and support for social structures are essential. At the watershed scale, water accounting is crucial to avoid scale-related unintended consequences. Finally, mainstreaming adaptation through development projects can enhance effectiveness, in settings where farmers are still poor.
Perspectives from historical analyses of agri-food system transformations: A case study of Odisha, India
(Journal Article, 2025-06-01) Sarkar, Anindita; Mukherji, Aditi
Rural society in Odisha, India, has been associated with widespread poverty and low purchasing power since the British colonial times. Odisha has consistently reported lower yields of crops and input use in agriculture compared to the national Indian average since India’s independence in 1947. Poor agricultural growth and rural poverty could be traced to colonial, extractive land revenue administration and poor land management practices. Post-independence scholarship has ascribed the continuation of rural poverty and distress to high exposure to natural hazards and high societal vulnerability due to development deficits. By analysing the historical evolution of policies since the 1850s, the study finds that even though the political and economic contexts have changed, low investment in agriculture remains the primary challenge even today. The cycle of low capital investment in agriculture, lack of adoption of better farm technologies, and overall public sector neglect of the agriculture sector has perpetuated, leading to low productivity. Therefore, it is time for the present policies to break away from these historical path dependencies to create a just and sustainable future for Odisha’s agri-food system.
Empowering global water governance: taking the 2023 UN Water Conference outcomes forward to address the current water crises
(Journal Article, 2025-01-27) Herrfahrdt-Pahle, Elke; Houdret, Annabelle; Dombrowsky, Ines; Cullmann, Johannes; Mukherji, Aditi; Unver, Olcay; Varady, Robert
The planet-wide water crisis manifests itself in limited access, overuse, pollution, droughts and flooding. It requires recognizing water as a global commons and improving global water governance. To achieve this, the UN as the only inclusive and global platform for policy development needs increased political commitment and lasting support. Global water governance is largely fragmented, incoherent and mired in a virtual dead end since the first United Nations conference on water in 1977 (Herrfahrdt-Pähle et al., Citation2019). Geopolitical rivalries, domestic politics, sovereignty issues and, not least, inertia, hinder efforts. Current measures do not suffice for addressing the global water crisis or achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 on water and the water-related SDGs (e.g., food, health and climate). To reach SDG 6, the rate of implementation will need to increase sixfold for access to safe drinking water and fivefold for access to sanitation (United Nations, Citation2023a). Implementation challenges include lack of clear vision and political commitment, but also paucity of coordination and financing, weak institutional and professional capacity, insufficient data-sharing and monitoring and outdated and ineffective legal frameworks (UNEP, Citation2021). Additionally, climate change and global trade require governments to overcome the established culture of seeing water mostly within national borders or river basins. Despite these challenges, potential benefits of improved global water governance are obvious, as also highlighted by the United Nations Secretary General in the 2023 United Nations Water Conference. Expectations for this conference – the first in 46 years – were high. The event aimed to collectively develop and implement a transformative Water Action Agenda, while spawning several game-changing initiatives (United Nations, Citation2023c). Despite some concerns, e.g., regarding civil society representation, the follow-up of the conference resulted in a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, which included the development of a United Nations System-wide Strategy for Water and Sanitation, the appointment of an envoy for water and the agreement on the next two occasions of the global community for discussing water and sustainable development: the 2026 United Nations Water Conference to accelerate the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals 6, and the 2028 United Nations Conference on the Final Comprehensive Review of the Implementation of the Objectives of the International Decade for Action – without explicitly focusing on governance, however (United Nations General Assembly, Citation2023). In the following, we review the impact of the 2023 United Nations Water Conference, identify four areas of concern and assess how they were addressed. For each area, we put forward recommendations on how to advance and improve global water governance as inputs to the upcoming United Nations Water Conference in 2026.
Climate science must unlock solutions in new era
(Opinion Piece, 2025-01-15) Mukherji, Aditi
As 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming is reached, climate science must look to the future, writes Aditi Mukherji, director of CGIAR’s Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Impact Action Platform and IPCC author. By the time the world’s leading climate scientists publish their next report in 2028-29, the world will already have possibly breached 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial era for a few years and the deadline for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will be on the horizon. The threshold set by the 2015 Paris Agreement to reduce the impacts of climate change was passed for the first time in 2024, the EU’s climate change service, Copernicus, confirmed last week (10 January). So, as the next assessment of climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gets under way, it’s vital that we answer the questions that will serve us in the future. Navigating the challenges of tomorrow requires forward-looking science today and in the months ahead.
Targeted finance and the adoption of solar irrigation by smallholder and women farmers
(Journal Article, 2025-07-01) Bhattarai, Dipendra; Fishman, Ram; Lamichhane, Nabina; Mukherji, Aditi
Off-grid solar energy offers tremendous potential for low-carbon poverty alleviation, but its application remains largely confined to low-power home systems with limited economic significance. Solar irrigation pumps (SIPs), in contrast, can help expand access to irrigation, a central economic development and climate resilience strategy, without increases in emissions. However, like similar technologies, its diffusion remains low unless heavily subsidized, particularly by smallholder farmers, and among them, women. Here, we report findings from a field experiment (RCT) in 93 rural administrative units in Nepal that provides novel evidence on the barriers to adoption and how they can be overcome. Financial models that reduce upfront costs through loans that are normally unavailable to smallholders, double demand for SIPs and are repaid in 90 % of cases. Additional targeted incentives disseminated through social mobilisers effectively engage women farmers, leading them to constitute more than half of eventual SIP adopters.
The underlying causes of deforestation during “peacetime”: Evidence from the implementation of the Peace Agreement in Colombia
(Journal Article, 2025-06-01) Triana-Ángel, Natalia; Ana, Pirela Ríos; Junca Paredes, John Jairo; Pazos Cardenas, Mateo; Burkart, Stefan
Ten new insights in climate science 2024
(Journal Article, 2025-05-07) Schaeffer, Roberto; Schipper, E. Lisa F.; Ospina, Daniel; Mirazo, Paula; Alencar, Ane; Anvari, Mehrnaz; Artaxo, Paulo; Biresselioglu, Mehmet Efe; Blome, Tanja; Boeckmann, Melanie; Brink, Ebba; Broadgate, Wendy; Bustamante, Mercedes; Cai, Wenju; Canadell, Josep G.; Cardinale, Roberto; Chidichimo, Maria Paz; Ditlevsen, Peter; Eicker, Ursula; Feron, Sarah; Fikru, Mahelet G.; Fuss, Sabine; Gaye, Amadou T.; Gustafsson, Orjan; Harring, Niklas; He, Cheng; Hebden, Sophie; Heilemann, Adrian; Hirota, Marina; Janardhanan, Nandakumar; Juhola, Sirkku; Jung, Tae Yong; Kejun, Jiang; Kilkis, Siir; Kumarasinghe, Nilushi; Lapola, David; Lee, June-Yi; Levis, Carolina; Lusambili, Adelaide; Maasakkers, Joannes D.; MacIntosh, Claire; Mahmood, Jemilah; Mankin, Justin S.; Marchegiani, Pia; Martin, Maria; Mukherji, Aditi; Munoz-Erickson, Tischa A.; Niazi, Zeenat; Nyangon, Joseph; Pandipati, Santosh; Perera, Amarasignhage T.D.; Persad, Geeta; Persson, Asa; Redman, Aaron; Riipinen, Ilona; Rockstrom, Johan; Roffe, Sarah; Roy, Joyashree; Sakschewski, Boris; Samset, Bjorn H.; Schlosser, Peter; Sharifi, Ayyoob; Shih, Wan-Yu; Sioen, Giles B.; Sokona, Youba; Stammer, Detlef; Suk, Sunhee; Thiam, Djiby; Thompson, Vikki; Tullos, Erin; van Westen, Rene M.; Fall, Ana Maria Vargas; Vecellio, Daniel J.; Worden, John; Wu, Henry C.; Xu, Chi; Yang, Yang; Zachariah, Mariam; Zhang, Zhen; Ziervogel, Gina
The years 2023 and 2024 were characterized by unprecedented warming across the globe, underscoring the urgency of climate action. Robust science advice for decision makers on subjects as complex as climate change requires deep cross- and interdisciplinary understanding. However, navigating the ever-expanding and diverse peer-reviewed literature on climate change is enormously challenging for individual researchers. We elicited expert input through an online questionnaire (188 respondents from 45 countries) and prioritized 10 key advances in climate-change research with high policy relevance. The insights span a wide range of areas, from changes in methane and aerosol emissions to the factors shaping citizens’ acceptance of climate policies. This synthesis and communications effort forms the basis for a science-policy report distributed to party delegations ahead of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to inform their positions and arguments on critical issues, including heat-adaptation planning, comprehensive mitigation strategies, and strengthened governance in energy-transition minerals value chains.
Mapping of National Climate Change Policies and Stakeholders in Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam
(Report, 2025-01) Mirzabaev, Alisher; Gonzalez, Tobiah; Pajadan, Karen; Dohrmann, Christian; Sander, Bjoern Ole
This report is a compilation of the national policies, GHG emission reduction targets, identification of key stakeholders and of their roles, and decision-making structures governing climate change mitigation under the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam.
Introducing green investments into Colombia’s works-for-taxes mechanism: A peacebuilding project in Belén de los Andaquíes
(Case Study, 2024-12) Castro Nunez, Augusto Carlos; Borda Almanza, Carlos Andrés; Amahnui, George Amenchwi; Vanegas Cubillos, Martha Cristina
The Bioversity-CIAT Alliance helped integrate green business projects into Colombia’s Works-for-Taxes mechanism, enabling investments in low-emission food systems through cocoa agroforestry in conflict-affected Belén de los Andaquíes. This model allows companies to offset taxes by investing in sustainable projects that replace illicit economies and restore land. The pilot’s success paves the way for expanding similar initiatives, increasing funding for low-emissions development in Colombian regions impacted by deforestation and conflict.
Climate Action Program: Full design document
(Report, 2024-11-15) CGIAR Climate Action Science Program

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