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The carbon market is touted as offering developing countries major new opportunities to achieve sustainable development while simultaneously helping the global community to combat climate change. The prospect is that implementing carbon offset projects and programmes can generate tradable carbon credits while simultaneously delivering development benefits to participating communities. In least developed countries, however, this promise remains largely unfulfilled. Work is underway to bridge this gap via measures like streamlining project development and providing capacity building in target countries, yet progress remains slow. Based on focus group discussions, the paper conveys comments about this prospect and constraints to its realization from seasoned rural development practitioners in Madagascar and Mali who have shown interest in carbon project development. Their perspective is critical yet constructive, and could help guide reforms of existing carbon market instruments and the design of new climate finance mechanisms. It also provides a valuable contribution to ongoing debates regarding the potential significance of the carbon market for poor farmers. The consensus among these practitioners is that the promise of this market for these farmers is real, but the current market structure largely scuppers this potential. They call for urgent reform of market access modalities, so this opportunity can be capture

This article revisits the well‐known study of Machakos District, Kenya reported in the book More People, Less Erosion by Tiffen et al., which found dramatic, compelling evidence of successful endogenous adaptation to changing circumstances by rural Africans. The article seeks to elucidate discrepancies between the Machakos findings and other findings in the interest of both scientific accuracy and policy relevance. It is suggested that the Machakos study comprises hopeful data, on the one hand, and problematic calculations and assertions, on the other. After exploring problems with the study, the article suggests an alternative interpretation of the data that is arguably more pertinent to contemporary concerns with rural poverty and environmental degradation as well as more widely applicable in sub‐Saharan Africa.

Climate change poses a huge threat to developing countries, particularly to poor and vulnerable communities. Given the magnitude of the challenge, outside support is needed. Climate finance initiatives respond to this need by providing funding for 'climate smart' projects and programmes. Potentially, such support can create transformative opportunities for poor countries and communities, while building resilience to the grave threats posed by climate change impacts. Yet this landscape remains problematic, since climate finance is often inaccessible to the stakeholders who most need it and could perhaps make the best use of it, namely institutions from target countries. The Strategic Climate Institutions Programme (SCIP) Fund offers a pragmatic solution to this dilemma as well as a replicable model that is particularly relevant to vulnerable countries and communities. This follows from its emphasis on empowering diverse national stakeholders, fostering partnerships between institutions, and bolstering government.