Contributions

Foresight, climate change analysis and priority setting: Foresight and ex-ante impact analyses will be continued and enhanced to refine and characterize the target agroecologies and lines of GLDC research that are likely to have high payoffs and where the research will be most relevant. The work takes into account climate change, demographic trends and socio-economic changes affecting supply, demand and trade and also examines the distributional benefits of new technologies and management practices. For example, foresight analysis will provide insights into the changes in diets and consumer preferences with urbanization and income growth that would have important implications for GLDC research to respond to such trends.

Climate change is one of the major drivers to which continued attention must be paid especially with dryland agri-food systems being particularly vulnerable. This requires analyses of the implications of climate change taking into account the characteristics and variability in target agroecologies in order to improve the long-term resilience of production systems, strengthen their adaptation capacities and reduce risks and shocks. Rigorous foresight and ex-ante impact assessment also involves expert and stakeholder consultations and aims to guide GLDC research prioritization. Research questions include:

What are the desired (by different stakeholders) sustainable development outcomes in the target areas and what are the plausible outcomes under different future scenarios?

Which set of interventions or lines of research and new technologies and management practices would have the greatest impacts on food and nutrition security, poverty reduction and sustainable natural resources management under a changing climate?

In which geographies will the research be most relevant?

Which lines of research would have the greatest benefits for women and the youth?