Climate Impacts Research Capacity and Leadership Enhancement Programme (CIRCLE) (2015-19)
NRI leads the Quality Support Component of this FCDO-funded programme which has supported 100 African early-career researchers in climate-related fields to spend a year in another African institution. NRI leads the Quality Support Component, identifying and contracting international specialist advisers to work with the Fellows, as well as facilitating workshops for Fellows, their supervisors and senior management of the participating African universities. NRI staff have themselves served as specialist advisers to around 50 CIRCLE Fellows, working with Fellows from both agricultural science and social science backgrounds.
Monitoring and Evaluation of the Global Climate Change Alliance in Malawi
The Global Climate Change Alliance aims to 'contribute to the alleviation of poverty through enhancing the resilience of Malawian institutions and communities at national and local levels to climate change risks and impacts'. The GCCA in Malawi is being funded by the European Commission. The GCCA comprises two key components with respect to implementation:
- Mainstreaming climate change adaptation and mitigation in the irrigation sector through the Planning for Climate Change project.
- Increase in resilience of vulnerable communities in four southern districts through the Community Resilience to Climate Change project.
A third key component is the M&E which aims to generate and share evidence and learning in support of the GCCA programme objective. The Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich, in partnership with a team from Chancellor College, Malawi, is conducting the Monitoring and Evaluation at the programme level for the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) in Malawi. This work officially started on the 1st of October, 2015 and runs until 2019.
Climate Learning for African Agriculture
This two-year research project is studying the extent to which principles of climate-compatible development have been incorporated into the strategies and practices of African agricultural research and extension services. NRI is collaborating with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa, and the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services, to lead a continent-wide survey, in-depth learning exercises in four countries (Benin, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Uganda), and action-oriented dissemination of results to stakeholders.
Assessing the potential of farmer exchanges based on climate analogue analysis
NRI is working with the CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) to pilot methods for farmer–to-farmer exchanges using participatory learning approaches and the CCAFS spatial climate analogue tool. The aim is to assess how adaptive capacity may be strengthened through visits by farmers to areas which are thought likely to represent their future climate and farming systems. The project has facilitated exchanges between different zones of Tanzania, and between Ghana and Burkina Faso, in 2012.
Coffee and climate change: impacts of climate change on four countries
NRI led the development of a report for the GIZ Coffee and Climate Change programme, a public-private partnership with various European coffee roasters and traders. The project highlighted the substantial impacts on coffee production and supply of current climate variability and projected climate change in Guatemala, Brazil, Tanzania and Vietnam.
Technologies for Climate Change Adaptation in the Agriculture Sector
An NRI staff member acted as co-author and reviewer for this important handbook published by the UNEP Risø Centre on Energy, Climate and Sustainable Development.
Agricultural adaptation in Tanzania and Malawi
Action research and shared learning among different stakeholder groups is strengthening local agricultural innovation systems to respond to climate change. NRI has worked in partnership with the University of Dar es Salaam and the University of Malawi to establish farmer learning groups covering soil, water, seed and agrobiodiversity management and weather information. The partnership also brought together researchers, local governments, extension services, media and NGOs in regional and national learning platforms. This project was funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) through the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
Study on climate change, agriculture and Fairtrade
This desk study for the Fairtrade Foundation on the implications of climate change for smallholder producers and Fairtrade reviewed the risks to some major Fairtrade commodities and trade flows, and highlighted the possibilities for adaptation associated with Fairtrade.
Urban-rural interdependence and the impact of climate change
This three-year IDRC and FCDO-funded action research project managed by the University of Dar es Salaam with NRI and the University of Malawi, explores the complex and interdependent rural-urban food and agricultural systems in Malawi and Tanzania. NRI is working with key stakeholders in order to strengthen their understanding of these interactions and dynamics and collectively to develop ways of improving the climate resilience of these systems.
Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC
NRI staff members are serving as Co-ordinating Lead Authors for the chapter on Food Systems and Food Security, and the chapter on Rural Areas within the second volume, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to be published in 2014.