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This paper analyses a monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) system developed within an agricultural research for development institution. The system applies aspects of the Outcome Harvesting tool and focuses on learning for adaptation and improvement of innovation processes. Developmental evaluation principles are applied to discuss its application. The MEL system provides insight into the processes and interactions with next users that generate outcomes. MEL systems that use customized Outcome Harvesting aspects appear promising for adaptive management and to improve how research interacts with next users to achieve developmental outcomes.

This evaluation sought to understand CCAFS' influence in motivating actors to tackle climate change. In CCAFS' theory of change, a cross-cutting aim is to work with strategic partners to "foster policy and institutional change" that will enable large-scale CSA adoption. A conceptual framework was developed, and an innovative approach based on the Digital Methods epistemology was employed to explore the dynamics of knowledge dissemination and changes in attitude towards CSA among stakeholders at various levels. It considered online networks and narratives as evidence of "offline" program influence. Results show that CCAFS has inspired positive change in government policy; built a global community for climate adaption; and sparked public interest in "Climate Smart Agriculture".

The Mesoamerican region is considered to be one of the areas in the world most vulnerable to climate change. We developed a framework for quantifying the vulnerability of the livelihoods of coffee growers in Mesoamerica at regional and local levels and identify adaptation strategies. Following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concepts,vulnerability was defined as the combination of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. To quantify exposure, changes in the climatic suitability for coffee and other crops were predicted through niche modelling based on historical climate data and locations of coffee growing areas from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Future climate projections were generated from 19 Global Circulation Models. Focus groups were used to identify nine indicators of sensitivity and eleven indicators of adaptive capacity, which were evaluated through semi-structured interviews with 558 coffee producers. Exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity were then condensed into an index of vulnerability, and adaptation strategies were identified in participatory workshops. Models predict that all target countries will experience a decrease in climatic suitability for growing Arabica coffee, with highest suitability loss for El Salvador and lowest loss for Mexico. High vulnerability resulted from loss in climatic suitability for coffee production and high sensitivity through variability of yields and out-migration of the work force. This was combined with low adaptation capacity as evidenced by poor post-harvest infrastructure and in some cases poor access to credit and low levels of social organization. Nevertheless, the specific contributors to vulnerability varied strongly among countries, municipalities and families making general trends difficult to identify. Flexible strategies for adaption are therefore needed. Families need the support of government and institutions specialized in impacts of climate change and strengthening of farmer organizations to enable the adjustment of adaptation strategies to local needs and conditions.

2021's Conference of Parties, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26), is crucially important as governments—for the first time since the Paris Agreement—are expected to agree on concrete commitments and greater ambitions to limit global warming to 1·5°C. COP26 President-Designate Alok Sharma stated that delivery of US$100 billion in climate finance is going to be the key to whether the goals of COP26 succeed or fail. At the same time, people worldwide have started acknowledging the impacts of the climate crisis on peace and security—otherwise called the climate security nexus.1, 2 The concern then becomes where and how objectives and investments in adaptation and peacebuilding can be aligned, and how trade-offs between climate finance, peace, and security can be minimised or avoided.

The increasingly interconnected nature of our world means that failing to achieve coherence between climate- and peace and security-related policy domains forms a significant climate-related security risk. Poorly designed climate policies that are insensitive to pre-existing insecurities and conflict dynamics may undermine political stability, amplify social inequalities and grievances, and accelerate a loss of biodiversity and climate change-related impacts. Peace and security policies that do not account for climate risks may conversely promote ineffective and unresponsive interventions and risk locking communities into vicious cycles of insecurity and climate vulnerability. This work contributes to the climate securityproofing of policy outputs by developing a methodological framework that assesses the degree to which policy outputs and strategy documents display awareness of climate-related security risks and climatepeace opportunities. This framework is used to assess policies and strategies from across eight African countries. We find that despite some limited recognition of often place-specific climate-related security risks, a clear and shared conceptual understanding of the climate, peace and security nexus is generally lacking; climate and environment-related policies are generally more aware of climate security and have greater cross-sectoral engagement than peace and security-related policies; and that opportunities exist for the integration of climate security-related considerations into existing strategic priorities, instruments and programmatic activities.

This article was published open access under a CC BY licence:
https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0
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Cultivation, processing, and consumption of coffee are dynamic processes that connect coffee farmers and agro-ecosystems with coffee drinkers spanning the globe. As a cash crop, coffee cultivation gained popularity in the Old and then the New world, and flourished under colonial regimes of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Coffee production patterns and management styles have changed ­drastically in the past two centuries and continue to shift, with the greatest recent expansions in East Asia. Traditionally, coffee is cultivated under a canopy of shade trees, a practice that ensures the longevity of the farm, supports biodiversity, and provides communities with a broad array of ecosystem services. However, many modern management schemes abandon shade practices. On the other hand, specialty coffee markets, like certified organic, certified shade (Bird Friendly), Fair Trade, and other certified coffees have gained recent popularity, though they still represent a small fraction of the global coffee economy. The global coffee economy is comprised of a wide array of coffee value chains that connect farmers with consumers, and thus impact farmer livelihoods at multiple spatial scales. Key players in the coffee value chain include local cooperatives, national government agencies, and global certification agencies. Similarly, ecosystem services provided by shade coffee occur at local, regional, and global scales, including pollination, erosion-control, and carbon sequestration, respectively. While the ecological and socio-economic costs and benefits associated with shade coffee are clear, this review reveals that there are many challenges to bridging sustainable coffee management with livelihood security. Furthermore, in this review we identify existing gaps in the literature and a number of promising research directions concerning the ecological and socio-economic impacts of coffee production.

Is climate variability regressive? One argument could be as follows: People living in areas with high risk of climate hazards usually correspond to the most disadvantaged populations. Due to existing structural inequalities, they have limited opportunities to cope with climate hazards and often fall into a spiral of further poverty and social exclusion. In this paper, we investigate whether climate variability indeed has a regressive effect in Vietnam and Indonesia where both climate variability and inequality have been increasing. We directly analyse the effect of annual and seasonal temperature on income and income inequality across years. We do so by looking at the Vietnamese and Indonesian populations as a whole and also investigating more in-depth how these impacts change for the most vulnerable and marginalised groups. Our results suggest that climate variability increases inequality and that its biggest burden is bore by existing vulnerable groups. In Indonesia, these groups are rural, farming, low educated, female headed households, whose income is significantly reduced because of changes in climate conditions. Similarly, in Vietnam, ethnic minorities, rural, farming, and agricultural households bear the biggest impact of climate variability. Interestingly, some households in Vietnam are able to completely offset short-term impact of climate variability, using remittances and transfer as an insurance, but our findings also show that their coping strategy does not withstand longer term impacts of persistent climate variability. Despite the remarkable efforts of the national governments in supporting most vulnerable and marginalised groups in the Vietnamese and Indonesian societies in the past decades, specific interventions are needed to address the needs of those who are still bearing the biggest burden of climate impacts to finally allow even the "last mile" groups to escape poverty and exclusion.

This appendix describes more in details the methods used in the WFP - CGIAR project "Assessing the relationship between climate, food security and conflict in Ethiopia and in the Central American Dry Corridor (CADC). Quantitative analysis on the impact of climate variability on conflict in Ethiopia and in the CADC countries." In this study, we investigate the climate-food security-conflict nexus in Ethiopia and the CADC (Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras). Both Ethiopia and the CADC are hotspots of high climate variabilities, high political insecurity, and conflicts and widespread food and nutrition insecurities across their populations.