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Smallholder agricultural commercialization is a central objective across Africa, one linked to poverty reduction, sectoral transformation and increasingly, climate resilience and adaptation. There is much attention given to the extent to which agricultural commercialization serves to reduce poverty, but less to the commercialization pathways that lead towards or away from that outcome. There are, likewise, many studies that project hugely adverse future impacts of climate change on commercial agricultural production, but surprisingly little empirical work on how climate impacts are affecting current agricultural commercialization prospects and pathways for smallholder farmers. This paper, therefore, offers an analysis of levels of climate vulnerability and resilience within existing commercialization pathways in Tanzania and Zimbabwe. It embeds the account within an analysis of the underlying causes of uneven distributions of vulnerability and resilience. We find that while being able to practise commercially viable agriculture can contribute to resilience, it does not do so for the people who most need commercialization to reduce poverty. It is more common for farmers to face what we term an adaptation trap. We conclude by considering what these cases add to our understanding of climate-smart agriculture (CSA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change research is at an impasse. The transformation of economies and everyday practices is more urgent, and yet appears ever more daunting as attempts at behaviour change, regulations, and global agreements confront material and social-political infrastructures that support the status quo. Effective action requires new ways of conceptualizing society, climate and environment and yet current research struggles to break free of established categories. In response, this contribution revisits important insights from the social sciences and humanities on the co-production of political economies, cultures, societies and biophysical relations and shows the possibilities for ontological pluralism to open up for new imaginations. Its intention is to help generate a different framing of socionatural change that goes beyond the current science-policy-behavioural change pathway. It puts forward several moments of inadvertent concealment in contemporary debates that stem directly from the way issues are framed and imagined in contemporary discourses. By placing values, normative commitments, and experiential and plural ways of knowing from around the world at the centre of climate knowledge, we confront climate change with contested politics and the everyday foundations of action rather than just data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience has become prominent in academia where it is used as a central framework in disciplines such as ecology, climate change adaptation or urban planning. Policy makers and international development agencies also increasingly refer to it. The objective of this paper is to assess the advantages and limits of resilience in the context of development. Although the review highlights some positive elements-for example, the ability to foster an integrated approach-it also shows that resilience has important limitations. In particular, it is not a pro-poor concept, in the sense that it does not exclusively apply to, or benefit, the poor. As such, resilience building cannot replace poverty reduction. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptive Social Protection refers to efforts to integrate social protection (SP), disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA), the need for which is increasingly recognised by practitioners and academics. Relying on 124 agricultural programmes implemented in five countries in Asia, this article considers how these elements are being brought together, and explores the potential gains of these linkages. It shows that full integration is still relatively limited but that, when it occurs, it helps to shift the time horizon beyond short-term interventions aimed at supporting peoples' coping strategies and/or graduation objectives, towards longer-term interventions that can help promote transformation towards climate and disaster resilient livelihood options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience is becoming influential in development and vulnerability reduction sectors such as social protection, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Policy makers, donors and international development agencies are now increasingly referring to the term. In that context, the objective of this paper was to assess in a critical manner the advantages and limits of resilience. While the review highlights some positive elements -in particular the ability of the term to foster integrated approach across sectors- it also shows that resilience has important limitations. In particular it is not a pro-poor concept, and the objective of poverty reduction cannot simply be substituted by resilience building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to shed light on policy processes arising from interaction between indigenous rainmakers and meteorologists, in participatory action research aimed at increasing the capacity of a local community to adapt to climate change. Policy processes were analysed from the perspective of actors, their narratives and interests. At the beginning of the project, the interactions between the meteorologists and rainmakers was characterised by mutual scepticism. The two groups negotiated on modalities of working together and successfully made joint seasonal weather forecasts that showed good convergence. The analyses using the three lenses of actor-narrative-interest enabled the study to tease out policy dynamics that are often ignored in climate change mitigation studies. Understanding these dynamics is important to ensure that climate change strategies are designed in congruence with local policy dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the political economy of carbon forestry and REDD+ in Mozambique in view of goals for climate compatible development, i.e. simultaneously addressing emission reduction, adaptation and development. Mozambique is one of the world's poorest countries and one of the most at risk from the effects of climate change. At the same time, the country has considerable forest resources and is well placed to take advantage of future public or private funding for carbon forestry and REDD+. The paper asks how debates and decisions on REDD+ in Mozambique may shape outcomes for different groups. Using a political economy framework, the paper considers actor perspectives, interests and interrelations in the broader institutional and political context in order to analyse and the prospects for carbon forestry and REDD+ to contribute climate compatible development in Mozambique. REDD+ debates in Mozambique are coloured by international as well as domestic debates over land and forest governance, and remain somewhat divisive. Perhaps surprisingly, REDD+ is relatively marginal in the broader climate change and development debates in the country. It is as yet unclear what REDD+ will look like in practice, and most of actors' perspectives - whether in favour or opposed to REDD+ and carbon forestry - are based on expectations of what might be, and on perceptions of the purpose of carbon forestry, rather than actual experience. The government has recently passed a decree setting out governance processes for REDD+ in Mozambique, which may open up scope for piloting and a learning process. The possible outcomes of REDD+ projects and initiatives for climate compatible development can be considered as consequences of two key factors: first, the level of community control over land and resources, and second, the mix of natural and plantation forests and other land use activities. Across these two dimensions there is a range of possible models for REDD+/carbon forestry, all of which may be deemed 'climate compatible' in the sense that they could be designed to provide mitigation benefits as well as income, livelihoods and adaptation benefits. In practice, however, the outcomes for different groups and for Mozambique's adaptive capacity and overall contributions to emissions reduction and climate stabilisation are likely to vary significantly, depending on the models adopted and the broader opportunities and constraints presented by Mozambique's overall development context. In particular, local communities are at risk of losing out from large scale carbon plantations or exclusion from natural forests, whereas private sector REDD+ operators and conservation agencies may be able to capture the benefits. On the other hand, while exclusionary approaches could undermine sustainability, in more inclusive approaches, the level of benefits available to rural community members may be very limited if alternative income generating projects and systems for sustainable forest utilization are not established alongside carbon payments, which in themselves are unlikely to support adequate levels of payments to participating farmers. We conclude that a political economy analysis of REDD+ and carbon forestry options are an important complement to discussions around technical feasibility and economic affordability, and can in turn help expand the understanding of policy constraints and opportunities for REDD+/carbon forestry to support climate compatible development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]