BULLETIN 1
Scaling Climate-Smart Water Solutions: IWMI’s Innovation Bundles and Pathways to Impact under CGIAR’s Scaling for Impact Initiative

International Water Management Institute (IWMI) June 18 2025
CGIAR

 

As climate variability, water stress, and food insecurity intensify across agrifood systems, innovation alone is no longer enough—scaling innovation equitably and sustainably is now the imperative. Under the CGIAR Scaling for Impact (S4I) Initiative, Action Area of Work 2 (AoW2) focuses on unlocking and scaling climate-smart water innovations—from precision irrigation and circular economy models to landscape-scale planning and institutional transformation.
At the heart of this effort is the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), leading efforts across 14 countries in Africa and Asia to co-design and scale bundled innovations that respond to pressing challenges such as water scarcity, degraded landscapes, and unsustainable irrigation practices. In line with its scaling principles, IWMI’s approach prioritizes demand-responsive solutions, multi-stakeholder engagement, and adaptive learning systems that ensure relevance, uptake, and long-term sustainability.
Pathways to Scale: From Innovation to Transformation
IWMI’s work under AoW2 is built around three innovation bundles, each representing an integrated set of solutions tailored to different scales and entry points for system change.
Innovation Bundle 1: Solar Irrigation and Farm-Level Water Solutions
IWMI is supporting the co-development of solar-powered irrigation technologies, groundwater monitoring systems, and farmer-led irrigation development (FLID) strategies. These interventions aim to lower energy costs, expand water access, and empower smallholder farmers through inclusive service delivery models.
Key examples include:
• Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya: Designing solar irrigation bundles with flexible ownership and service models to suit local agri-entrepreneurs and cooperatives.
• Ethiopia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi: Integrating solar pump sizing tools with groundwater governance frameworks and decision-support dashboards for soil and water conservation (SWC).
• Nepal: Piloting volumetric water allocation models for more equitable and efficient use in large irrigation schemes.
• Bangladesh, India: Implementing impact sprints, on-grid solar pilots, and data-driven groundwater tools to support smallholder productivity.
These farm-level innovations demonstrate how bundled technologies—when aligned with local demand and market systems—can drive inclusive scaling and transform irrigation practices at scale.

Innovation Bundle 2: Landscape-Scale Soil and Water Management
Beyond individual farms, IWMI is promoting innovations that support the management of entire watersheds and agro-ecological landscapes. This includes tools for landscape governance, adaptive planning, and water accounting that help countries optimize resource use under growing climate pressure.
Current scaling efforts include:
• Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia, Malawi: Delivering innovation ecosystem assessments and synthesis reports that map enabling conditions for landscape-wide adoption of SWC and water-smart practices.
• Bangladesh: Developing seasonally adaptive irrigation advisory services using real-time and spatial data.
• Uzbekistan, Egypt, Morocco: Operationalizing water accounting tools and interactive dashboards that inform national and subnational planning and investment.
IWMI’s landscape-scale work integrates technical innovation with institutional diagnostics, ensuring that policy coherence, governance capacity, and investment flows support sustainable scaling.
Innovation Bundle 3: Water-Related Circular Economy Solutions
To address the dual challenges of water scarcity and environmental degradation, IWMI is scaling circular economy approaches that enable water reuse, waste recovery, and resource efficiency across food and water systems.
Ongoing initiatives include:
• Morocco and Egypt: Co-developing cost-benefit methodologies to support national water reuse strategies and piloting safe, efficient reuse models.
• Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia, Malawi: Assessing innovation ecosystems to design viable business models and policy incentives for circular solutions.
These efforts contribute not only to climate adaptation and resource recovery, but also to green job creation and environmental sustainability—making circular water innovations central to just transitions.
What’s Next: Scaling with Systems Thinking and Partnerships
IWMI’s approach to scaling goes beyond deploying technologies -it focuses on embedding innovations within systems that sustain long-term impact. This involves engaging users and institutions from the outset, adapting solutions in real-world contexts, strengthening enabling environments through policy and finance, and leveraging partnerships to scale both horizontally and vertically.
Grounded in local co-creation, evidence-based policy support, and adaptive learning, IWMI’s work under AoW2 aligns with national priorities and complements other CGIAR initiatives on climate resilience. In 2025, IWMI is intensifying efforts in 14 countries actively integrating water innovations into national strategies. With innovation bundles as the entry point and systems change as the goal, IWMI is helping scale what works -sustainably, inclusively, and urgently.
See https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/scaling-climate-smart-water-solutions-iwmis-innovation-bundles-and-pathways-to-impact-under-cgiars-scaling-for-impact-initiative/

 

BULLETIN 2

Raising productivity and profits, How AgWise is Closing Yield Gaps through AI

CGIAR June 18 2025

 

  

 

Nairobi, 13 June 2025 (IITA) – Across Africa smallholder farmers battle working with degraded soils, inefficiency farming methods and climate change impacts which are constraining their productivity and profitability.
What if a digital tool could help them make science-backed decisions on fostering soil health, knowing what seeds to plant, the type of fertilizer to apply and even what crop varieties to grow and at which time?.
Enter AgWise – a free AI-driven platform that delivers site-specific, climate-smart advice on varieties, fertilisers, planting times and other good agronomic practices.
By integrating spatial data, crop models, and AI and machine learning, AgWise helps farmers optimize inputs, boost yields, and nurture soil health thereby turning guesswork into precision farming, according to Dr. Wuletawu Abera, a Senior Scientist at Multifunctional landscapes lever of Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.
Smallholder farmers often face low productivity due to climate variability, soil degradation, and suboptimal crop and input management, Dr. Abera said.

About 80 percent of cultivable land in Africa is degraded and up to 60 kg of nutrients per hectare are lost annually. Research predicts that by 2050 over half of the current arable land in Africa may be unusable because of degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change which has worsened soil erosion.

Soil degradation affects one third of global farmland, with up to 80 percent of degradation happening in Sub Saharan Africa caused by water and wind erosion.
Dr. Abera explains. The AgWise tool was developed to address farming challenges by delivering site-specific, climate-informed, and soil-responsive fertilizer and soil health recommendations tailored to the needs of smallholder systems.
Closing the research and practice gap
Developed in 2022 through a multidisciplinary effort involving CGIAR agronomists, data scientists, and software developers under the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) Initiative, AgWise builds on cutting edge tools like AKILIMO – a digital agronomic advice tool for cassava farmers, RiceAdvice, an advice tool for rice farmers, and NextGen AgroAdvisory – data-driven decision support tool for Ethiopia.
AgWise is a data cruncher. It integrates data on local soil conditions, weather patterns, and cropping systems to generate geographic specific recommendations allowing farmers to apply the right fertilisers at the right time and in the right amounts.
The digital tool has been piloted in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Rwanda, with remarkable results: higher yields, improved nutrient efficiency, and better alignment of inputs with local conditions.
See https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/raising-productivity-and-profits-how-agwise-is-closing-yield-gaps-through-ai/

 

SCIENTIFIC NEWS

Degradation of biodegradable plastic films in soil: microplastics formation and soil microbial community dynamics
Yue Wang, Run-Hao Bai, Qi Liu, Qiu-Xiang Tang, Chang-Hong Xie, Aurore Richel, Christophe Len 5, Ji-Xiao Cui, Chang-Rong Yan, Wen-Qing He

J Hazard Mater; 2025 Jul 15: 492:138250. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2025.138250.

 

  

 

Abstract
Biodegradable plastic poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) has raised concerns regarding the release of PBAT microplastics and their potential environmental risks. In this study, PBAT plastic films were incubated in soil for 180 days to investigate the temporal evolution of PBAT microplastics and the dynamic responses of soil bacteria and fungi. The results showed that PBAT microplastics initially increased to a peak before decreasing by 74.7 % within 180 days. The predominant microplastics were film-shaped and smaller than 10 μm. Based on the temporal patterns, three distinct phases were identified: the initial release phase (0-30 days), the critical release phase (60-120 days), and the critical degradation phase (150-180 days). Notably, dominant fungal biomarkers with prevalent saprotrophic functions, particularly Humicola and Schizothecium, promoted the formation of PBAT microplastics by structurally fragmenting the PBAT film. In contrast, dominant bacterial biomarkers associated with dominant metabolic functions, such as Verrucomicrobiota, primarily contributed to the degradation of the PBAT microplastics by utilizing them as carbon sources. Our findings offer new insights into systematically evaluating the environmental behavior and potential environmental risks of biodegradable microplastics and provide a theoretical basis for strategies aimed at accelerating the degradation of biodegradable microplastics in soil environments.
See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40228453/