Title: The Political Ecology of Climate Change Adaptation Interventions with Smallholder Farmers in Egypt

For many farmers in Egypt, smallholder agriculture has turned into a "failed project" (Makhlouf, 2023, p. 38). Yet, this failed project remains the main livelihood for nearly 57% of Egyptians living in rural areas, who are also the poorest and most food insecure (World Bank, 2021). The precarious livelihood of farming is enduring worsening conditions rooted in historical systems of inequality and exclusion that continue to this day (Ayeb & Bush, 2019; El Nour, 2023). With minimal resources, farmers not only struggle daily to find solutions for the heightened water stress and growing inflation (Makhlouf, 2023), but also the inescapable challenge of climate change that is affecting their crop yield, water, soil, animal health, and will dramatically affect agricultural production in the coming decades (World Bank, 2021). Within this context, during COP27, hosted by Egypt in 2022, the Government committed to supporting
agriculture and smallholder farmers' adaptation through the "Nexus of Water, Food and Energy (NWFE)" programme. NWFE has an expected cost of US$14.7 billion and has "resilience" as one of its promised outcomes (MoIC n.d.). However, critics argue that there is a weak evidence-base for the transformative ability of adaptation projects (Berrang-Ford et al., 2012) and that "resilience-building" interventions have a concerning track record of ignoring structural barriers to adaptation (Mackinnon and Derickson, 2021). In response to these issues, especially the global need for better evidence for resilience-building under the climate crisis, this project aims to adopt a farmer-centric approach towards answering the following questions:
1. What interventions are underway to help smallholder farmers adapt and build resilience in response to climate change in Egypt? Who is funding and implementing these initiatives? How are they similar or different from past efforts to improve smallholder livelihoods?
2. What are smallholder farmers' perceptions of and priorities for resilience-building in relation to climate change and agriculture? How do these differ along the lines of age, gender, socio-economic status, etc., and why? To what extent do smallholders' perceptions and priorities align with and/or depart from those associated with adaptation interventions?
3. How, if at all, are the effects of emergent resilience-building interventions differentially experienced among diverse groups of smallholders? What opportunities exist to make these interventions more equitable, just, and sustainable, as informed by the context and experiences of smallholders?
By answering these questions through qualitative ethnographic methods, this dissertation will offer important insights into how smallholders themselves understand and experience adaptation and resilience-building. As these types of interventions expand globally with the worsening climate crisis, this information is vital, especially in Egypt where little work has been done on adaptation. Nonetheless, this research is set to impact policy-making as well as knowledge production on resilience-building in adaptation approaches well beyond Egypt and its region.