This month, IIRR embarks on a new regional research project entitled: Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs) as Platforms for Resilience Building, Women Empowerment, Equity, and Sustainable Food Systems. This is a 26-month project supported by IDRC. The research is designed to further generate evidence and new knowledge on the role of local platforms such as Climate-smart villages (CSVs) in supporting climate change adaptation in agriculture. Building on its work with the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and its various partners in implementing CSVs in the Philippines, Myanmar, and Cambodia, IIRR will study the contributions of CSVs and climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in enriching local food systems for better nutrition, enhancing livelihoods, gender equity and inclusion, and increasing household resilience.
The study will also develop tools and metrics to assess contributions of the CSV program to household resilience and household dietary diversity. It will explore how CSA promotion results in women’s economic empowerment and to what extent it affects local food systems in agriculture-based study communities.
Keeping the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in mind, the research will look at the effects of the pandemic in the local food system and how farmers, particularly women, can benefit from this project.
Additionally, new knowledge materials such as toolkits, guidelines, manuals, working papers, and case studies will be produced from the research done. Through this work, a business case on investing in CSA and CSVs can be developed
