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Leveraging social protection programmes to advance climate-smart agriculture in Malawi

FAO Agricultural Development Economics Policy Brief No. 21

Year of publication 2020

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 2p.

Author FAO

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Book (series)

Series title FAO Agricultural Development Economics Policy Brief

Series number 21

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) This brief details the three functional elements of climate vulnerability: risk exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, in order to assess the interactions between participation in Malawi’s largest public works programme, the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) and three widely promoted climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. Using three waves of national panel household survey data, we find that participation in MASAF significantly increases the likelihood that farm households adopt CSA practices. This suggests that MASAF participation improves farmers’ adaptive capacity by reducing direct and indirect constraints to adopting climate adaptive farm practices. Moreover, we empirically demonstrate that the joint treatment effect of MASAF participation in combination with the adoption of CSA practices generates greater and more consistent positive impacts on farm welfare than the standalone impacts of the treatments. This is indicative of synergies between social protection and agricultural interventions. Finally, we show that under extreme dry conditions the short term standalone adoption of CSA practices does not generate positive impacts on farm and household outcomes. However, when combined with MASAF participation, and particularly when the CSA practice is adopted for multiple years, evidence of positive impacts is found. These findings provide empirical evidence on the importance of multi-sectoral approaches that link agricultural interventions with social protection to address the climate vulnerability of resource poor farmers.

Last updated date 24/04/2020.

Language English

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    In many developing countries the adoption of climate sustainable practices is hindered by resource and risk barriers. This paper assesses the interactions between participation in Malawi’s largest public works programme, the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), and three widely promoted climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices. The underlying hypotheses to be tested are: (a) that participation in the MASAF programme reduce both the budget and the risk constraints to the adoption of sustainable management practices; and (b) the joint treatment effect of MASAF and CSA increases household farms’ productivity and welfare. Drawing on three waves of national panel household survey data, we find that participation in MASAF significantly increases the probability that farm households adopt all the CSA practices considered for this study.
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    Adopting climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices is a crucial measure that farmers can take to protect their livelihoods and production systems from the harmful effects of climate change; however, financial constraints often limit their ability to adopt these practices. Under a pilot project (FMM/GLO/148/MUL), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) implemented an approach that connected social protection measures with Farmer Field Schools (FFS) in the Mwanza and Neno districts of Malawi. The pilot approach divided FFS participants into three groups: one that received FFS training and a cash transfer, one that received FFS training and agricultural inputs, and one that only benefited from the FFS training. This project was subsequently formulated to measure the impact of these interventions on the adoption of CSA practices among the three groups through an Impact Evaluation (IE).
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    Evaluating the impacts of promoting coherence between disaster risk reduction, climate action and social protection in Malawi
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    The project “Promoting coherence between disaster risk reduction, climate action and social protection in sub-Saharan Africa (Malawi)” aims to support poor and vulnerable households to strengthen their resilience to climate change and climate variability through social protection (SP) and the adoption of proven climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices blended with disaster risk reduction (DRR). FAO Malawi leads the implementation of the project in two targeted districts of Mwanza and Neno, targeting 2 400 farmers, some of them being beneficiaries of existing SP programmes. At community level, the project is implemented through the farmer field school (FFS) approach and delivered through 80 FFS groups located in 74 villages. To evaluate impacts of the project, we use a crossover design to compare the relative merits of its different components and combine various evaluation methods. This is a baseline report on the “Promoting coherence between disaster risk reduction, climate action and social protection in sub-Saharan Africa (Malawi)” project.
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