Thumbnail Image

Leveraging social protection to advance climate-smart agriculture: evidence from Malawi















Ignaciuk, A., Scognamillo, A. & Sitko, N. 2021. Leveraging social protection to advance climate-smart agriculture: evidence from Malawi. FAO Agricultural Development Economics Working Paper 21-04. Rome, FAO




Also available in:
No results found.

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (series)
    Policy brief
    Leveraging social protection programmes to advance climate-smart agriculture in Malawi
    FAO Agricultural Development Economics Policy Brief No. 21
    2020
    Also available in:
    No results found.

    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.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    Technical book
    Evaluating the impacts of promoting coherence between disaster risk reduction, climate action and social protection in Malawi
    Baseline analysis and programmatic implications of a Farmer Field School approach
    2023
    Also available in:
    No results found.

    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.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    General interest book
    Leveraging COVID-19 recovery strategies to build climate-smart agrifood systems in developing countries 2022
    Also available in:
    No results found.

    The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has jeopardized the stability of agrifood systems and the welfare of the rural households that are actively engaged in the different components of these systems, particularly in developing countries. Efforts are underway to redress the negative impacts of the pandemic through investments to ‘build back better’. These efforts represent an enormous opportunity to make significant and lasting contribution to the longer-term resilience and sustainability of agrifood systems in the context of climate change. The objective of this report is to provide an overview of the current opportunities for harnessing short-term response and recovery efforts to address longer-term impacts on resilience and sustainability. The analysis focuses on the role of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in recovery strategies and outlines concrete policy objectives that can be implemented by national governments and their development partners. The report is structured in two parts. The first part outlines the nature of the challenges presented by climate change and COVID-19, their interrelationships, and the potential role CSA can play in addressing these interrelated challenges. The second part of the report outlines a set of policy options for enabling post-pandemic recovery efforts to contribute to longer-term resilience of agrifood systems through investments in CSA and associated enabling conditions.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Thumbnail Image
    Booklet
    High-profile
    FAO Strategy on Climate Change 2022–2031 2022
    The FAO Strategy on Climate Change 2022–2031 was endorsed by FAO Council in June 2022. This new strategy replaces the previous strategy from 2017 to better FAO's climate action with the Strategic Framework 2022-2031, and other FAO strategies that have been developed since then. The Strategy was elaborated following an inclusive process of consultation with FAO Members, FAO staff from headquarters and decentralized offices, as well as external partners. It articulates FAO's vision for agrifood systems by 2050, around three main pillars of action: at global and regional level, at country level, and at local level. The Strategy also encourages key guiding principles for action, such as science and innovation, inclusiveness, partnerships, and access to finance.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (series)
    Newsletter
    Special report – 2023 FAO Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission (CFSAM) to the Republic of the Sudan
    19 March 2024
    2024
    Also available in:
    No results found.

    Between 2 and 17 January 2024, following a request by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MoA&F), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in close cooperation with the Food Security Technical Secretariat (FSTS) and the State Ministries of Agriculture, carried out its annual Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission (CFSAM) to estimate the 2023 crop production and assess the food supply situation throughout the 18 states of the country. The report's recommendations are to provide immediate response to the needs of the population most affected by acute food insecurity as well as to support the recovery of the agriculture sector, increasing food production and farmers’ incomes, and enhancing efficiency along the value chain to reduce production costs.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (series)
    Corporate general interest
    Near East and North Africa – Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2024
    Financing the transformation of agrifood systems
    2024
    Also available in:
    No results found.

    Hunger in the Arab region worsened amid deepening crises in 2023. The Near East and North Africa Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition warns that the Arab region remains off-track to meet the food security and nutrition targets of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.In 2023, 66.1 million people, approximately 14 percent of the population in the Arab region, faced hunger. The report highlights that access to adequate food remains elusive for millions. Around 186.5 million people – 39.4 percent of the population – faced moderate or severe food insecurity, an increase of 1.1 percentage points from the previous year. Alarmingly, 72.7 million people experienced severe food insecurity.