Abstract:
The international community has advocated the adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as lowerincome countries deal with the negative consequences of climate change. Scaling up such policies,
practices, and programs successfully will require support from a variety of local stakeholders. Such
support requires alignment between CSA solutions and the problem understandings of stakeholders.
However, problem understandings can differ across individuals, stakeholder groups, and geographic
areas. Consequently, we examine understandings of climate problems and socioeconomic and
infrastructure problems related to agriculture among different stakeholder groups in Uganda and
Senegal. We operationalized and measured these problem understandings following the detailed
guidance of the political will and public will approach for analyzing social change. Semistructured
interviews elicited stakeholder-generated lists of problems for each group. Limited quantification of
problem understandings and their relative importance or “ripeness” demonstrates how contexts might
shape opportunities for CSA.