evaluating the impact of climate services for farmers

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Evaluating the impact of climate information services for smallholder farmers

Alexa Jay and Arame Tall

CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

Climate Risk Management Research Theme

International Research Institute for Climate and Society

Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York

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The cost of climate variability

Climate risk contributes to chronic poverty, vulnerability, and food

insecurity

Climate variability is increasing under climate change

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Why climate services for smallholder farmers?

Assumption: if seasonal climate and shorter term forecasts were available and reasonably accurate, farmers could use advanced information about weather/climate risk in their planning; better prepare, recover and cope with negative consequences and take advantage of favorable conditions (Meza et al 2008; WMO 2011)

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What do climate services for farmers look like?

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What do climate services for farmers look like?

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Why evaluate the impact of climate services?

• Identify where particular types of climate services can have the greatest benefit

• Inform improvements in existing services through regular feedback on what is and is not meeting farmer needs

• Provide evidence of economic and livelihood benefits

Why evaluate the impact of climate services?

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What are the challenges?

• Climate is stochastic; value of climate information will vary from year to year

• Climate conditions in the baseline and monitoring years could influence results

• Climate information is “leaky”

• Benefits may change over time as farmers gain trust

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Proposed M&E toolkit to assess the impact of climate services

• “Pre-assessment” and baseline survey tools; can be adapted to M&E surveys

• Combination of ethnographic and participatoryapproaches to evaluation and research

• Emphasize cultural constraints that prevent certain populations from receiving and responding to new information

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Proposed M&E toolkit to assess the impact of climate services

Pre-assessment survey tool:

Goal: prior to creating a baseline survey, collect broad socio-cultural information to aid evaluators in creating a baseline relevant to the decision-making context in the areas they will be working in

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Pre-assessment survey tool:

Key informant interview:semi-structured interview with local leaders

• Geography• Major climate

events• Information

availability• Community norms• Demographic

overview

Proposed M&E toolkit to assess the impact of climate services

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Pre-assessment survey tool:

Key informant interview:semi-structured interview with providers of climate services or agricultural advisories in the area

• Major climate events

• Agriculture or climate service information available

• Development interventions

Proposed M&E toolkit to assess the impact of climate services

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Pre-assessment survey tool:

Focus group discussions:stratified along demographic divisions e.g., gender, tribe, age, etc.

• Socio-cultural norms within the community

• Risk assessment• Communication

norms

Proposed M&E toolkit to assess the impact of climate services

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Pre-assessment survey tool:

Head of household surveys: stratified random sampling, with relative proportional sampling from relevant social groupings within a community

• Constraints on individual household farming practices

• Individual risk assessment

• Perception of climate events, risks

• Knowledge/awareness of climate information/climate services

Proposed M&E toolkit to assess the impact of climate services

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Baseline questionnaire:

• Goal: collect baseline data on indicators of progress against which we will measure project or program impact over time

• Common indicators: household economic factors and decision-making; risk and social network analyses; agricultural productivity; information communication and usage

Proposed M&E toolkit to assess the impact of climate services

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Baseline questionnaire:

• Community-level informant semi-structured interview• Household survey• Uses synthesis questions based on thematic survey

areas derived from pre-assessment

Proposed M&E toolkit to assess the impact of climate services

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Monitoring phase:

• Goal: capture local feedback on provided climate services, further exploration of community needs as farmers become familiar with services available and trust is established; incorporate into climate service production and delivery for the following season

Proposed M&E toolkit to assess the impact of climate services

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Evaluation phase:

• Goal: evaluate repeated measurement of baseline indicators to assess project/program impact on farm-level decision-making

Proposed M&E toolkit to assess the impact of climate services

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Discussion

• Moved away from highly ethnographic and qualitative data collection and toward streamlined and simplified questionnaires and surveys that still capture cultural and contextual nuance

• Flexible, accessible guidelines to allow for tailoring to local contexts and ease of implementation for a variety of evaluators and sites

• Work in progress—feedback welcome!

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Follow up

Web: www.ccafs.cgiar.org

Twitter: @cgiarclimate

Facebook: www.facebook.com/cgiarclimate

Flickr: www.flickr.com/cgiarclimate

Email: ajay@iri.columbia.edu

Photos: all photos by Cecilia Schubert, CCAFS communications. Photos depict farmer beneficiaries of a climate services project in Dodoma, Tanzania.