Collaboration by variousstakeholders including governments, NGOs and research bodies is needed now to rapidly scale-up the African agricultural sector to improve food security and resilience to climate change,” said Mrs Estherine Fotabong, NEPAD Programmes Director, at the NEPAD Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) event held on the sidelines of COP21 in Paris, on December 7.Research by NEPAD (www.Nepad.org) through the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme shows that climate change effects are becoming more frequent and more severe, threatening the reliability and productivity of agriculture, exacerbating the already extreme levels of poverty, and reinforcing persistent inequity and chronic under-nutrition.The African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is supporting the implementation of CSA in Africa through the Agriculture Climate Change Programme and other related initiatives. These efforts will sustainably increase productivity, resilience and adaptation, as well as build capacity at all levels, especially for smallholder farmers and institutions in order to attain the goal of 25 million African farmers practicing Climate-Smart Agriculture by 2025.
