In Uganda, Ghana and Bangladesh, participatory tools were used for a socio-economic and gender analysis of three topics: climate-smart agriculture (CSA), climate analogue approaches, and climate and weather forecasting. Policy and programmerelevant results were obtained. Smallholders are changing agricultural practices due to observations of climatic and environmental change. Women appear to be less adaptive because of financial or resource constraints, because of male domination in receiving information and extension services and because available adaptation strategies tend to create higher labour loads for women. The climate analogue approach (identifying places resembling your future climate so as to identify potential adaptations) is a promising tool for increasing farmer-to-farmer learning, where a high degree of climatic variability means that analogue villages that have successfully adopted new CSA practices exist nearby. Institutional issues related to forecast production limit their credibility and salience, particularly in terms of women's ability to access and understand them. The participatory tools used in this study provided some insights into women's adaptive capacity in the villages studied, but not to the depth necessary to address women's specific vulnerabilities in CSA programmes. Further research is necessary to move the discourse related to gender and climate change beyond the conceptualization of women as a homogenously vulnerable group in CSA programmes.

This study compares responses to seasonal climate forecasts conducted by farmers of three agro-ecological zones of Burkina Faso, including some who had attended local level workshops and others who had not attended the workshops. While local inequalities and social tensions contributed to excluding some groups, about two-thirds of non-participants interviewed received the forecast from the participants or through various means deployed by the project. Interviews revealed that almost all those who received the forecasts by some mechanism (workshop or other) shared them with others. The data show that participants were more likely to understand the probabilistic aspect of the forecasts and their limitations, to use the 434 Climatic Change (2009) 92:433-460 information in making management decisions and by a wider range of responses. These differences are shown to be statistically significant. Farmers evaluated the forecasts as accurate and useful in terms of both material and non-material considerations. These findings support the hypothesis that participatory workshops can play a positive role in the provision of effective climate services to African rural producers. However, this role must be assessed in the context of local dynamics of power, which shape information flows and response options. Participation must also be understood beyond single events (such as workshops) and be grounded in sustained interaction and commitments among stakeholders. The conclusion of this study point to lessons learned and critical insights on the role of participation in climate-based decision support systems for rural African communities.

Abstract. To capture lessons from the 2007 Rift Valley fever (RVF) outbreak, epidemiological studies were carried out in Kenya and Tanzania. Somali pastoralists proved to be adept at recognizing symptoms of RVF and risk factors such as heavy rainfall and mosquito swarms. Sandik, which means "bloody nose," was used by Somalis to denote disease consistent with RVF. Somalis reported that sandik was previously seen in 1997/98, the period of the last RVF epidemic. Pastoralists communicated valuable epidemiological information for surveillance and early warning systems that was observed before international warnings. The results indicate that an all or none approach to decision making contributed to the delay in response. In the future, a phased approach balancing actions against increasing risk of an outbreak would be more effective. Given the time required to mobilize large vaccine stocks, emergency vaccination did not contribute to the mitigation of explosive outbreaks of RVF.* Address correspondence to Christine C. Jost, International Livestock Research Institute, P.O. Box 30709, Nairobi, 00100 Kenya. E-mail: c.jost@cgiar.org 66 JOST AND OTHERS approach, participants were asked to focus on the period when the RVF outbreak was observed and to divide the individual piles of counters previously used to rank the livestock species by numbers into two sub-groups: those that developed RVF and those that did not. For those that had RVF, the counters were further subdivided into the proportion that died and the proportion that recovered. This method provided an estimate of the incidence of RVF in each species during the outbreak, as well as the outbreak case fatality rates and the overall mortality rate during the outbreak.Abortions attributable to RVF. Using the results of the proportional piling exercise for the relative numbers of each livestock species as the starting point, participants were asked to allocate the counters into two groups in proportion to those livestock that were pregnant before the RVF outbreak and those that were not. For the pregnant group, participants next divided the counters in proportion to those animals that aborted because of RVF and those that carried their pregnancies to full term. The pregnant pile was then restored, and participants asked to divide the counters to represent the proportions that would have been expected to abort in a normal year (with no RVF outbreak) and those that would have carried to full term. Supplementary questioning probed the causes of abortion other than RVF.Disease impact matrix score. For each livestock species a matrix was constructed on the ground, with benefits derived from that species along the y axis and diseases on the x axis. Participants were given 100 counters and asked to allocate them among the livestock-associated benefits according to the relative importance of each benefit, with the most important benefit receiving the highest number of counters. The counters for each benefit were then sub-allocated to each disease to show the relative negative ...

Journal articleAgricultural development efforts that do not address persistent gender gaps miss opportunities for greater impact. This synthesis reflects on key findings from integrated quantitative and qualitative analyses at the nexus of gender, agricultural development, and climate change. Linked farm household-, intrahousehold-, community-, and institutional-level data highlight significant and nuanced gender differences in adaptive capacity of individuals and communities to respond to climate change. The gender gap is also substantial in exposure to climate change and its impacts, and uptake of new practices that lower vulnerability. Women in agriculture will remain largely neglected by information and service providers unless their differing needs, access to, and control over resources are considered at policy and project design stage. Yet clear guidelines for addressing the needs of both men and women in different environments and agricultural systems are still lacking. Participatory ‘action research’ approaches with a focus on co-learning, and using innovative cell phone or social media-based approaches offer exciting new opportunities. Agricultural development decision-makers and project designers need to ‘design with gender in mind’. Equipping them with tools and knowledge of innovative gender-transformative practices and intervention options and creating accountability for serving women and men will be key.IFPRI3; ISI; CRP2EPTDPRCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM); CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS

No abstract

No abstract

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a zoonotic disease of great public health and economic importance transmitted by mosquitoes. The main method of preventing the disease is vaccination of susceptible livestock before outbreaks occur. Studies on RVF vaccines have focused on the production processes, safety, and efficacy standards but those on uptake and adoption levels are rare. This study sought to understand the barriers faced by men and women farmers in the uptake of livestock vaccines to inform strategies for optimizing the use of vaccines against RVF in East Africa. The cross-sectional qualitative study utilized the pairwise ranking technique in sex disaggregated focus group discussions to identify and rank these barriers. Results indicate that men and women farmers experience barriers to vaccine uptake differentially. The barriers include the direct and indirect cost of vaccines, distances to vaccination points, availability of vaccination crushes, intra-household decision making processes and availability of information on vaccination campaigns. The study concludes that vaccine provision does not guarantee uptake at the community level. Hence, these barriers should be considered while designing vaccination strategies to enhance community uptake because vaccine uptake is a complex process which requires buy-in from men and women farmers, veterinary departments, county/district and national governments, and vaccine producers.

The objective of this paper is to critically review and summarize available scientific and lay literature, and ongoing studies on human and porcine cysticercosis in Mozambique to identify knowledge gaps and direct immediate and long-term research efforts. Data on the spatial distribution and prevalence of the disease in human and swine populations are scarce and fragmented. Human serological studies have shown that 15-21% of apparently healthy adults were positive for cysticercosis antibodies or antigen, while in neuropsychiatric patients seroprevalence was as high as 51%. Slaughterhouse records indicate a countrywide occurrence of porcine cysticercosis, while studies have shown that 10-35% of pigs tested were seropositive for cysticercosis antibodies or antigen. Current research in Mozambique includes studies on the epidemiology, molecular biology, diagnosis and control of the disease. Future research efforts should be directed at better understanding the epidemiology of the disease in Mozambique, particularly risk factors for its occurrence and spread in human and swine populations, documenting the socio-economic impact of the disease, identifying critical control points and evaluating the feasibility and epidemiological impact of control measures and development of local level diagnostic tools for use in humans and swine.