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DAPA’s Research Projects Intern Opportunities

Name and Contact of the Proponent Decision and Policy Analysis Research Area (DAPA) of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) CIAT, Kilometro 17 Recta Cali-Palmira, Palmira, Colombia Phone: +57 2 4450000 (direct), +1 650 8336625 (via USA), Fax: +57 2 4450073 (direct), +1 650 8336626 (via USA) E-mail: Andy Jarvis, Carolina Navarrete-Frias Websites: http://www.ciat.cgiar.org, http://dapa.ciat.cgiar.org

Goals and functions of the organization The International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) is a non-profit international research organization, supported by the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), and with headquarters in Cali (Colombia). The mission of CIAT is to alleviate rural poverty in developing countries, and contribute to enhanced management of the natural resource base.

CIAT has been working during the last 40 years in helping poor farmers by providing agricultural technologies (i.e. management practices, improved varieties, better policies). As an international research organization for development, we benefit from a broad, in-depth and multi-sectorial understanding of development issues in a rural setting. The centre works throughout the tropics, but with a strong focus in Latin America.

The Decision and Analysis Policy Research Area aims to contribute to improved decision making across Latin America through the provision of novel and accurate information about agricultural systems and associated natural resources from the farm- to the continental- level; and to influence key governmental and non-governmental organizations to ensure that the rural poor benefit from public and private sector policies.

DAPA’s main thematic research areas are: Climate Change, Ecosystem Services, Linking Farmers to Markets, Impact Assessment, Gender Analysis and Capacity Strengthening.

The key objectives of the DAPA are:

To maximize the impact and returns on investment of agricultural research and development through

ex ante and ex post impact assessment

To contribute to improved management of critical ecosystem services through pro-poor payment

schemes for water in Latin America

To understand the likely impacts of climate change on agricultural systems, livelihoods and critical

ecosystem services, and identify adaptation strategies from local to global level

To ensure that public and private sector policies provide the opportunity for smallholder farmers to

profit from emerging market opportunities

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1. Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)

Project description The CGIAR Research Program 7 (CRP7), Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), is a strategic ten-year partnership emerging from new collaboration between the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) aimed at overcoming the additional threats posed by a changing climate to achieving food security, enhancing livelihoods and improving environmental management in the developing world. CCAFS brings together strategic research in agricultural science, development research, climate science, and Earth System science, to identify and address the most important interactions, synergies and tradeoffs between climate change, agriculture and food security. As a collective effort coordinated by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), CCAFS will become a hub that facilitates action across multiple CGIAR centers and other CGIAR Research Programs while involving farmers, policy makers, donors and other stakeholders, to integrate their knowledge and needs into the tools and approaches that are developed.

CCAFS focuses in 5 regions (initially West Africa, East Africa and South Asia and soon Latin America and South East Asia) and is structured around four closely inter-linked global Research Themes. Theme 1: Adaptation to Progressive Climate Change; Theme 2: Adaptation through Managing Climate Risk; Theme 3: Pro-poor Climate Change Mitigation; Theme 4: Integration for Decision Making.

Suggested issues for the student(s) to analyze The research to be undertaken by the students would deliver on CCAFS Theme 1, led by Andy Jarvis. Theme 1 efforts focus on building adaptive capacity and food systems that are more resilient to progressive climate change (2020-2050) through the provision of technologies, practices and policies. Its three main objectives are to: 1. Analyze and design processes to support adaptation of farming systems in the face of future uncertainties

of climate in space and time. A key new component will be the development of improved choices, and integration of crop, livestock, fish and natural resources management approaches;

2. Develop strategies for addressing abiotic and biotic stresses induced by breeding for future climate change

climatic conditions, variability and extremes, including novel climates. The intention here is to try and stay ahead of future change;

3. Integrate adaptation strategies for agricultural and food systems inserted into policy and institutional frameworks. The intention here is to examine the enabling environment for on-the-ground adaptation to progressive change, focusing on three levels: local level institutional supporting functions; national level policies and strategies; and international level genetic resources policy to enable movement of seed material.

The research undertaken by the students might particularly contribute to this third objective and to the achievement of Improved institutional arrangements and socially differentiated adaptation planning approaches at the local level to enable farming system adaptation. Some related research questions include: Given a rapidly changing environment of non‐climatic drivers, what is the best approach for integrating

individual technological, biodiversity management, livelihood, market adaptation and policy options into comprehensive local‐level adaptation packages?

How do social, cultural, economic and institutional factors mediate adaptation processes at the local level and how can these be mobilized to improve resilience?

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Other topics that the student could also address include to:

Climate financing

Public-private partnerships for adaptation

Supply chain adaptation plans and strategies

Business case for adaptation in supply chains

All research activities conducted by the students within the scope of the project will represent key inputs for

adaptation pathways to climate change in all CCAFS interventions throughout the world.

More information For further questions, please contact Andy Jarvis or Osana Bonilla You can also visit our website, a short description of the program and some of the CCAFS posts on challenges and opportunities for climate change policies, national workshops to support climate-change policies in agriculture and agriculture and climate change in Nepal.

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2. Amazonia - The Security Agenda: Responding to Imminent Threats Project description The Amazonia Project is lead by the Global Canopy Program (GCP) and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and financed by the Climate Knowledge and Development Network. The project aims to understand how climate change exacerbates food, water, energy, and health security in the Amazon region, thus impacting on sustainable development as well as potentially triggering conflicts over access to these securities.

Through collecting state of the art knowledge and promoting debate, policy analysis, multidisciplinary expert knowledge and scenario planning, the project seeks to look for best mechanisms to strengthen current national and regional policies and strategies and explore potential climate compatible pathways for the Amazon region. As a direct outcome of the project, a set of policy recommendations aimed at multi-sectoral decision makers are expected to be produced, which should reframe climate in the development agenda.

The project will look at the impacts of climate change beyond borders and highlight the interdependency between the four securities. The project scope, whilst focusing on Brazil, Colombia and Peru, also includes the Andean Amazon countries of Bolivia and Ecuador.

Three major work-streams are integrated in the project:

Science: supporting the knowledge on different “securities in the region”

Communications: strengthening engagement of stakeholders throughout the process

Policy: raising interest and awareness of climate security as a crucial component of the national development goals, poverty reduction strategies and policy agendas

Suggested issues for the student(s) to analyze The research to be undertaken by the student(s) would deliver on the Policy work stream. The policy engagement element is of particular importance, and should go beyond raising interest and awareness of climate security as a crucial component of national and international agendas. In order to ensure for the sustainability of the entire initiative, decision makers and key actors need to be mobilized for concrete action. Some related research questions worth exploring include:

What are the interlinks between climate change and the four securities - water, food, energy and health and what specific short, medium and long-term policy interventions can be designed and implemented, guaranteeing that risks are reduced and that climate-compatible sustainable development is maximized in the region?

What type of policy-level interventions may guarantee that certain changes in one type of security has less effects on the provision of the other securities and that there is a balance in the sustainable provision of water, food and energy in the region?

What implications does this initiative have for cooperation in the region in terms of security seen through the five lenses- climate, water, food, energy and health? What challenges and opportunities for cooperation can be identified?

More information For further information, please contact Andy Jarvis or Carolina Navarrete-Frias. You can also visit our blog.

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3. Food Security and Ecosystem Services

ASSETS (Attaining Sustainable Services from Ecosystems through Trade-Off Scenarios) is a project that aims to quantify the linkages between natural ecosystem services that affect and are affected by food security and nutritional health for the rural poor at the forest-agricultural interface. The initiative belongs to an international team of experts and researchers: University of Southampton, Conservation International (USA), Basque Centre for Climate Change, Chancellor College (Malawi), LEAD Africa and The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). The project is funded by The Department for International Development (DfID), The Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) and The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in the UK. The consortium will undertake world class research on ecosystem services (ES) for poverty alleviation at the forest-agricultural interface and deliver evidence from a range of sources to inform policy and behaviour which will make a difference to the lives of 2 million poor people living in our case-study regions, and potentially up to 550 million people living in similar environments around the world. Cutting edge modelling and risk management tools will be developed and integrated to address a series of key scientific research questions. The consortium’s expertise presents unique opportunities for essential interdisciplinary research, and their ongoing work will deliver exceptional value for money. Three overarching themes are integrated within the project:

Theme 1: Drivers, pressures, and linkages between food security, nutritional health and ES.

Theme 2: Crises and tipping points: Past, present and future interactions between food insecurity and ES at the forest-agricultural interface

Theme 3: The science-policy interface: How can we manage ES to reduce food insecurity and increase nutritional health?

Among key deliverables of the initiative we distinguish:

Research excellence: conceptual framework paper, high quality and high impact research papers (disciplinary and multidisciplinary), policy briefs, as well as other publications destined for non-academic audiences, with clearly-defined communications strategies and detailed impact plans.

New data/methods and techniques: employing the ARIES (Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services) modeling framework, developing and applying ecosystem services - risk management tools (Bow-Tie)

Development impact: delivering world class research evidence which can influence and inform policy; working with ESPA (Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation) to develop a Theory of Change and Impact Statement for the project; collaborating with key policy and development agencies to facilitate impact of research on poverty; communicating and providing knowledge and evidence to local development actors, to potentially help improve the lives of the 2 million people at the chosen study sites; achieving wider impact via policy engagement locally, nationally and internationally with the potential to affect the lives of 550 million people at the forest-agriculture interface.

Capacity building: training of team members, policy analysts, academics, university students and other key stakeholder groups in application of ARIES, hydrological modeling, multidisciplinary research, scenario-building exercises, etc.

Suggested issues for the student(s) to analyze A valuable input to our efforts would be students’ contributions to one of the following research questions related to Theme 3:

What best—fit policies can manage and/or minimize the effects of environmental change, land use change and related future risks on the sustainable provision of ecosystem services and food provision and nutritional health?

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How can we consolidate different levels of policy and decision making (at local, regional, national and global scales) to better manage ecosystem services conflicts and tradeoffs to sustain food security and health?

Which policy interventions should be put in place for addressing the tipping points to minimize environmental degradation?

Which are the ecosystem services that are more important for food security and nutritional health?

We also welcome any other research-related suggestion that falls within the scope of the current project. For more information, you can visit our blog or http://espa-assets.org/ You can also contact Andy Jarvis or Carolina Navarrete-Frias

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4. An Eye on Habitat Change Project description Terra-i: an eye on habitat change is an initiative to detect habitat changes in Latin America and the Caribbean, lead by CIAT’s Decision and Policy Analysis (DAPA), The Nature Conservancy TNC and The King’s College London and The Higher School of Engineering and Business of the State of Vaud (HEIGH-VD) in Switzerland. Terra –i is an early-warning system, the first tracking system for habitat loss across Latin America. It uses neuronal networks, vegetation satellite data (MODIS NDVI) and rainfall (TRMM) from 2004 to the present, to detect deviations from the natural cycle pattern of vegetation in time, therefore, identifying probable anthropogenic impacts on natural ecosystems. Apart from being a tool for monitoring the conversion of natural habitats in near real time, with a continental coverage of all types of habitat (including protected habitats), Terra-i is also a spatial support system for decision making in public policy and private development initiatives. At the same time it facilitates the understanding of the effectiveness of protected areas and other conservation measures in stabilizing or reducing land cover conversion

Suggested issues for the student(s) to analyze We would like students to contribute to our efforts to analyze the impacts of national and local policies on land cover in Latin America. Up until now, we gathered valuable information on environmental policies implemented in Brazil between 1965 and 2009, as well as on annual deforestation rates per each department. The idea is to follow-up on this effort and attempt to identify countries in the region that have high deforestation rates and compare them against countries with the same level of socio-economic development in the region, but where deforestation rates are lower and/or have reduced over time. Such an effort would facilitate the understanding of the policy and institutional-related prerequisites for effective forest protection in the region. Having this comparative study-approach in mind, and by comparing countries with the highest and lowest deforestation rates in the region, possible research question would touch upon:

What types of policies and institutions are most effective in promoting forest conservation?

What are the incentives to design and implement effective forest conservation policies?

What are the main institutional set-ups (in terms of norms and rules) that make protected areas an effective tool to conserve forests?

For the moment, our priority lies within the analysis of the policy-practice linkages in Brazil, where we have already gathered the data needed for the study. However, since Terra-i is working in the entire Latin-American and the Caribbean region, we welcome other country suggestion from the students.

More information For more inside stories on forest losses and gains in Latin America, you can visit the Terra-i website.

For further questions please contact Alejandro Coca or Louis Reymondin.

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5. Center of Excellence for the Evaluation of Vulnerability and Impacts of Climate Change in the Andes

Project description It is without doubt that climate variability affects the Andean regions where the most vulnerable groups of populations live, such as indigenous communities and small producers. Dependence on natural resources, geographical location, poverty rates, social and political exclusion and economic insecurity affect directly and indirectly agricultural production, thus calling for adaptation plans and strategies able to reduce climate vulnerability of Andean populations. The Project Center of Excellence for the Evaluation of Vulnerability and Impacts of Climate Change in the Columbian, Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes of the United Nations Environmental Program – The Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNEP-ROLAC) seeks to identify the areas most vulnerable to climate change in Latin America and the best-fit interventions that can address the challenges and risks imposed by climate change in the region. The main objectives of the project are

To enhance the understanding of vulnerability in agriculture and water resources in the Northern and Central Andes region;

To complement the already existing local efforts to assess vulnerability and impacts in he Nor Yauyps-Cochas region and its buffer zones in Peru;

Replicate the Vulnerability and Impact Assessment initiative in the region, by disseminating knowledge, key findings and lessons learned from this current initiative.

To this end, the Center of Excellence, lead by CIAT, is mandated to carry out an array of activities that fall within two main components:

1) Evaluation of vulnerability and impacts on a regional scale in the Colombian, Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes. Some of the main activities include: developing a database with climate data, crop modeling impact and adaptation; developing an inventory for best-practices in adaptation, elaborating a methodology for assessing vulnerability and impacts in the region.

2) Dissemination of the methodology and final results of the above-mentioned Evaluation. The main activity of this component is the launching of an online platform within the UNEP REGATTA Programme (Regional Gateway for Technology Transfer and Climate Change Action) that should serve as a hub for sharing knowledge and information on climate change generated under Component 1 and promote multi-institutional interaction.

The Centre of Excellence established through the project is one of the main centers developed in the region. Others include the Southern Cone (Gran Chaco Americano) and Mesoamerica.

Suggested issues for the student(s) to analyze Some related research themes and questions that the students could analyze:

What are the threats for ecosystem services provision in the region and what type of policy-level interventions could ensure the sustainable use of water for agriculture and other income-generating activities?

What are the opportunities and challenges for South-South Cooperation in terms of knowledge and experience sharing on vulnerability and adaptation pathways in the region, given the key Centers of Excellence?

What major lessons learned can we draw from the current project in terms of designing and disseminating vulnerability and climate change impact assessment?

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For more information, please visit our blogs on vulnerability and climate change impacts in the Andes and on the Project’s stakeholder’s workshop. You can also contact Jeimar Tapasco, Simone Staiger or Brayan Valencia.

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6. Linking Farmers to Markets: How effective are public sector supply chains policies for rural poverty reduction? Lessons learned from Colombia

Project description The Linking Farmers to Markets unit within the Decision and Policy Analysis (DAPA) area of CIAT, with the financial support of the Ford Foundation, is leading a three-year project on agricultural supply chain public policy. The project objective is to gain greater understanding of rural development policies in place in Colombia, one of the leading proponents of national supply chain policy in Latin America. In particular, the project will identify which policies have or have not been effective, both for increasing the competitive capacity of rural economies and for reducing rural poverty. Ultimately, we will share lessons learned with a wide range of public policy decision-makers, contributing to a more informed debate about the advantages and disadvantages of public investments and incentives in this area. Three fundamental questions have guided the project:

Are the macro and micro level public policies implemented by the Colombian government effective at supporting competitive agricultural supply chains while at the same time reducing rural poverty?

Is there any emerging trade-offs between pro-poor public investments and the ones exclusively devoted to enhance competitiveness capacities, or can the two complement each other?

What innovations are needed for greater policy impact, including achieving coherence between micro and macro interventions?

The three project components correspond to macro, meso and micro level policy analysis, respectively. The first component examines the impact of agricultural supply chain policy interventions on farmers’ competitiveness capacities and on rural poverty reduction in the country. Regarding agricultural geographical targeting, the findings indicate that although supply chain policies have been effective in improving chain competitiveness they have not necessarily targeted poor rural municipalities. Regarding effectiveness, the project reaches to the conclusion that the institutionalization of supply chains, defined by the performance of regional supply chain agricultural committees, is relevant to improving competitiveness and reducing poverty. The second component encompasses structured interviews with key public policy representatives from three regional supply chains selected according to their institutional performance level: cacao in the department of Santander (high); vegetables in the department of Boyacá (medium); and plantain in the department of Quindío (low). The interviews provide insight into the strengths and weaknesses of specific meso-level public policy interventions. This component is still underway; however initial findings seem to reinforce the results of the first component. They reveal, for example, that although macro-level public policy strategies implemented locally may improve agricultural chain competitiveness, poor smallholder producers are not likely to receive the benefits. Additionally, policy interventions concerning research and development are more effective than those concerning market integration or inclusion.

Suggested issues for the student(s) to analyze The third component of the project plans to introduce a micro-level analysis of the effect of specific public policy interventions on the livelihoods of smallholder producers that belongs to one of the Colombian agricultural supply chains mentioned above. As part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers, and with the collaboration of senior DAPA-CIAT staff, a student will be able to suggest, design and implement an original research tool to propose innovative agricultural policy recommendations to the Colombian government. For example, a PAE-designed survey could be conducted with a representative sample of small agricultural producers that benefit from current supply chain policies. This component will attempt to identify precisely

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how policy interventions have influenced chain competitiveness and rural poverty as defined in a multi-dimensional context, taking into account economic, social and other general human development indicators. Contact For further information, you can contact Rafael Isidro Parra-Peña or Mark Lundy.

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7. Adapting to climate change through the conservation and use of crop wild relatives

Project description The Global Crop Diversity Trust (Bonn) in partnership with the Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (London) lead a ten-year (2011-2020) global project entitled Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change: Collecting, Protecting and Preparing Crop Wild Relatives. The project intends to examine the conservation status of the wild relatives of major crops worldwide and support the collection and conservation of populations that represent gaps in ex situ (genebank) collections. The project will then transfer traits of value for adaptation to climate change from these wild species into cultivated lines through pre-breeding, and evaluate these in the field, for the final purpose of providing more options to farmers in adapting to climate change. The data generated in order to complete the project will be openly available to the global community for further use as conservation tools, and both the wild species populations collected and the promising lines generated will be available to the global community for breeding and research under the terms of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources.

As the first stage in the project, our team at CIAT is gathering species distribution and conservation status data through biodiversity databases, herbarium records and germplasm passport data, and utilizing GIS technologies to map these occurrences and perform a “gap analysis” in order to inform efficient and effective collecting of populations from areas not currently represented in genebanks.

Suggested issues for the student(s) to analyze We are in charge of gap analyses for a long list of the world’s most important crops. Performing these analyses both requires and provides experience in botany, conservation, species distribution modeling, and statistical analyses. We are also comparing our results against expert opinion through a comprehensive expert evaluation process. A student joining our team will have the opportunity to participate in this research as well as the outreach and publications arising from it. For more information, you can visit the Project’s website and recent blogs on preliminary results and CWR in crop improvement, You can also contact Colin Khoury and Nora Patricia Castañeda Alvarez