# Assessing actors' interventions networks for climate smart agriculture in Honduran dry corridor

Carlos Eduardo Gonzalez R, Jean-François Le Coq

► To cite this version:

Carlos Eduardo Gonzalez R, Jean-François Le Coq. Assessing actors' interventions networks for climate smart agriculture in Honduran dry corridor. Latin American workshop on climate-smart agriculture, Jul 2021, Medellin, Colombia. 2 p. hal-05177585

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Submitted on 22 Jul 2025

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# Title: Assessing actors' interventions networks for climate smart agriculture in Honduran dry corridor.

Carlos Eduardo Gonzalez R¹; Jean Francois Le Coq¹,²

1: *Alliance Bioversity and Ciat*; 2: *Cirad ART Dev*

## Communication in the Latin American workshop on climate-smart agriculture, July 2021

**Topic: Developing enabling policies and institutions**

Technical University of Munich and EAFIT University
Medellin Colombia

### Abstract

To address the challenges of climate change in agriculture, the concept of climate smart agriculture (CSA) has been proposed to synergistically achieve climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as food security goals, through the scaling of CSA practices. To achieve such adoption in territories, setting an enabling institutional context is necessary.

In Latin American region, there is a multiplicity of policies and interventions from public and private actors that already seek to support producers in facing climate and production challenges in agriculture. The multiplicity of actors and their interventions generates a complex system that defines the characteristics of the local institutional environment to face the challenges of agriculture in the face of climate change. Although each actor follows its own objectives, they interact and relate to each other, forming a *de facto* institutional network. We consider that the characteristics of this institutional network (its density, its spatial coverage) are a key element to investigate the coherence, consistency and relevance of the system of attention to rural territories to face climate challenges. Hence, understanding the dynamics and actions of the institutions network in the territories may facilitate decision making to prioritize actions and strengthen their impacts. While studies regarding enabling factors or policies for CSA, as well as vulnerability and adaptive capacity of territories mapping, there has been so far few analyses that allow a holistic evaluation of the interventions of an institutional network in territories. This paper aims to fill this gap through a study implemented in the Honduran dry corridor.

The Honduran dry corridor has high levels of climate vulnerability, social fragility and low economic development. This situation has stimulated the action of multiple institutions to mitigate and find solutions, each with its own capacities and expertise, forming a multi-relational network (issues of interventions such as agriculture, food security, and climate change) and scalar (space). However, despite this remarkable presence of actors in the dry corridor, social and environmental indicators show stagnation in time and space. Thus, the Honduran dry corridor is a very relevant space to assess the actors' intervention networks.

This communication covers the following objectives: 1) to describe the system of institutional actors (public administration, NGO, international cooperation) in the Honduran dry corridor territory, regarding climate change, agriculture and food security related interventions, 2) to analyze the institutional deployment in the municipalities of the Honduran dry corridor by exploring and analyzing the structure of the multi-relational network, 3) to analyze the relevance of interventions network at territorial level, considering the vulnerability and adaptation to climate change capacity of the municipalities.

The methodological path included through interviews and surveys to the main institutions involved in intervention in the Honduran dry corridor (n=55) as well as a review of secondary sources, such as websites, public policy documents and plans, projects of private institutions in open consultation sites. This information was used to develop three types of analysis: a) an actors' and intervention mapping, and an analysis of the institutional network at both global (structure, diameter, density) and local level (nodal positions, centrality, navigability, etc), b) a bipartite network analysis evidencing institutions and municipalities linkages to capture
spatial coverage of interventions, c) a cross analysis between interventions at municipal level and potential future vulnerability levels at the same scale, to inquire the relevance of the current coverage of the institutional network.

The actors' and intervention mapping identified 167 organizations with interactions in the region, including international, private and public organizations. The presence of foreign organizations stands out, as 30 international cooperation organizations, such as development banks, scientific and cooperation organizations, among others conducted intervention in the region. In contrast, the educational organizations and their intervention appears as very low levels in the region (only 4 actors from private institutions and 2 from public institutions were registered).

Regarding the interventions in the dry corridor territory, the results show that climate change, food security and agriculture oriented actions account for 40% of the total number of interventions detected for more than 150 municipalities in the dry corridor; the rest of the actions respond to financial issues, legal advice, poverty reduction, governance and infrastructure, among others. The key actions are not distributed homogeneously in the territories of the Honduran dry corridor; rather, 8 municipalities concentrate about 43% of such intervention. It is worth mentioning that the actors that have greater centrality in the institutional network, express patterns of horizontal cooperation relations (positive assortativity).

The bipartite network, which capture the connection between institutions and municipalities, identified 3 patterns that reflect different situations in terms of institutional attention. In the core of the bipartite network there is a high density of relationships between institutional actors and municipality, which corresponds to municipalities where many actors intervene in a non-exclusive manner. In the periphery of the bipartite network, there are two areas in the form of ego-network and/or fat tails. One corresponds to situations where many institutions connect exclusively to a single municipality, and the other corresponding to municipalities that are supported by one actors. In addition, the findings reveal that geographically there is a pattern of less intervention in municipalities farther away from economic centers and poles.

Regarding the spatial coincidence between the interventions of the institutional network and the vulnerability of the municipalities, the results reveal spatial mismatch, as only 9% of the actions of the institutional network correspond are undertaken in highly vulnerable municipalities.

Our results suggest that there is still improvement for collaborative actions in the institutional network as well as for spatial prioritization of interventions toward vulnerable municipalities. A dialogue at the territorial level, involving the greatest number and diversity of actors is suggested in order to develop a regional agenda to establish a more coherent and efficient institutional network in the region. Such agenda will then increase the relevance and efficiency of institutional attention to the municipalities of the dry corridor, and thus an institutional environment for a scaling up of CSA in the region.