Evans School Policy Analysis & Research Group (EPAR)

This brief draws on recent reports by the OECD, the World Bank, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and others to provide an overview of climate finance in developing countries. The brief is divided into three sections: (i) sources of global climate finance; (ii) country-level flows of climate finance; and (iii) applications of climate finance in developing countries. The brief is designed to give a concise overview of financial flows directed at climate change mitigation and adaptation globally and in developing countries, with an introduction to climate finance accounting such that climate financial flow volumes can be compared to aid volumes in other sectors. Total global climate finance flows were approximately USD $364 billion in 2011 (Buchner et al., 2012) and $359 billion in 2012. However the vast majority of these flows - 76%, or $275 billion - was finance generated and spent within a country’s own borders (domestic finance) (Buchner et al., 2013). The “Fast-Start Finance” period from 2010-2012 saw $35 billion in new aid mobilized for climate finance in developing countries. Developed countries have recently committed to mobilize an additional $100 billion per year by 2020.

This overview introduces a series of EPAR briefs in the Agriculture-Environment Series that examine crop-environment interactions for a range of crops in smallholder food production systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA). The briefs cover the following important food crops in those regions; rice (#208), maize (#218), sorghum/millets (#213), sweet potato/yam (#225), and cassava (#228).

Drawing on the academic literature and the field expertise of crop scientists, these briefs highlight crop-environment interactions at three stages of the crop value chain: pre-production (e.g., land clearing and tilling), production (such as water, nutrient and other input use), and post-production (e.g., waste disposal and crop storage). At each stage we emphasize environmental constraints on crop yields (including poor soils, water scarcity, crop pests) and impacts of crop production on the environment (such as soil erosion, water depletion and pest resistance). We then highlight best practices from the literature and from expert experience for minimizing negative environmental impacts in smallholder crop production systems.

This overview (along with the accompanying detailed crop briefs) seeks to provide a framework for stimulating across-crop discussions and informed debates on the full range of crop-environment interactions in agricultural development initiatives.

A paper based on this research series was published in Food Security in August 2015.

This literature review provides information on the dynamics of the maize market and maize prices in Zambia. We address four key topics: average production costs and breakeven prices for maize farmers in Zambia, main drivers of volatility of maize production volumes, key factors driving the differences between Zambian and global maize prices, and policies that may have contributed to increased farmer productivity. 

Though not indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), cassava plays, to varying degrees, five major roles in African development: famine-reserve crop, rural food staple, cash crop for urban consumption, livestock feed, and industrial raw material. Cassava production in SSA was historically a significant staple crop for smallholder farmers and continues to be the second most important food crop in Africa (after maize) in terms of calories consumed. Subsistence crops such as cassava are often considered women’s crops with the standard explanation that women are responsible for feeding the family and thus prefer to grow crops for the household. This brief reviews the role that women play in cassava production, and considers ways to better address gender issues from planting through post-harvest production. We find that the potential gains to cassava production made possible through improved technology will not be fully realized without the participation of women farmers and without women farmers having access to credit, markets, and extension services. Additionally, evidence from SSA suggests that labor for harvesting and processing, rather than labor for weeding, has become the key labor constraint for cassava, and addressing this concern may be more important than further yield increases for raising production levels.