Community-based agricultural extension

Practical Action Consulting (PAC) is the consulting arm of Practical Action, an international non-governmental organisation that uses technology to challenge poverty in developing countries. Through technology PAC enables poor communities to build on their skills and knowledge to produce sustainable and practical solutions - transforming their lives forever and protecting the world around them. Every year PAC uses technology to help over 1 million people out of poverty.

Agriculture is predominantly rainfed in Ghana where the climate is dominated by the inter tropical convergence zone and the hot, dry harmattan winds blowing from the Sahara.The south of the country experiences a bimodal rainfall regime, with a major and a minor rainfall season while the north of the country has a unimodal rainfall regime. Climate change scenarios show that mean temperatures in the Savannah Zones, predominantly in the north, can be expected to increase by approximately 2°C by 2050.

Science and Technology Policy Institute have served as a top think tank in science and technology. Ranked top 16 in the 2015 Global Think Tank Rankings, STEPI guides the development of the national policy agenda and leads foresight research in Korea. STEPI has been designated as the implementing agency for science, technology, and innovation ODA by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.

This paper reviews the central role of institutions for climate-smart agriculture (CSA), focusing on the role of institutions in promoting inclusivity, providing information, enabling local level innovation, encouraging investment, and offering insurance to enable smallholders, women, and poor resource-dependent communities to adopt and benefit from CSA. We discuss the role of state, collective action, and market institutions at multiple levels, with particular attention to the importance of local-level institutions and institutional linkages across levels.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is a research and academic type of an institution established in 1975 with the mission to provide research-based policy solutions that sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. It provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. It is a research centre of the CGIAR Consortium, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development.

Differences in the roles and responsibilities of men and women in farm households are likely to influence their capacity to adapt to climate change as well as the choice of adaptation strategies. However, governments, development agencies, and NGOs often lack the information needed to facilitate gender-sensitive adaptation to climate change.

‘Agricultural extension’ describes the services that provide rural people with the access to knowledge and information they need to increase productivity and sustainability of their production systems and improve their quality of life and livelihoods. Recent developments in agricultural policies have re-emphasised the importance of extension services (extensionists are technically qualified individuals who provide outreach services to rural areas).