Knowledge

Higher temperatures, wildlife extinction, rising sea levels, droughts, floods, heat-related diseases and economic losses are among the consequences of climate change. Climate change disproportionally affects the poorest and most marginalized communities living in vulnerable regions, among them indigenous peoples, whose livelihoods depend on natural resources. 

Bangladesh is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries affected by climate change. During the monsoon period, the Haor region of Bangladesh becomes completely inundated with 4-8 metres of water for around 6-7 months of the year. Flash fl oods are common, and in some years 80-90 per cent of crops are lost because of extreme weather events. The situation is expected to worsen as a climate
change-related shift towards pre-monsoon rainfall is coinciding with the paddy rice pre-harvest period. This severely affects food output in the Haor, which provides up to 16 per cent of national rice production.

Policies affect every dimension of the institutional and legal context in which poor rural people pursue their livelihoods. They shape the world they live in and the economic opportunities open to them. This means that supportive policies can go a long way towards providing the conditions in which people can lift themselves out of poverty. Conversely, policies that do not create opportunities, or that exclusively reflect the interests of other economic players, can be an insuperable barrier or an unbridgeable gulf – roadblocks barring the way out of the poverty trap.

Climate change is the most compelling challenge facing the world today. It affects rural smallholders across the developing world, with effects that pose a grave threat to their own, and to the world’s food security.

Fisheries and aquaculture are important contributors to food security and livelihoods at household, local, national and global levels. However, while aquaculture production is growing rapidly throughout the world, particularly in Asia and Africa, many of the world’s fisheries are at grave risk from human pressures, including overexploitation, pollution and habitat change. Climate change is compounding these pressures, posing very serious challenges and limiting livelihood opportunities.

​The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted a critical trade-off between agricultural development and climate change mitigation.

The Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP) was launched by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in 2012 to make climate and environmental finance work for smallholder farmers. A multi-year and multi-donor financing window, ASAP provides a new source of cofinancing to scale up and integrate climate change adaptation across IFAD’s approximately US$1billion per year of new investments. The programme is joined up with IFAD’s regular investment processes and benefits from rigorous quality control and supervision systems.

ASAP is driving a major scaling up of successful ‘multiple-benefit’ approaches to smallholder agriculture, which improve production while reducing and diversifying climate-related risks. In doing so, ASAP is blending tried-and tested approaches to rural development with relevant adaptation know-how and technologies. This will increase the capacity of at least 8 million smallholder farmers to expand their livelihood options in an uncertain and rapidly changing environment.

​This HTDN is directed primarily at the design phase of IFAD value chain projects, though it does have some relevance for both pre-design and implementation phases.