CCARDESA Content

Presentation intended to develop discussion around Communities of Practice in the SADC Region and SADC Member States.

Review of some of the issues and barriers to information exchange in SADC and SADC Member States.

An overview of the revised CCARDESA ICKM System, including revisions to the ICKM Strategy, Manual and approach. It also includes an introduction to the new CCARDESA website and newsletter and monitoring and evaluation component.

An introduction to the GIZ-ACCRA Programme.

An overview of the history and mandate of the Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development in Southern Africa (CCARDESA).

Presentation delivered at the AFAAS Conference

CCARDESA ICKM System overview pamphlet.

CCARDESA aspires to be a regional knowledge hub that facilitates the sharing of agricultural information and research across the SADC region. Thus, CCARDESA has incorporated knowledge, information and communication as one of the key Thematic Focal Areas of the organization.

Sustainability of rain-fed farming systems under climate variability and change conditions is a key concern for policy and adaptation planning processes to improve food and nutrition security. The challenge is to improve farming and tillage practices to enhance soil moisture availability and harvest excess runoff thereby making the farming systems more reliable and resilient to unpredictable risks of climate change and variability. In this short manuscript, an assessment of climate change impact on the agricultural water availability for rainfed systems in southern Africa is discussed through a pilot project conducted recently as part of climate change adaptation integrated modeling of crop-climate-soil systems. We consider the Pandamatenga plains in north-eastern Botswana, which was undertaken with the main indicators of crop yield impact with respect to soil water availability and excess runoff harvesting potential, for the current climatology (1971-2000) and projected over the coming decades up to the 2050s. The indicators of rainfed practices of growing maize, sorghum and sunflower are discussed, which are likely influenced not only by climate, but also the response requiring local and regional adaptation investments for improved food security and increase productivity. The manuscript recommends technical and policy interventions for incorporating climate change adaptation practices, with the view to outscale to national and possibly regional agricultural development planning processes.

This presentation discusses enhancing evidence based climate change adaptation research and policy for agriculture in southern Africa.

CCARDESA's Climate Change Adaptation Strategy: Evidence from CCARPASA Project