Science-policy interfaces for sustainable climate-smart agriculture uptake: lessons learnt from national science-policy dialogue platforms in West Africa

Abstract

Connecting science with policy has always been challenging for both scientists and policymakers. In Ghana, Mali and Senegal, multi-stakeholder national science-policy dialogue platforms on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) were setup to use scientific evidence to create awareness of climate change impacts on agriculture and advocate for the mainstreaming of climate change and CSA into agricultural development plans. Based on the platforms' operations and achievements, we used semi-structured questionnaire interviews and reviewed technical reports produced by the platforms to analyse how their modes of operation and achievements improve understanding of the science-policy interfaces between agricultural and climate change decision making. Results showed that these platforms constitute an innovative approach to effectively engaging decision-makers and sustainably mainstreaming climate change into development plans. Effective science-policy interaction requires: (a) institutionalizing dialogue platforms by embedding them within national institutions, which improves their credibility, relevance and legitimacy among policymakers; (b) two-way communication, which contributes substantially to the co-development of solutions that address climate change vulnerabilities and impacts; and (c) relevant communication products and packaging of evidence that aligns with country priorities, which facilitates its uptake in policy-making processes. We conclude with a framework of sustainable operation for such platforms based on lessons learnt in the three countries.

Learning from failure at the science–policy interface for climate action in agriculture

“…In engaging next users, care must be taken to address criticisms of such engagement approaches, including the costs versus benefits and adverse power dynamics (Oliver et al 2019;Turnhout et al 2020;Wyborn et al 2019). Lack of legitimacy was also not validated as a fail factor by respondents of our survey, and this may also be a context-specific feature of CCAFS, where good practices around ensuring legitimacy have been noted in the literature (Vervoort et al 2013;Zougmoré et al 2019). We also considered issues around communicating uncertainty in relation to legitimacy, and found that a number of actions were taken to communicate uncertainty in a fair and balanced banner.…”

“…However, this fail factor not only arises when efforts on the part of researchers and research managers to make outputs salient prove insufficient but also when there is a lack of demand for salient knowledge. CCAFS has an emphasis on generating evidence salient to the needs of decision-makers (Dinesh et al 2018;Zougmoré et al 2019), and this emphasis has enabled the program to deliver successes which have been recorded in the literature (Westermann et al 2018), but there are areas where this can be further strengthened, for example, by improving dialogue on problem definitions/problem structuring to make results more relevant (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1997;van der Hel 2016), aligning the timelines of research and decision-making, accommodating for changes in decision-makers, and communicating and engaging better. Development of salient knowledge needs to start from true interaction with next users (i.e., the immediate next users of research rather than ultimate beneficiaries), as opposed to an approach of retrofitting existing knowledge and tools to needs, as this creates path dependence (Interview-C 2019).…”

“…CCAFS management is open to learning from its experiences, and past studies have generated lessons from the program's science-policy engagement efforts (Cramer et al 2018;Dinesh et al 2018;Zougmoré et al 2019), but, also within CCAFS, lessons from unsuccessful efforts and challenges are yet to be studied systematically. Studying failure within organizations is difficult because of psychological and organizational barriers (Cannon and Edmondson 2001).…”

Are local development plans mainstreaming climate-smart agriculture? A mixed-content analysis of medium-term development plans in semi-arid Ghana

“…Generally, there is a paucity of literature on CSA mainstreaming in local development plans as most researchers have focused on national discourses ( e.g., Clapp et al 2018 ; Faling and Biesbroek 2019 ; Totin et al, 2018 ; Zougmoré et al 2016 ; Zougmoré et al 2019 ) and CSA adoption by farmers and their implications for agriculture productivity ( e.g., Khonje et al 2018 ; Ng’ombe et al 2017 ; Tankha et al 2020 ). These studies are important for understanding the factors that can inhibit or enhance farmers’ adoption of CSA.…”

Directionality and systemic governance : Lessons from Brazilian pig system transformations from the 1960s to date

“…The question that guides this study is: How has boundary infrastructure evolvement, and the interaction between boundary infrastructure elements, played a role in the transition from the spot market to vertical coordination in BPP? This question connects to recent efforts to further unravel how interactions between science, policy, and practice promote coordination, close down contingency, and impact long-term changes in agri-food sectors (Chabbi et al, 2017;Nel et al, 2016;Sarkar, Poon, Lepage, Bilecki, & Girard, 2018;Zougmoré et al, 2019). Moreover, this kind of deeper understanding of boundary infrastructures is critical for debates on transformation towards sustainable food systems (e.g., Lamine, 2011;Ingram, 2015;Gaitán-Cremaschi et al, 2019), as it gives insights into transition dynamics.…”