1. Scaling up Climate Services for Farmers
> Mission Possible
Lessons from Africa and South Asia
Dr. Arame Tall
CCAFS Climate Services- Global coordinator, Champion
a.tall@cgiar.org

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Climate Services 101:
Premise:
Information is Power

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Climate services:
Information is Power

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http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_figures
_and_tables.shtml
Projections of precipitation change at the end of the 21st century

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Droughts are affecting
greater land area,
especially in the semi-
arid subtropics –
areas that are already
vulnerable to large
variability in
precipitation from year
to year
Source: Bates et al 2008

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“A global perspective on
African climate” in Climatic
Change [Giannini, Biasutti,
Held and Sobel]
Uncertainty
Remains Large
Climate change > Exacerbation of
current climate variability

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How to support adaptation
under uncertainty?
• A solution: improve decision-making under
uncertainty
• Equip farmers and policy makers with climate
information, early warnings and forecasts to guide
decision-making under uncertainty
• Strengthen preparedness at timescales of the week
> season > years

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Access to relevant
climate information
can empower
farmers to
anticipate and
confront climate-
related risks
and opportunities
Why Climate Services
for Farmers?

9. Long Before
the Season
Historical
Climate Data
sans sequence seches (10 jours dans 21)
gfedcb
Premiere date pour le semi
gfedcb
2010
2000
1990
1980
1970
1960
1950
1940
1930
13 Jul
28 Jun
13 Jun
29 May
14 May
29 Apr
Seasonal Forecasts from http://rava.qsens.net/themes/climate_template/seasonal-forecasts/
During the
Season
Short-term
Forecast & Warnings
Just Before
the Season
Seasonal
Forecast & revise
planning
Participatory
Planning
Shortly After
the Season
Review weather,
production, forecasts &
process

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Salience: tailoring content, scale, format, lead-time to farm decision-
making
Legitimacy: giving farmers an effective voice in design and delivery
Access: providing timely access to remote rural communities with
marginal infrastructure
Equity: ensuring that women, poor, socially marginalized benefit
Integration: climate services as part of a larger package of extension
support
Challenges to realizing the potential
of climate services for farmers

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18 Good Practice Cases
from Africa to South Asia
Involving farmers
through rain gauges in
Mali’s 30-year Agromet
advisory program
Delivering
tailored 5 day
agro-met
advisories
for 3+ million
farmers in
India’s Integra
-ted Agromet
Advisory
Service
Program
Cell-phone based
information service
delivery in Uganda
Grameen Foundation’s
“Community
Knowledge
Workers”
Project
More at:
scalingup.iri.
columbia.edu
Farmer Seasonal Forecast Training in
Wote, Kenya
Lushoto:
Co-producing climate
services with farmers
CIMMYT: Assessing
Farmers’ Information
Needs in the Indo-
Gangetic Plains of India
Kaffrine: Putting downscaled climate
forecasts into farmers’ hands

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Everyone has a role to Play in
Linking Information to Action
Credit: ArameTall, CCAFS
Final end users
(farmers, pastoralists, vulnerable communities)
National-level end users
(rural development planners, policy makers, seed
distributors, fertilizer industry, private sector)
Communicators and boundary
organizations
(media, agricultural extension, NGOs,
CBOs)
National Agricultural
Research and Extension
National Hydro-
Meteorological
Services
Production of downscaled
forecasts
Value-addition of climate
information –> production of
agromet advisory
Two-way communication of
climate information and
advisory services
Building the national chain for
climate servicesFig. 1: Different
stakeholders and
roles in climate
service
production,
tailoring and
communication

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Global
Regional
National
Fig. 2: Global
Framework for
Climate Services
(GFCS) national
consultation
Workshops in
Burkina, Niger and
Mali (July-Sep. 2012)
Bringing
stakeholders
together in Selingue,
Mali to agree on a
Roadmap for
delivering climate
services for End-
users.
More at:
http://gfcs.wmo.int/n
ational_workshops
The Global Framework for
Climate Services (GFCS):
promoting coordinated
national frameworks

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• Co-production of climate services
• Bridging the gap between climate, agricultural research and
farmers
• Scalable communications channels to reach “the last mile”
• Continuous assessment to improve the quality of service
• Target the needs of the most vulnerable
Climate services in action:
learning from practice

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5 steps for scaling up climate
services for millions of farmers

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• Doing this at scale >
efficient mechanisms to
engage legitimate farmer
representatives, and to
capture and map farmers’
evolving needs
• One tool is Participatory
Action Research > identify
farmer adaptation needs,
engage communities,
capture local innovation
#1: Involve farmers in the co-
production of climate services

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• Dialogue between NMS, NARES, and
farmers/farmer representatives
•NMS can produce raw weather and climate
information; NARES can translate this information
into advice and support for farmers
• Stengthen capacity of meteorological service to tailor
climate information to end-user needs
#2: Establish partnerships that
bridge the gap between climate,
agricultural research, and farmers

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Courtesy: J. Hansen,
CCAFS/IRI

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Salient communication channels to reach
most vulnerable:
 SMS & voice messages in local
languages
 Forecast bulletin boards in strategic
outposts across village (India/Kaffrine)
 Community relays/boundary
organizations > NGOs, CBOs, social
networks (India/across)
 At water boreholes (women in Kaffrine)
 Rural radios, media professionals (Mali)
 School children (Uganda)
#3: Exploit scaleable
communications channels to
reach ‘the last mile’
Credit: Francesco
Fiondella, IRI
Credit: Arame
Tall, CCAFS

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#4: Continuously assess to
improve the quality of service
delivery
• Assess and reassess quality of services from the
outset of projects
• Fosters legitimacy and accountability through
a formal mechanism to capture farmers’ voices
and feedback
• Informs improvement and tailoring of services
to fit farmers’ needs
• Provides evidence of costs and benefits of
services for future investment

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Assessment Objectives:
1.To inform design of new climate
services and projects;
2.To identify current gaps, and
improve project effectiveness and
service delivery for farmers;
3.To assess impact of provided
services on farmers, and
demonstrate project impact with
a dollar value (towards outcome
reporting).
Testing an innovative M&E tool to
assess climate services in India,
Kenya, and Senegal

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• Place specificity of farmers’
needs
• Proactively target the specific
climate service needs of
women and other underserved
groups
• Ensure their representation in
institutional and governance
arrangements
#5: Target the most vulnerable
Above: Soxna Ndao, Dioly village, stating: ‘We women, need
information on when the rainy season will stop, as men plant for us
later in the season’. Credit: A. Tall
Left: Women Farmers in Amtrar, Himachal Pradesh (India), surveyed
for their feedback on India’s AAS program. Credit: A. Tall, CCAFS

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Pulling the pieces together
GFCS in Tanzania, Malawi:
Reach ~10 M farmers +
pastoralists in Tanzania,
Malawi
Addressing
bottlenecks:
National framework for
Climate Services
Capacity of NHMS to
provide farmer-relevant
information
Evaluating impact by
2016
Training NGOs and
agricultural extension

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1. Identifying good practice
2. Upscaling climate services to millions
of farmers
• Incentivizing legal and institutional frameworks
• for climate services at the national level
• Leveraging strong partnerships between
NHMS and NARES
• Training boundary organizations / media for wide communication
3. Developing methods for assessing livelihood
impact: making the case for climate services
CCAFS Strategy to scale up
climate services for millions of farmers

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• Examples surveyed by CCAFS prove
that it is today Mission Possible to reach
millions of farmers with salient and
downscaled climate information and
advisory services relevant to support
their decision-making under an uncertain
climate.
• It is time to scale up this approach for
many other farmers to have access and
benefit from available climate
information and advisory services.
• The time is right for climate services.
Photo: Farmer in Ouelessebougou village, happy
beneficiary of Mali’s 30 year old Agromet advisory
program. Credit: A. Tall
Reaching farmers with
climate services at scale
> Mission Possible

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• RQ1: Measuring Impact: Does tailored climate information and advisory
services build farmers’ resilience? If so, HOW and UNDER WHICH
CIRCUMSTANCES? (long term ex-ante experiments demonstrating use
and value)
• RQ2: Gender and Equity considerations in the design of Climate Services
for Farmers: What added-value when female farmers and other
marginalized groups are targeted in service delivery?
• RQ3: Enabling Institutional Framework: Which methods to broker effective
partnership between NHMS and NARES at national/regional levels for
production and delivery of tailored climate services for farmers and food
security decision-makers?
• RQ4: Delivery at Scale: How to deliver information services at scale to
reach millions of farmers? ICT-based technology and capacity building
needs to impact at scale
• RQ5: Climate Services in support of Livestock / Fishing Livelihoods
CCAFS Climate Services Research
2015-2020

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New Partnership Opportunities
• Secure a Client for our Research Outputs – Research Into Use
 GFCS Programme in East Africa
 Emerging bilateral partnership opportunities
WMO, USAID (Rwanda, Africa), World Bank (Myanmar, Sahel)
Stay Tuned….!
• We can:
 Inform Project design with CCAFS cutting-edge science
 Broker introduction to relevant national stakeholders
from research and agriculture in CCAFS priority countries
 Bridge Connections with global partners on Climate Services
 Organize joint knowledge events for development partners (Brownbags, Report
Launch events)
 Conduct Joint research in CCAFS pilot sites
For more information, contact:
Jim Hansen, CCAFS Program Leader,
jhansen@iri.columbia.edu
Arame Tall, Climate Services Coordinator,
a.tall@cgiar.org