Résumé
Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) initiatives require that tradeoffs and synergies between three goals - production, adaptation and mitigation – be addressed, in contexts with contrasting challenges. Cross country evaluation of the climate smart-practices implemented in the main productive systems of seven countries of Latin America and the Caribbean shows that they have reached different achievement levels in their environmental and socio-economic dimensions. While it is clear that existing sustainable development initiatives have facilitated the adoption of climate-smart practices, the enabling conditions for their dissemination and long-term viability have not been established. We carried out a meta-analysis of the type of climate smart-practices identified in the seven countries and the conditions that enabled their adoption and development. On the basis of an expert-based typology of climate-smartness, we determined degrees of adoption of climate-smart measures, and challenges for their wider implementation as perceived by main stakeholders in the agricultural sector. Then, we reviewed the biophysical, institutional and political context and identified which elements induced the adoption of smart-practices and which tend to block them. We conclude by highlighting some differences between CSA and standard rural development, calling for renewed policy action.