Making climate-smart agriculture “plan-able”: Evidence from district-level adaptation planning in Tanzania

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has emerged as a central policy response to the impacts of climate change on agriculture in Tanzania. However, its effectiveness depends less on the availability of appropriate practices than on how it is embedded within decentralised planning systems. This paper examines how CSA policies are translated into district-level adaptation planning, using Mvomero District as a case study. The findings show that although CSA is strongly articulated within national policy frameworks, its operationalisation remains uneven due to sector-based budgeting, limited institutional capacity and weak coordination. It introduces “plan-ability” to explain how institutional arrangements shape policy translation and local prioritisation.