Background

The Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa project (AICCRA) intends to make CGIAR-led cutting-edge science practices/technologies/tools available throughout Africa; especially in Sub-regions extremely vulnerable to climate change. The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), a network of 170 universities in 40 countries spanning the whole African continent is a partner in the AICCRA project. RUFORUM’s contribution in the AICCRA project is focused on mobilizing African universities, create awareness and enhance the use of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and climate information service (CIS) knowledge and products developed by the CGIAR Centers and other research institutions engaged in CSA and CIS. Enhancing the use of CSA and CIS involves capacity, knowledge and technology audits at national and institutional level, mobilize CGIAR and other research centers to provide CSA and CIS knowledge, technology and skills and training of faculty to deploy the CSA and CIS products in training, research and outreach. Knowledge transfer and capacity building activities therefore form the central part of RUFORUM’s participation in the AICCRA project.

In executing this project, RUFORUM in partnership with West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) has developed and or is developing at varied stages, modules that could be integrated in university curriculum for the advancement of climate smart agriculture and climate information systems. The design and development of the modules has adopted a generic and robust approach that enables the curriculum to be offered in variant formats. 

One of the modules developed is Climate-Smart Agriculture Basics: An Introduction to Practices & Technologies. This module constitutes a component of the three modules developed to provide climate-smart agriculture and climate snformation Systems basics curriculum as partnership between RUFORUM and WASCAL under the AICCRA Program.

The module is the second of the three modules to be delivered under the RUFORUM climate information services and climate-smart agriculture basics curriculum under the AICCRA program:

1. Climate Basics
2. Introduction to Climate Information Sciences for Agriculture
3. Climate-Smart Agriculture basics

Training Module Premise 

Climate-smart agriculture provides an excellent opportunity for the transformation by uniting agriculture, development and climate change under a common agenda through integrating the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) by jointly addressing food security and climate challenges. CSA therefore sustainably increases agricultural production and incomes, builds resilience of agricultural systems to climate change and minimizes GHGs emissions. 

The training module is aimed at contributing towards promotion of the CSA approach among researchers, academia and practitioners with the ultimate goal of: 

• increasing agricultural productivity and income in a sustainable manner, while ensuring food and nutrition security;
• adapting to climate change through improvements in water and soil management, the creation of favorable micro-climatic conditions, 
• better use of agrobiodiversity, the rational management of crop, and animal production; 
  contributing to reduction of GHG emissions in order to minimize the carbon footprint of the agriculture sector in Africa.

Objectives

1. Raise awareness among university stakeholders with a view of identifying universities to adopt the module in their training.  
2. Serve as a peer review mechanism for the content and delivery approach of the developed materials, ensuring their effectiveness and relevance through pilot training sessions.
3. Feed into the RUFORUM 2nd Triennial conference event for development of e-modules to be uploaded on the RUFORUM e-Learning platform
    

Module Instructors

1. Oliver Vivian Wasonga, Professor of Dryland Ecology & Climate Change Adaptation, Department of Land Resource Management & Agriculture, University, Kenya
2. Anthony Kibe, Professor of Agronomy, Department of Crops, Horticulture and Soils, Egerton University, Kenya

Participants

Although the primary target of the training is university staff, past experience has demonstrated that participants are drawn from across the RUFORUM Network and to include staff, students and other actors from across the continent. It thus includes participants from non-AICCRA core countries.