Climate Information Platform for Adaptation in the Agricultural sector in Africa to empower stakeholders in the African agro-sector against climate change.
Context
The KLIMPALA project has the ambition to develop a Climate Platform for Adaptation in the Agricultural sector in Africa (KLIMPALA) to empower stakeholders in the African agri-sector against climate change with tools, capacity building and coaching. Partnering with ACMAD, KPMG, KENTER and OVO, and with support from the Flemish Government, VITO builds on the previous AgroClim project (AgroClimate service for African countries), funded by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, where an agri-climate information platform was piloted for Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.
Objectives
- In the KLIMPALA project, we expand CLIMTAG, a web-based dashboard offering tailored climate information for the past and the future, from its initial country portfolio (Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique) implemented under the Agroclim project, to cover over 20 countries across the African continent.
- The tool is further enriched with user-oriented indicators and functionalities. Stakeholders, including national authorities, meteorological offices and experts, are involved throughout the project in the co-creation of the platform.
- As one of the main missions of CLIMTAG is to democratize and disseminate the access to scientifically-sound, actionable climate change forecasts for agriculture adaptation planning, national public and private stakeholders are supported with capacity-building and training on the ready-to-use tool, with transfer of methodologies to process this information, to identify climate adaptation barriers, to plan measures and to acquire International Climate Finance.
- Finally, climate-robust, on the ground initiatives by local agri-sector entrepreneurs are implemented in three African use-case countries (Senegal, Uganda, Malawi), with further financial and capacity-building support from the project.
- With the goal of promoting continuity in climate action initiatives such as KLIMPALA, the consortium also conducted a study on the accessibility of climate finance for agricultural adaptation in Africa, with special focus in the situations in the three use-case countries.
Highlights
VITO is the project lead and responsible for the development of the CLIMTAG dashboard, as well as the training and dissemination of its use. Relevant activities include:
- Climate data modelling and processing, including downscaling, bias-correction and validation of historical climate datasets and climate projections for 20 target countries, in cooperation with the African Center of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) and national Meteorological Services and Institutes.
- Co-development of agri-climatic indicators, relevant for agriculture planning and climate risk analysis, into the service dashboard. This included tailored crop suitability indices and maps, that allow agricultural stakeholders to identify climate threats and opportunities for a wide range of crops in a spatially detailed way.
- Training and capacity-building of meteorological and agricultural experts in the use of CLIMTAG and other relevant climate information technologies, in three on-site workshops in Senegal, Malawi and Uganda. The workshops targeted a multinational audience of agri-climate science communities and involved the participation of over 100 agri-climate and meteorological experts coming from nearly all African countries.
KLIMPALA demonstrates how climate information can be used to assist effective and evidence-based climate adaptation actions, by supporting concrete adaptation initiatives at the local level. Demo cases are selected in Uganda, Senegal and Malawi and local entrepreneurs are supported by coaching, capacity building and start-up financing. The following initiatives were supported:
- Uganda (Measures Against Climate Change in Agriculture (MACCA) in the Busoga-region): MACCA supports more than 500 female smallholder maize farmers in the adoption of climate-informed agrocological practives, access to affordable credit and to market channels for greater household income. CLIMTAG plays a role in awareness raising of these farmers and small entrepreneurial businesses that are planning for the future.
- Senegal (Supporting Agroforestry with agroclimatic information from CLIMTAG): The Association for Promotion of Fertilizer Trees and Agroforestry (APAF) is focused on demonstrating the positive impact of agroforestry systems, by supporting the plantation of specific fertilizer trees in farmer’s fields, who cultivate below and around them. The use of CLIMTAG information allows APAF to plan the installation of these systems and breed the best suited plant species for each region.
©Alain Ejzyn
- Malawi (Promoting climate-informed entrepreneurial project planning in the Mzuzu Entrepreneur Hub): The entrepreneurs of Mzuzu, in northern Malawi, develop small scale business models that bring steady income the their households and bring together innovative ideas and thoughtful planning. They create value in a wide set of areas such as agriculture production and equipment, food processing and retail, forestry, renewable energy and water technologies. The CLIMTAG tool was demonstrated as a support tool for climate-proof business planning that is openly available in the country.
Facts
Budget: $1,946,000
Funded by: Flemish Climate Funding
Implemented by:
- VITO (Flemish Institute for Technological Research)
- ACMAD (the African Centre for Meteorological Applications for Development)
- KENTER (Strategic Policy Consultants)
- KPMG
- OVO (Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs)
Duration: December 2020 - December 2023 (3 years)
