Building Public Will for Climate-Smart Agriculture in Uganda: Prescriptions for Industry and Policy

The global policy community has largely converged on climate-smart agriculture as a solution to various problems driven by climate change, but mass adoption of the crucial innovations presents challenges – particularly in the developing world. Widespread, meaningful, and rapid adoption of climate-smart agriculture will require an appropriate enabling environment. This study uses the political will and public will approach to identify the obstacles and opportunities for upscaling of climate-smart agriculture innovations. In 2015 and 2018, two rounds of semi-structured stakeholder and expert interviews conducted by researchers in Uganda identified four relevant obstacle categories: agricultural extension; communication infrastructure; basic and agricultural infrastructure; and other incentives and disincentives. These categories are related to the five definitional components of public will to reveal pathways for enabling social change. Importantly, both infrastructure and appropriate incentives are necessary for diffusion and then continued use of climate-smart agriculture innovations, often in interrelated ways. The study concludes with a detailed discussion of the implications for industry, government, and donors.