Rome. Following GACSA’s Annual Forum in June, the GACSA Facilitation Unit shared three big results and follow up actions of the conference with its members. Now, GACSA members and Action Groups ramp up to begin implementing these next steps.

During the closing remarks of the Forum, Co-chair Ms. Lindiwe Majele Sibanda concluded that this year was the moment for GACSA to reboot as she expressed GACSA’s commitment to work towards the 2030 Agenda and continued support for the Climate-Smart Agriculture brand.  She emphasized the importance of matchmaking and co-creating in taking CSA to action within the Alliance.

Ms. Allison M. Chatrchyan, Director, Cornell Institute for Climate-Smart Solutions introduced Day 2 of the Annual Forum’s breakout working group sessions for the three Action Groups. The purpose of these breakout groups was to discuss the implementation of the GACSA Strategic Plan 2018-2022 through concrete actions for each action group.

The objective of the GACSA Knowledge Action Group (KAG) is to increase and promote knowledge, research, and development into technologies, practices, and policy approaches for CSA. During the Forum’s workshop day, KAG discussed current gaps, target audiences and actions to be achieved. Among these actions KAG aims to produce a collective literature review and survey on relevant metrics through GACSA members and to create a knowledge platform (in collaboration with WFO’s Climakers and other ongoing initiatives). KAG will work to promote the further adoption of the CSA curriculum and review the youth curriculum developed by Cornell University, as well as develop a massive open online course (MOOC) on Climate-Smart Agriculture.

The objective of the GACSA Investment Action Group (IAG) is to increase and promote knowledge, research, and development into technologies, practices, and policy approaches for CSA. The IAG worked around a current obstacle, which is the lack of a CSA business case template for farmers to apply for loans. The IAG is working to complete a CSA business case template for circulation and use for farmers.

The objective of the GACSA Enabling Environment Action Group (EEAG) is to identify the technical, policy and investment conditions needed to scale up Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) approaches, and to promote the harmonization of community-based national agriculture, climate change and food system policies. Considering the broad scope of the objectives, the EEAG decided to develop a strategy with specific actions through a bottom-up approach, based on the key policy bottlenecks and needs identified by GACSA members and collaborating partners. Part of developing this strategy includes the mapping of related platforms (identifying members and activities) such as nature-based solutions, food and land use coalition, science-based target network (NGO) and CSA Regional Alliances. AT COP25, the EEAG have planned a workshop to evaluate feedback, further develop and approve the strategy for early 2020.

With September approaching, the GACSA Action Groups will begin developing their value propositions that will to allow for concrete results before the next Annual Forum. GACSA and its Action Groups will also engage at the following platforms to promote climate-smart agriculture to facilitate matchmaking among potential partners in 2019:  

• African Green Revolution Forum (3-6 September 2019, Accra, Ghana)
• Climate Week and UN Action Summit (23 September 2019, New York)
• Global CSA Science Conference (10-12 October 2019, Bali, Indonesia)
• UNFCCC COP25 (2-13 December 2019, Chile).

In addition, the three Action Groups are developing a survey to identify needs and activities in collaboration with different actors. During COP25, a workshop will give the possibility to approve and share the next steps for each AG.

For more information on GACSA’s Action Groups work and any inquiries to join a group, please write to [email protected] with the subject line: Interest in Action Groups.