Background

The Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project aims to enhance access to climate information services and validated climate-smart agriculture technologies in Africa, to help these countries strengthen the resilience of their agricultural sectors to the threat posed by climate change. Strengthening the capacity of next users, particularly agricultural extension and advisory service (EAS) providers who work to support farmers in Senegal and five other target countries, is crucial for achieving this goal.

Towards these ends, the AICCRA project has been working to co-design curricula targeting the agricultural extension systems in each of the six AICCRA target countries to build foundational knowledge and skills to manage climate risk. These curricula aim to help EAS providers to take advantage of best-available and location-specific climate information and tools in their countries to better plan for, manage, and respond to a changing and varying climate. They also aim to pragmatically support the tailoring and communication of such information to meaningfully inform on-farm agricultural decision-making and build wider resilience of the agricultural sector.

To advance these goals in Senegal, the AICCRA project, in close collaboration with the Agence Nationale de l'Aviation Civile et de la Météorologie (ANACIM), International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) of the Columbia Climate School organized a 9-day training of trainers (ToT) in March 2023 to finalize and prepare for the pilot of a new curriculum to strengthen the capacity of agricultural extension and advisory service providers to incorporate climate services in their work with Senegal’s farmers.

The workshop built upon the experiences and advanced the implementation of a collaboratively designed curriculum for both public and private EAS providers in 2022 through the AICCRA project.

The CRMAE curriculum

This locally-driven, co-designed and co-produced curriculum aims to:

• Improve the use of climate information in agricultural decision-making for Senegalese farmers
• Leverage free and location-specific climate information from national meteorological agency, Agence Nationale de l'Aviation Civile et de la Météorologie - ANACIM
• Integrate capacity building on a number of other tools and foundational climate-data skills
• Embed digital innovations into the agricultural sector

The pilot sessions

The 8-day curriculum will be launched at 3 pilot sites (Thies, Bambey, Kaolack) for a group of 25 extensionists each (75 total).

The extensionists and their networks will be able to use the knowledge and skills learned through this curriculum to manage risk at the farm level and further scale the effective use of available climate data in Senegal.

In collaboration with

• Agence Nationale de l'Aviation Civile et de la Météorologie (ANACIM)
• Agence Nationale de Conseil Agricole et Rural (ANCAR)

• Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA)

• RESOPP

• Alioune DIOP University of Bambey (UADB)

• Université du Sine Saloum El-Hâdj Ibrahima NIASS (USSEIN)

• Jokalante

• Mlouma

• International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
• AfricaRice
• International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
• International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI)
• Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA)