Impact pathways from climate services to SDG2 (“zero hunger”): A synthesis of evidence

Abstract

Climate services can help address a range of climate-sensitive development challenges, including agricultural production and food security. However, generating empirical evidence of impact is challenging. In this paper, we synthesize published evidence of pathways by which climate services contribute to improved food security. A summary of key mechanisms by which climate risk drives food insecurity provides a context for understanding potential climate risk management interventions. Our review of available evaluation literature finds moderately strong evidence that climate services contribute to improvements in food security or its precursors through farmers’ risk management decisions and index-based agricultural insurance; and a weaker body of emerging evidence of impacts through timelier humanitarian and adaptive social protection interventions. There are gaps in the available evidence of anticipated food security impacts through agricultural value chain actors, government agricultural planning, nutrition interventions and policy. Attributing SDG2 impact to climate services is particularly challenging for initiatives that aim to build an enabling environment to scale and sustain impacts of climate services through capacity development and policy engagement with national institutions. In such cases, employing a theory of change approach grounded in the evolving body of evidence included in this review can provide confidence that improved production and use of climate services by actors along hypothesized impact pathways will contribute towards improved food security.