Climate-smart agriculture in Southeast Asia: lessons from community-based adaptation programs in the Philippines and Timor-Leste

This chapter presents a systematic and comparative analysis of adaptation and mitigation practices implemented in smallholder agricultural systems in two Southeast Asian countries. Our specific focus is on two Australian Aid-funded community-based adaptation programs (2012–15) implemented in the Philippines and Timor-Leste. Using mixed qualitative methods, we undertook a comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between the two case studies. We identified five vital characteristics of climate-smart practices: institutional strategies, devolved financing mechanisms, knowledge, technology, and market conditions. For three of the five characteristics (institutional, finance, and market), we describe different practices and processes that were used to integrate adaptation, mitigation, and food security outcomes. In both sites, climate-smart agriculture (CSA) was associated more with addressing climate vulnerability than with mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Our findings reveal that a combination of multilevel, multiactor, and participatory on-farm and off-farm actions are more effective in advancing CSA than solely “technical” actions