Sub-Saharan Africa has been portrayed as the most vulnerable region to the impacts of global climate change because of its reliance on agriculture which is highly sensitive to weather and climate variables such as temperature, precipitation, and light and extreme events and low capacity for adaptation. This article reviews evidence on the scope and nature of the climate change challenge; and assesses the impact of climate change on agriculture and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. From the review, it is apparent that the climate in Africa is already exhibiting significant changes, evident by changes in average temperature, change in amount of rainfall and patterns and the prevalence of frequency and intensity of weather extremes. The review also revealed that although uncertainties exist with regards to the magnitude of impacts, climate will negatively affect agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, as result of current and expected climate change, the area suitable for agriculture, the length of growing seasons and yield potential, particularly along the margins of semi-arid and arid areas, are expected to decrease. These impacts will affect all components of food security: food availability, food accessibility, food utilisation and food stability and hence increase the risk of hunger in the region. The review thus confirms the general consensus that Sub-Saharan Africa is the most vulnerable region to climate change. It suggests that, policymakers and development agencies should focus on formulating and implementing policies and programmes that promote farm level adaptation strategies currently being practiced by farmers across the region.
Though at the theoretical level, micro-credit is said to play a significant role in poverty reduction, empirical work on the role of micro-credit in poverty reduction is mixed with some studies indicating high levels of employment and income generation and others suggesting a worsening of poverty with micro-credit. Does micro-credit really get to the poor? Does it enhance or impede their productivity? Based on a study of 139 households in one rural area in the Upper West Region of Ghana, we find that: (a) Beneficiaries of micro-credit divert a significant portion of such loans into household consumption – albeit with moderate impact on house-hold productivity and welfare and (b) Micro-credit has modest impact on rural community development.
The water-land-food system is essential for sustaining the basic human needs. While the demand for these resources is increasing rapidly, their sustainability has been hampered by a plethora of challenges, including rapid population growth, climate change, land-use change, and land degradation. To attain a sustainable supply and efficiently manage these resources, interactions between all resources and the factors constraining/sustaining them need to be understood. In this chapter, four systems archetypes based on grounded in the systems thinking framework and system dynamics approach were employed to explore and identify the key system drivers, factors, and processes that influence the behaviour and sustainability of water-land-food resources nexus in the Volta River Basin, West Africa. Development of the archetypes centered on a generic causal loop diagram constructed with stakeholders in previous studies capturing the linkages between the population, water system, environmental and socioeconomics. These system archetypes illustrate that the past and the current paradigm of water and land and agricultural production management is unsustainable. The results highlight key areas, which could be useful for the current and future sustainable management, even under uncertain system understanding or deficiencies in quantitative data.
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