Digitalisation is acknowledged as a tool to scale the climate-smart agriculture solutions but for this to happen, capacity building for countries to better coordinate their data as the foundation for digital solutions is a must. Countries need national space for data exchange, where harmonisation takes place, to reduce the current duplication and conflicting national statistics.
Roundtable outcomes
Outcomes of the roundtable centred on holistic approaches for national food systems and, in some cases, continental challenges like infrastructure and technologies, breaking away from piecemeal solutions and instead, strengthening value chains.
The discussions also touched on the need for better soil management and water irrigation, improved production systems, and the provision of storage facilities. Also emerging was the need for quality data collection - including on weather, production and post-harvest loss. Issues of market access, clean cooking and equitable, gender-responsive climate finance were also raised.
The teams from the Commonwealth Secretariat will use the outcomes from the roundtable to inform cross-sectional programmes and how to take learnings from the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub – now in its tenth year – to replicate unlocking and mobilising finance.
