Positioning agricultural research for effective contribution to climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa: enhancing "knowledge to action" and "action to knowledge"

Africa’s development is and will continue to be greatly affected by the potential threats ofclimate change, leading to changes in the continent’s development trajectory including disruptionof the food systems. The expected changes are complicated by the pursuit of divergent interestsby social groups, private sector and the governments operating at different levels. In this reviewpaper, we seek to provide a framework for promoting “actionable knowledge” on climate changeat national, regional and global scales. Climate change negotiations and collective action formthe international level domain. Divergent interests of social groups, private sector andgovernments constitute the national domain. In the climate change realm, it is obvious thatinteractions and feedbacks between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ domains are more inclined towardsshaping dynamics within the African domain. The neutrality and carbon offsetting myth, carbonfinancing mechanisms, technology transfer, capacity building, and now reduced emissions fromdeforestation and ecosystem degradation (REDD) are differently perceived at the interface of theinternal and external domains. The focus of this paper is not internal-external domains’ interface,but how agricultural education can be enhanced so that knowledge generated can effectively beused by different sub-units within the internal domain in translating climate change adaptationinto reality. How that translation should be done is a challenge that developing country grapplewith, especially when external sub-units use trade and funding to pull the ‘strings’. In such ascenario, Africa, as an internal domain, has its interests influenced by the sub-units of theexternal domains. If we consider countries as units in the internal domain, governments as wellas being a facilitator and implementer, become principal agents in organizing and pushing for themainstreaming of adaptation mechanisms for climate change. These roles of government arecomplicated by the urgency of meeting short-term requirements vis-à-vis a large-scale longertermdonor climate change adaptation. Could agricultural research play a bridging role inensuring that sub-units within the internal domain have positive feedbacks that promote climatechange adaptation This paper focuses on how agricultural education can be refocused and restructuredso as to build on what we already know and build a strong foundation for futurelearning.

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