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Resilience assessments are increasingly used to inform management decisions and development interventions across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).In light of current and future climate change and variability, there is growing interest in applying such tools and frameworks to assess and strengthen the climate resilience of smallholder farming systems.However, these assessments are often undertaken without explicit consideration of the resilience thinking in which they are grounded.This makes it...
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Limited energy access within developing nations particularly in Africa is a primary reason for poverty. Biofuel production has been advocated by many experts as a solution to meeting the energy needs of African countries while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Others argue that biofuel production will compete with land needed for food production. However it appears many African countries have available land beyond food needs, hence biofuel production may be an option for poor farmers...
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In this paper, we examine how communities in Zanzibar cope with and adapt to multiple-stressors including climate change, and how these responses affect long-term adaptation, mitigation and development (AMD) goals. In particular, we identify the multiple-stressors that affect natural-resource dependent communities in Zanzibar. We then explore how community responses affect long-term development and mitigation goals before we examine the barriers to maximising AMD synergies in community...
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Despite the international significance attached to climate change adaptation, there remains a lack of understanding of the barriers that impede the effective implementation of adaptation strategies by households across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Better understanding of the vulnerability of agriculture-dependent households to climate variability requires exploration of the barriers that constrain the implementation of adaptation strategies. This paper uses case studies from northeast Ghana and...
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Climate variability poses a significant threat to many sectors of Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy. Agriculture is one of the most climate sensitive sectors because of its dependence on rain-fed cultivation. This paper identifies the main adaptation strategies used by farming households in the Sudan savannah and forest-savannah transitional agro-ecological zones of Ghana, in order to reduce the adverse impacts of climate variability on their livelihood activities. It combines questionnaire...
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As river basin authorities and national governments develop policies to achieve sustainable development outcomes, conflicting signals between existing policies are undermining cross-thematic integrative modes of policy planning. This raises fundamental questions over how coherent portfolios of policy interventions across vital themes can best be advanced and managed. Taking the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) as an empirical example, we analyse transboundary policies and intervention documents...
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This article explores the ways in which the interlinked challenges of climate change and desertification are managed in Malawi1. It examines the adaptations outlined in national policy to address desertification and climate change (in accordance with international commitments to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) as well as the local autonomous adaptations being undertaken at household level. While policy...
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This chapter examines the relationship between climate variability, poverty and livelihood adaptation in the context of international development. Drawing on research in Africa we present examples of some of the shocks and stresses that affect African rural livelihoods and outline ways in which the vulnerability and resilience of livelihoods are shaped by climate impacts. Adaptation, whether considered as coping, adjustment, or wider transformation, is affected by factors operating at a...
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How climate change adaptation practices can constrain development and deliver maladaptive outcomes in vulnerability hotspots is yet to be explored in-depth using case study analyses. This paper explores the effects of climate change coping and adaptation responses in three case study villages across the Central Gonja district of northern Ghana. The study addresses the following research questions: i) What are the key climatic and non-climatic stressors confronting households in northern...
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Links between climate change adaptation, mitigation and development co-benefits in land policy and ecosystem restoration projects are hampered by limited understanding of how multi-faceted policy, institutions and projects interact. This paper explores perceptions of co-benefits produced by two community-level projects that pursue ecosystem restoration in South Africa. It develops a new analytical framework to assess the enabling and constraining factors in delivering triple wins for...
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This study evaluates new multi-scale, multi-indicator methods for assessing the vulnerability of crop production to drought at a national and regional scale. It does this by identifying differences across and within ten regions of Ghana, a country that faces many climate and crop production challenges typical of sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, we illustrate how a quantitative national and regional study is a critical first step in assessing differences in the drought sensitivity of food...
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To be effective, climate change adaptation needs to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors and greater policy coherence is essential. Using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, this paper investigates the extent of coherence in national policies across the water and agriculture sectors and to climate change adaptation goals outlined in national development plans. A two-pronged qualitative approach is applied using Qualitative Document Analysis of relevant policies and plans, combined...