Food and Water Security under Global Change: Developing Adaptive Capacity

with a Focus on Rural Africa

The project “Food and Water Security under Global Change: Developing Adaptive

Capacity with a Focus on Rural Africa” aimed to provide farmers, policymakers,

and other stakeholders in Ethiopia and South Africa with tools to make better

adaptive decisions in the face of climate-related risk. The project combined

household surveys and stakeholder forums, which examined local perceptions of

The Coordination and Change Enabling Project (G5) worked in providing an enabling environment that promote connectivity of project research across topics and scales, from household agriculture- aquaculture farming systems to community polder water management through broader land use planning. The project also served as an interface between the programme and a variety of existing and potential stakeholders and worked towards scaling out research results to multiple stakeholders with common interest in achieving the goals for the CPWF for the Ganges coastal zone.

This study of the evolution of AWM in the Volta Basin yielded key recommendations for research-for-development interventions and new concepts for research on water management. When promoting AWM strategies, projects should carefully study the available information on factors triggering adoption,

and play on these to ensure sustainable uptake of the technology. Local capacities and agendas should be better accounted for when promoting AWM strategies or low-cost irrigation technologies. Participatory

In the northern highlands of Ethiopia, establishment of exclosures to restore degraded communal grazing lands has been practiced for the past three decades. However, empirical data on the effectiveness of exclosures in restoring degraded soils are lacking. We investigated the influence of exclosure age on degree of restoration of degraded soil and identified easily measurable biophysical and management-related factors that can be used to predict soil nutrient restoration.

The aim of this study was to evaluate accuracy of farmer's paternity identification which determines success of future breed selection and hence genetic gain. Paternity of 269 Orma/zebu and Sahiwal/zebu calves was evaluated using genetic markers and the likelihood based method. Results indicate that only 6.7% farmer alleged paternities were confirmed, 88% parent-offspring relationships were rejected and 18% parent-offspring relationships were undetermined. However, 82% of offsprings were assigned at least 80% confident paternities to one of the sampled candidate males.