The NICADAPTA project in Nicaragua supported smallholder coffee and cocoa producers in adapting to climate change and strengthening their livelihoods.
Nicaragua’s economy is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events such as hurricanes and floods, as agriculture employs nearly one-third of the population, with coffee and cocoa as key exports. However, changing rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, and soil acidification caused by climate change have significantly threatened coffee production, leaving small-hold farmers particularly vulnerable to the on-coming changes of climate change.
The Nicaragua Adapting to Markets and Climate Change Project (NICADAPTA) aimed to help smallholder farmers increase productivity and build resilience. The project supported producer organizations in designing and implementing investment plans, while also providing technical assistance in production technologies, marketing, and agro-climatic information. A second focus was on institutional strengthening, enabling farmer cooperatives to access services, improve organization, and better respond to climate risks.
What methods will be employed?
C4ED was tasked to conduct an impact assessment, that aims to identify the causal impact of NICADAPTA on the beneficiary population, to generate lessons learnt for future program design. To assess the project’s impact, C4ED worked with IFAD’s Research and Impact Assessment Unit (RIA) to design a mixed-methods evaluation. This approach combined quantitative surveys with qualitative interviews and group discussions, providing both numbers and stories behind the results. The evaluation is built on primary data collected from coffee and cacao cooperative members through structured surveys, key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs). Data was collected from coffee and cocoa cooperative members at two points in time—baseline in 2014 and endline in 2021—allowing changes to be tracked over the project’s lifespan. By bringing together survey results, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions, the evaluation not only measured the project’s impact on key outcomes but also explained why certain changes happened, and why others did not.