Policy, Advocacy and Capacity Building

Despite the challenges imposed due to Covid-19 pandemic, a series of virtual meetings were held, together with the scaling specialist, for Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to explore the appropriate policy influencing and farmer groups support in lobbying and advocacy at various scales. Two concept notes were prepared, one for policy advocacy and one for policy research to this regard, and they are currently being reviewed, to be able guide the policy-advocacy agenda in the project hosting countries, and beyond (i.e., in Eastern Africa and at the continental level). The teams discussed and identified advocacy issues under scaling barriers in seed systems and market systems for Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, including the mapping of relevant stakeholders from Eastern African countries for further engagement on policy advocacy.

CCAFS is part of the CSA Multi-Stakeholder Platform for Kenya, and as such it has made significant contribution to the drafting of CSA policy briefs for the platform for cascading CSA to sub national levels in the country as part of CRAFT’s contribution to CSA policy and advocacy process in East Africa.

CCAFS partnered with other CGIAR centres in the region to respond to Kenya and Uganda Ministries of Agriculture request for support to update the two CRAFT project anchor countries agriculture sector GHG emissions, and its share to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as part of their commitment to the Paris Agenda. Through CRAFTS’s science-policy outputs, engagement, and advocacy processes with Kenyan and Ugandan Governments, CRAFT experiences and contributions have now been used as major input into the NDC process in Kenya and Uganda. The important CCAFS CRAFT project products are listed below:

Since 2012, CCAFS East Africa has been engaging African policy makers across scales from local, national, regional to global levels in order to encourage uptake of scientific evidence to inform decision-making, including advising and technically supporting the African Group of Negotiators for Agriculture to effectively articulate the African position including the role of African Women on agriculture and climate change adaptation and resilience building efforts. These also includes supporting the UNFCCC NDC process both technically and financially. The AGN level science-policy briefs relevant to CRAFT, produced with input from CCAFS, are listed below (https://agnes-africa.org/publications/policy-briefs/):

• Policy Brief No.1: Desertification and Climate Change in Africa
• Policy Brief No.2: Land Degradation and Climate Change in Africa
• Policy Brief No.3: Enhancing Food Security in a Changing Climate in Africa
• olicy Brief No.4: Closing the Gender Gap in African Agriculture in the Face of Climate Change
• Policy Brief No.5: Policy Options for Building Resilience of Crop Production under Climate Change in Kenya
• Policy Brief No.6: Building Climate Resilience in The Agriculture Sector Of Kenya

As part of capacity building, CCAFS EA continued engagement with the Wageningen Food & Biobased Research (under WUR) to undertake food loss and waste, and GHG emissions hotspot/profile analysis in the CRAFT potato value chain in Kenya. These important CCAFS initiated work is currently engaging WUR, SNV CRAFT Kenya and CRAFT Energy/Mitigation Experts, and it is are contributing to the development of scenarios for improved and low-carbon potato value chain in Kenya, in collaboration with National Potato Council of Kenya (NPCK).