Faced with the climate emergency that is disrupting agricultural systems in West Africa and the Sahel, boosting the resilience of agricultural sectors is no longer an option, but a strategic necessity. Prolonged drought, flooding, seasonal irregularities, soil degradation, food insecurity... these are just some of the challenges that call for concrete responses, based on proven technologies that are adapted to the realities of producers.
CORAF, in collaboration with the International Bioversity Alliance and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), organised a regional training workshop on the assessment and prioritisation of climate-smart agricultural technologies from 12 to 16 May 2025 in Lomé, Togo. This initiative was part of the Food Systems Resilience Programme and the AICCRA project, with the support of the World Bank.
For five days, experts from the FSRP/PRSA national implementation units and national research institutes in the eight beneficiary countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone) enhanced their skills in using a robust methodology (multi-criteria analyses) to assess the climate intelligence of existing agricultural T&I before rolling them out to farmers.
Specifically, the work enabled participants to find out whether the technologies currently being deployed in the project's areas of intervention meet the three pillars of climate-smart agriculture, namely productivity, adaptation and carbon mitigation.
The ambition of CORAF and its partners through this regional workshop was to facilitate the appropriate use of technologies and innovations for scaling up climate-smart agriculture (CSA).
The training of experts from national PRSP implementation units and researchers from national research institutes on T&I assessment has further confirmed CORAF's position as a key player in the development and scaling-up of climate-smart agricultural innovations and technologies.
