GCRF-AFRICAP - Agricultural and Food-system Resilience: Increasing Capacity and Advising Policy

农业发展是实现撒哈拉以南非洲许多可持续发展目标的基础。整个区域营养不足和营养不良的程度仍然很高，目前的趋势表明，不断增长的人口的粮食需求与农业生产力之间的差距越来越大。此外，在气候不断变化的背景下，在许多地区，前所未有的极端事件（特别是干旱和酷热，以及越来越极端的降雨和作物虫害）发生率增加，作物歉收的风险增加，加剧了这一挑战。在整个非洲，各国政府认识到农业发展和转型需要成为经济增长和扶贫的引擎，特别是在低生产力（和周期性作物歉收）、资源获取有限和小土地所有权将农村家庭锁定在贫困循环中的地方。农业实践还必须有助于维持土壤、水、生物多样性等，并且越来越多地被视为我们必须减少温室气体排放的部门。在非洲实现农业和粮食系统的可持续和有复原力的转型是一项复杂和多方面的挑战，需要采取新的研究和证据方法以及新的政策和体制有利环境。该项目旨在协作建设研究和政策所需的能力，以应对这一多方面的挑战，并帮助避免政策瘫痪，这种瘫痪在一些国家导致千年发展目标进展甚微或毫无进展。该项目小组包括利兹大学、阿伯丁大学、英国气象局、粮食、农业和自然资源政策分析网络和查塔姆研究所，拥有农业、气候、生态、土壤、水、收获后损失、土地使用、营养和健康、农村生计以及政策和体制分析方面的专门知识。FANRPAN是一个多利益攸关方泛非网络，其使命是通过评估和制定粮食、农业和自然资源政策，在整个非洲建立有复原力的粮食系统，这些政策既要以证据为基础，又要与非国家行为体合作制定。我们将在三大主题下解决研究和能力增长问题：（1）如何使农业（和粮食系统）生产力高，对极端天气有抵御能力，同时最大限度地减少对环境的影响，最大限度地提高对生计、粮食和营养的贡献（2）随着未来几十年对农业的经济和粮食安全需求的变化，同时天气和气候风险也在变化，有什么可行的办法可以发展农业，提高生产力，以满足未来的需要？(3)如何制定政策，使潜在的可持续、生产性、气候适应性途径以最具包容性的方式得以实现，从而最大限度地发挥农业对实现可持续发展目标的贡献？工作将集中在撒哈拉以南非洲的四个国家：马拉维、坦桑尼亚和赞比亚-这些国家是农业制度各不相同的低收入国家-以及南非，这是一个中上收入国家。在每个国家，将通过学术机构、非政府组织和政策制定者之间的合作伙伴关系建立研究和政策能力。通过FANRPAN和查塔姆研究所的政府间政策专门知识和平台，我们的目标是从我们的案例研究国家汲取经验教训，并在非洲各地传播，通过在其他非洲国家和区域一级将类似的证据模式应用于政策，促进能力建设和循证农业转型。

Agricultural development is fundamental to achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Levels of undernourishment and malnutrition remain high across the region and current trends show a growing gap between the food needs of a growing population and agricultural productivity. Moreover, in a context of changing climates, and, in many areas, increased incidence of extreme and unprecedented events (notably drought and extreme heat, as well as increasingly extreme rainfall and crop pest infestations), the increased risk of crop failures is exacerbating this challenge. Across Africa, governments recognise that agricultural development and transformation needs to be an engine of economic growth and poverty alleviation, particularly where cycles of low productivity (and periodic crop failures), limited access to resources, and small land holdings lock rural households into cycles of poverty. Agricultural practice must also contribute to the sustaining of soil, water, biodiversity and more, and is increasingly being targeted as a sector within which we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Achieving sustainable and resilient transformations of agriculture and food systems in Africa is a complex and multi-faceted challenge, which requires novel approaches to research and evidence and new policy and institutional enabling environments. This project sets out to collaboratively build the capacities required across research and policy to tackle this multi-faceted challenge, and help avoid the policy paralysis that in some countries led to little or no progress towards the Millennium Development goals. The project team, which includes the University of Leeds, University of Aberdeen, the UK Met Office, the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) and Chatham House encompasses expertise in agriculture, climate, ecology, soils, water, post-harvest losses, land use, nutrition and health, rural livelihoods, and policy and institutional analysis. FANRPAN is a multi-stakeholder pan-African network whose mission is to build resilient food systems across Africa through the assessment and creation of food, agriculture and natural resources policies that are both evidence-based and developed in partnership with non-state actors. We will address research and capacity growth under 3 broad themes: (1) how to make agriculture (and food systems) productive as well as resilient to extreme weather whilst minimising impacts on the environment and maximising its contributions to livelihoods, and food and nutrition (2) as the economic and food-security demands on agriculture change over the next decades, and at the same time weather and climate risks change, what are the feasible ways that agriculture can develop to become more productive in order to meet future needs? (3) how can policy be developed that enables potential sustainable, productive, climate-resilient pathways to be realised in the most inclusive way, thus maximising the contribution of agriculture to achieving the SDGs? Work will be focused in four countries in SSA: Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia -which are low income countries with varied farming systems - and South Africa, which is an upper middle income country. In each country, research and policy capacity will be built through collaborative partnerships across academic institutions, non-governmental organisations, and policy makers. Through FANRPAN and Chatham House' s inter-governmental policy expertise and platforms, we aim to generate lessons learned from our case-study countries and disseminate them across Africa to contribute to capacity building and evidence-based agricultural transformation through the application of a similar model of evidence into policy in other African countries, and at the regional level.