ABSTRACT
Although scientific research on climate-change impacts on the agricultural sector in Africa is accumulating, applying the results to improve adaptive capacity, especially among smallholder farmers, still lags behind. This is evidenced by the increases in climate-change impacts on agricultural productivity (see e.g. UNEP 2011; Hepworth 2010; Ziervogel and Zermoglio 2009; Fischer et al. 2005; Mendelsohn 2000). Some scholars have argued that this research–policy disconnect is a result of misalignment in the timing and duration needed to undertake proper research, versus the need to deliver policy recommendations, resulting in slow and incomplete processes of translating scientific evidence into appropriate policies in developing countries (see e.g. Aaserud et al. 2005; Hennink and Stephenson 2005; Hanney et al. 2003; Stephenson and Hennink 2002; Walt 1994). Others hold that poor communication between researchers and policy-makers further widens the science–policy gap, particularly as regards dissemination after the research project has ended. On the one hand, policy-makers contend that scientific information is usually presented in academic formats that are inaccessible to them; on the other hand, researchers feel that policy-makers lack understanding and respect for research, and that this limits the use of research in policy formulation (Hennink and Stephenson 2005; Stephenson and Hennink 2002). Yet others have argued that although the publication of research findings is important, this is generally not sufficient to change policy and practice (Aaserud et al. 2005; O'Brien and Vogel 2003). As O'Brien and Vogel explain, ‘…even if perfect forecasts were disseminated in an optimal manner, there remain significant factors constraining their use and thus limiting their value’ (2003:18). Several authors (Vogel and O'Brien 2006; O'Brien and Vogel 2003; Ingram et al. 2002; Broad and Agrawala 2001; Roncoli et al. 2001, 2000) have identified these constraints as relating to social inequities, market forces, political instability and civil strife – gender inequality and social exclusion, limited options available to farmers including credit, alternative seeds, draft power, irrigation and land availability.
