Local knowledge refined with tech & funds can help climate adaptation in Asia-Pacific: IFAD

What is the News?

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has released a report titled “Building climate resilience in the Asia Pacific region report”.

What are the key highlights of the report?

Asia Pacific Region and its vulnerability to Climate Change

The Asia-Pacific region is home to two-thirds of the world’s poorest people. Climate change is posing an additional threat to the region, and the rural population dependent on rainfed agriculture has been affected.

According to UNESCAP, climate, weather and geophysical hazards cost the region an estimated $780 billion annually. So, climate resilience and adaptation must be prioritised to deal with these challenges.

What are the measures needed to be taken to deal with the Climate Crisis?

Local knowledge must be used for adapting to the climate crisis.

Effective use of technology to accelerate climate risks and impacts assessments. For example, Digital mapping along with local knowledge can be useful to identify climate-vulnerable hotspots.

Public-private partnerships should be adopted, as private players can provide new inputs needed by smallholder farmers when they adopt new crops and cultivation techniques. They can also connect them with markets for new, more profitable kinds of produce.

The initiative launched by IFAD to help adapt to Climate Change

Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP)

ASAP was launched by the IFAD in 2012. It is the organisation’s flagship programme for channelling climate and environmental finance to smallholder farmers. 

The programme has helped smallholder farmers in 41 countries cope with the impact of climate change and build more resilient livelihoods.

These included rural development projects in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal and Vietnam.

This programme ran from 2012-2017. Now the Enhanced Adaptation for Smallholder Agricultural Programme(ASAP+) will be launched. It will focus more on women and youth.

Source: This post is based on the article “Local knowledge refined with tech & funds can help climate adaptation in Asia-Pacific: IFAD” published in “Down To Earth” on 2nd November 2021.