In mid September, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) helped launch an innovative new data platform in Lusaka, Zambia that combines satellite rainfall estimates with the country’s existing network of rain gauges. The platform, developed with the Zambia Meteorological Department and through funding from NASA, is the latest to come out of IRI’s Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) initiative which aims to address the persistent problem of data scarcity and lack of access to climate information products in many African countries. The World Bank Group’s

ReliefWeb published a blog report on the progress of the Rural Resilience Initiative (R4) in Zambia. The program, launched by The World Food Program (WFP) and Oxfam, enables vulnerable rural households to increase their food and income security in the face of increasing climate risks. " In Zambia, smallholder farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture and constantly face challenges such as erratic rainfall, fragile soil and poor access to markets. Climate change places an additional burden on farmers’ food security by increasing the frequency and intensity of shocks including drought and flooding,"

The Government of Zambia has called on insurance firms to develop affordable weather index insurance products in the wake of climate change as they are part of the risk management mechanisms for crop protection among small-scale farmers, Zambia Daily Mail has reported. Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Given Lubinda said the effects of climate change are real, and Zambia is not excluded from the impact, evidenced by the negative impact of the El Niño phenomenon the country experiened during the 2015/16 farming season. “Therefore, farmers’ access to risk mitigation tools such as insurance