This project addresses the challenge of scaling climate smart nutrient management among African smallholder farmers by addressing the institutional factors and conditions relating to CSA knowledge service delivery (the CCAFS overall research question). It aims to understand and improve the ‘scaling readiness’ of climate smart, nutrient management decision support tools (DST) in different institutional environments: Ethiopia and Tanzania. ‘Scaling readiness’ is seen as the product of: (a) the fit between the DSTs (and its constituent climate smart nutrient management advices) and their envisaged users who operate at different scales, and; (b) the necessary (institutional) conditions which enable scaling by these different actors (i.e. extension, NGOs, agro-dealers). By working directly with different users operating at different scales, we examine the user logics that can inform the design of better decision support tools and the enabling (institutional) environments, which together shape the effective scaling of climate smart nutrient management advice.

Locally-relevant and high yielding chicken breeds can enhance the income, nutrition and food security of small-holder households in rural areas. The African Chicken Genetic Gains (ACGG) project is identifying such breeds in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Because rural women are generally more involved in chickens than men, ACGG developed locally-relevant and high yielding chicken breeds mostly by involving women farmers to ensure that these new breeds respond to their needs. Now that these new breeds are available, they need to reach women from the most remote areas. This proposed project aims to develop, promote and test women-led chicken businesses in Ethiopia and Tanzania with the goal of promoting the economic empowerment of young women, and also of improving the food and nutrition security of their households. The intervention builds on the work of existing private partners in each country - who multiply ACGG genetic material and disseminate day old chicks (DOCs) – to reach customers (small-holder women in remote areas) who they may otherwise be unable to serve through their usual channels. It also leverages ACGG’s Gender Strategy goals to enhance gender equity in access to technologies, skills and services, to progress towards women’s empowerment and to provide evidence on gender dynamics in the value chain (ACGG Gender Strategy, 2017). Through this project, we show whether and how a private sector intervention can be combined with small-scale and women-led businesses to enhance access to improved chickens in remote areas. We also show how such an approach may provide opportunities for the economic empowerment of local women. We focus in particular, on gender-responsive approaches that ensure women, and young women in particular, keep control of the income generated through the new business. Finally, the study explores how the economic empowerment of women relates to the nutritional status of their household members.