Abstract
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) represents an important approach for enhancing agricultural systems’ adaptation and resilience to climate change and weather shocks while reducing emissions, sequestering carbon, and increasing the productivity and incomes of agricultural households - i.e., just transitions (Dinesh et al., 2017; FAO, 2024, 2013; Sova et al., 2018). CSA is vital in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), as their economies are often more reliant on agriculture and disproportionately impacted by climate change and extreme weather events compared to other countries (Chandra et al., 2018; Lipper et al., 2014; Taylor, 2018). Climate policy can boost CSA adoption across various contexts (Chandra et al., 2018; Lipper et al., 2014). CSA-related funding has substantially increased over the past decade, with broad policy measures implemented in LMICs (Dinesh et al., 2017; Sova et al., 2018). However, assessments of where CSA practices are implemented, their relative success, and their influence in delivering climate-oriented policy outcomes remain largely unknown. We seek to address this critical gap by producing an evidence and gap map (EGM) showing existing research that provides evidence on the effectiveness of climate policy in supporting CSA and climate policy outcomes in LMICs. Our EGM will identify, collect, map, and describe available evidence in LMICs on the CSA interventions and their relationship to climate policy outcomes or results at any governance level. Evidence will be peer-reviewed journal articles and grey literature. Our focus is on outcomes and impacts of CSA programs, projects, and policies on climate policy objectives. We will include three outcome categories: climate change adaptation and resilience; climate change mitigation; and just transitions (which we define as the effects on productivity, incomes, and wellbeing of agricultural households). This EGM will delineate areas of high, low, or non-existent occurrences of evidence on CSA intervention effects on climate policy outcomes.
