
Examples from randomized evaluations in several countries show how new technologies and policy interventions can lead to climate adaptation, particularly when there is an enabling environment that creates incentives for climate adaptation. If not, we run the risk of investing in interventions that are either ineffective or less effective than competing approaches. At the same time, on the ground randomized evaluations should be done to tell us which of our adaptation investments are achieving the desired objectives. Our goal should be to direct our adaptation investments to policies with proven effectiveness. Namely, what policies and interventions protect agriculture the most from climate change? The current climate crisis presents a similar challenge. Since 2020, J-PAL’s Middle East and North Africa office (J-PAL MENA), based at the American University in Cairo, has been working with the government, NGOs, and other stakeholders to use randomized evaluations for informing policy in Egypt and the broader region. The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), where I am an affiliated professor, works with governments across the world to carry out randomized evaluations studying what works and what does not work for lowering poverty. These investments have the potential to support programs and policies that trigger climate adaptation.īut the policy approaches that we take should be based on rigorous on-the-ground evidence that studies both the efficacy of adaptation investments and the incentives that farmers face to take them up. Along these lines, Egypt’s Ministry of International Cooperation has launched the Nexus of Water, Food, and Energy Program (NWFE) to implement multiple projects targeting the water, food, and energy sectors.
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Countries in the Global South - where temperatures are already high - suffer a disproportionate burden because extreme heat is much worse than moderate heat for crop yields.Įgypt, like many other countries, faces the challenge of how to adapt the agricultural sector to climate change.

Importantly, these effects are uneven over space. Production of fruits and vegetables is projected to decline sharply as climate changes.

The negative effect of climate change is not limited to staple foods. Projections show substantial declines in future yields under unmitigated warming.
