Effective science-policy engagement efforts are crucial to accelerate climate action. Such efforts should be underpinned by high-quality knowledge generation that enhances salience, credibility and legitimacy of research results. This is particularly important for the agricultural sector. Agriculture has been identified as a priority for climate action. The sector also constitutes well-established institutions set up to help achieve food and nutrition security. Institutionalizing high quality knowledge generation for climate change adaptation within these institutions presents a major opportunity to catalyze climate action within the sector. To contribute to insights about this institutionalization, we draw on and develop Cash et al.’s 2002 success conditions for enhancing salience, credibility and legitimacy: (1) increased accountability, (2) use of boundary objects, (3) participation across the boundary, (4) mediation and a selectively permeable boundary, (5) translation, and (6) coordination and complementary expertise. We examine how these success conditions apply in a major global case of agricultural research for development under climate change: the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). We explore these success conditions in the wider context of CGIAR reform and response to climate change as the international system for Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D). Our results specify and confirm the practical relevance of the six success conditions for institutional design and reform, but also point to the need to complement these with two inductively-derived success conditions: effective leadership and presence of incentives. To institutionalize these success conditions among AR4D institutions, there is an urgent need to create a conducive environment that enables the development of context-specific science-policy engagement strategies, along with leadership development and efforts to break traditional disciplinary silos which constrain user-oriented knowledge production.

The purpose of this paper is to serve as an informational document that captures the
GP L&D’s understanding and state of the art regarding the topic of Climate Risk
Management (in this document referred to as CRM) in the context of the global
programme’s work. This concept paper is a supplement to the much shorter infosheet
with the same title and provides in-depth information on the GP L&D’s understanding
and operationalisation of CRM. The document is to inform GIZ colleagues so as to
support the knowledge management and sustainability of the programme. It shall be
used as a basis for common understanding, discussion, and further development of the
CRM concepts, guidelines, and instruments developed by the GP L&D – in particular
the CRM framework.

On top of a decade of exacerbated disaster loss, exceptional global heat, retreating ice and rising sea levels, humanity and our food security face a range of new and unprecedented hazards, such as megafires, extreme weather events, desert locust swarms of magnitudes previously unseen, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Agriculture underpins the livelihoods of over 2.5 billion people – most of them in low-income developing countries – and remains a key driver of development. At no other point in history has agriculture been faced with such an array of familiar and unfamiliar risks, interacting in a hyperconnected world and a precipitously changing landscape. And agriculture continues to absorb a disproportionate share of the damage and loss wrought by disasters. Their growing frequency and intensity, along with the systemic nature of risk, are upending people’s lives, devastating livelihoods, and jeopardizing our entire food system. This report makes a powerful case for investing in resilience and disaster risk reduction – especially data gathering and analysis for evidence informed action – to ensure agriculture’s crucial role in achieving the future we want.

This statement, prepared by the Task Force on Green Recovery of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission provides some initial reflections on key priorities to support a green, fair and resilient recovery from COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious setback for sustainable development, but United Nations (UN) Member States should not scale back their ambition. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression.1 The Agenda 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement (Paris Agreement) provide the longterm vision and remain “The Future we Want.”2,3 They provide a roadmap for sustainable, inclusive, and resilient recovery. Beyond fiscal expansion that boost aggregate demand, this crisis calls for transformative public investments that shape a sustainable, fair, and digital transition, and leverage private sector investment.

This factsheet is largely based on Thiel, F., Phillips, I. and N. Drechsel. 2019. Rapid Scan: Colombo City Region Food Systems and their vulnerability towards climate change related shocks. International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 48 pp. It can be accessed here. It provides information on the general knowledge collected by the city region food system (CRFS) project in its phase 2 regarding the assessment of risks for the CRFS of Colombo and results are based on a literature review as well as data collected by the International Water Management Institute, as the main implementation partner in the country.