Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA Project)

DESCRIPTION: The Project Development Objective of AICCRA is to strengthen the capacity of targeted CCAFS (CGIAR Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security) partners and stakeholders, and to enhance access to climate information services and validated climate-smart agriculture technologies in IDA-eligible countries in Africa.

AICCRA will focus on bridging the gap between the organizations that generate and make available climate knowledge and CSA technologies and the organizations and individuals that take up, re-transmit, or otherwise make use of the climate knowledge and CSA technologies, for the purpose of enhancing the resilience of Africa’s agriculture and food systems in the face of climate change. Through support to CCAFS, AICCRA will strengthen the technical, institutional, and human capacity needed to move CGIAR innovations off the shelf, so that with the help of other partners they can achieve impacts at scale in IDA-eligible countries in Africa.

AICCRA will consist of four components—three technical and one for project management. All activities will be undertaken for the benefit of IDA-eligible countries in Africa. Because implementation arrangements will rely on existing partnerships that have been established under CCAFS, and because different organizations are responsible for providing oversight on CCAFS activities in different geographical areas, each of the technical components is divided into three geographically focused sub-components: (1) Africa-wide (oversight provided by CIAT), (2) Western Africa (oversight provided by ICRISAT), and (3) Eastern and Southern Africa (oversight provided by ILRI).

These project components are:
1. Knowledge Generation and Sharing for Effective Services
2. Partnerships for Delivery
3. Supporting the Uptake of Climate-Smart Agriculture Innovations through Piloting
4. Project Management
IRI will have activities in each of the components except project management. Specifically, IRI’s activities will focus mainly on the below sub-components. Specific deliverables and activities will be included in the workplan as elaborated with project leadership and included in the MARLO planning platform.