1. Laura Cramer, CCAFS Science Officer
How communities and organizations interact to strengthen adaptive capacity and food security in the face of climate change
Laura Cramer, CCAFS Science Officer
Science Officer for CCAFS flagship on Priorities and Policies for Climate Smart Agriculture

2. Introduction
Co-authors: Laura Cramer, Wiebke Foerch, Ianetta Mutie, and Philip Thornton
Data from CCAFS village and organizational baselines in West Africa, East Africa, and South Asia
All data available:
Data for this paper came from the CCAFS baselines, carried out in in 15 sites in West Africa, East Africa, and South Asia. Now data available for Latin America and Southeast Asia as well but not when we started writing this paper several years ago.
All CCAFS baselines data available on Dataverse.

3. 15 sites in 13 countries
Study sites

4. Purpose and research questions
Purpose: how do men and women value organizations working in their communities, especially on food security?
… to better inform policy and programming
Research questions:
Which levels and what types of organizations operate within the community, and what is their value as perceived by men and women?
How are the components of food security addressed by these organizations perceived differently by men and women, and what are the community-identified gaps within the organizational portfolios?
What are the key disconnects between organizational priorities and the activities valued by men and women?

5. Analytical framework: Sustainable livelihoods + Adaptive capacity

6. Ratio of local to total organizations named, by men and by women
Men: local / total
Women: local / total
During the village baseline, participants worked in separate groups of women and men. They were asked to name all the organizations working in their community. We then coded those organizations as either local or external, and we can see that women named a higher ratio of local to total organizations than men in many of the sites.
This indicates that women are more often connected to local organizations and men have more knowledge of and connections to external organizations. Aligns with findings from other researchers who have found that extension services often have a bias toward men, and women can lack the political capital to access government or other services effectively. May lead to men having a higher adaptive capacity than women because of better access to services.

7. Thematic focus of top 5 organizations
The baseline participants provided information on each organization they listed as working in their community, such as what kind of work they do, how long they have existed, the number of members, etc.
We then asked them to rank the organizations they had listed by which are most valuable to their lives. From this ranking exercise, the baseline participants came up with the top 5 organizations for men and for women.
In East Africa, both men and women most value organizations working on welfare and livelihoods. Examples of these are self-help groups that assist widows and orphans or community-based organizations that contribute to funeral expenses.
In South Asia, men most valued groups working on capacity enhancement, while women prioritized groups focusing on education and health, sanitation and hygiene.
In West Africa, both men and women ranked groups working on food security very highly.
Men ranked organizations working on health, sanitation and hygiene more often than expected

8. Top 5 organizations by type
There are differences in which types of organizations were most valued by women and men.
In East Africa, women most valued community-based organizations (CBOs) within their top five, while men placed nearly equal weight on government agencies, CBOs, and international organizations.
In South Asia, both men and women valued government agencies by far the most.
International organizations were not valued in the top five at any of the South Asian sites.
In East and West Africa, men and women both valued government and CBOs to a great extent. These CBOs fulfill a critical role in the lives of men and women because they are means through which the local community can show agency and express their aspirations, which are important aspects of adaptive capacity.

9. Organizations by region and focus
After the village baselines, we used the lists of organizations created by the village participants to select which organizations to interview. We focused on those related to the CCAFS mandate of climate change, agriculture and food security, so we did not interview organizations that were mostly focused on things like health, religious education, or the very local organizations. So this list of organizational themes is intentionally narrowed, but we can see that most organizations are focused on food security in all of the regions. Organizations can be classified into more than one category here.

10. Focus on food security
Women name more organizations working in food security than men
Food availability is main focus of food security work
Gaps identified by participants:
Overemphasis on production
Too little on storage, access and utilization
Not enough capacity strengthening
Women not linked to extension services
Lack of coordination, weak government services
Participants were asked which organizations work on food security and which component of food security (availability, access, and/or utilization)
Women name more organizations working in food security than men, BUT
men named more organizations working on food availability than women in six sites out of the 15, whereas women named more organizations working on food access than men in all but one of the 15 sites.
Women named more organizations working on food utilization in 10 out of the 15 sites and the same number as men in four sites.
Most organizations working on food security focus mainly on the availability component.
There are far fewer organizations working on access, as perceived by the community.
Food utilization was the component that received the least attention, and was addressed mostly by external organizations.

11. Community vs. Organizational priorities
Community priorities
Organizational areas of focus
East Africa: welfare and livelihoods (men and women); savings and credit (women)
South Asia: education and health/sanitation (women)
West Africa: food security and capacity enhancement (men and women)
East Africa: welfare and livelihoods lower emphasis than food security and NRM
South Asia: food security
West Africa: food security and capacity enhancement
The self-reported objectives of organizations operating within the community were summarized, based on the OBS. These were compared against the community-perceived value of organizations, as identified in the VBS, to identify disconnects between what men and women perceived local organizational priorities to be, the value in terms of support they provided, and what the organizations were themselves reporting to be providing.
We cannot expect that the match between what communities value and what external organizations provide will be exact because external entities cannot and should not cater to all community needs.

12. Organizational priorities
Little evidence of targeting at local level
Focus on agricultural production at local level
Climate change mainstreamed into natural resource management activities in East and West Africa
Traditional extension services and some support to self-help groups – but no mention of strengthening adaptive capacity
In the organizational interviews, we asked the respondents whether their organization targets any specific groups. Most did not report any specific targeting.
We also asked what activities they work on in the communities, and most reported activities that were aimed at increasing agricultural production.
Organizations that named climate change activities mostly reported work that could also be classified as natural resource management, for example, improved cook stoves or reforestation.
The assistance being provided is mainly in the form of traditional extension services. There was very little mention of building adaptive capacity or resilience. So while international NGOs and even national level governments are using these terms a great deal, it does not seem that these concepts are filtering down to the local levels.

13. Implications for policies and programming
More explicit targeting needed
Greater focus on access and utilization
Better efforts to coordinate when working in same area
Adaptive capacity of communities should be an explicit focus
Work should be organized through existing groups, especially women’s groups (but not ignoring men)
Need to be careful not to place additional burdens on women
To answer “What are the key disconnects between the gendered perceptions of self-identified organizational priorities and the identified priorities of men and women?”
Although the women in our study say they value food security activities, especially those improving access, most organizations interviewed focus on increasing production when they list food security as an objective. This focus on production frequently leaves women out of activities, and is a major reason why gender norms need to be considered as a key factor in the SL+AC framework.
By focusing more on agency, aspirations, and other aspects of AC, and by involving women specifically and explicitly, organizations could be empowering communities to improve their food security in the face of climate change through collective action.

14. Thank you
Full paper:
The full paper is available open access (thanks, Sophia). If anyone has questions on the CCAFS baseline data please get in touch with me through my . Thank you.