Mapping the climate and agronomic digital advisory services landscape in West and Central Africa: A step towards making food systems productive and climate resilient

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0338010 December 3, 2025 6 / 20 coast has high adoption of improved seeds for rice, maize, and cash crops, climate variability significantly impacts crop performance. In the last decade, the agriculture sector has grown rapidly. Cash crops—including cocoa, tea, cashew nuts, palm oil, and natural rubber—drove most of this growth. The area farmed and production of staple crops such as maize, beans, corn, cassava, sweet potatoes, have also increased in the last decade, without any significant increase in yield. In con- trast, the yield of bananas increased with a simultaneous decrease in area. Overall, the six study countries are net import- ers of foodgrains. Food imports accounts for around 18% of the total import, the majority of which are cereals (16.5–35%). Higher dependency on the global market for food grains and other key commodities makes these countries susceptible to sharp increases or fluctuations in world commodity prices. 2.5. Methodology This study employed a mixed-method approach, that combined a literature review with semi-structured interviews to assess the landscape of climate and agronomic digital advisory services in six countries. The methodology consisted of the following steps: Step 1. Literature review and synthesis: The first step involved conducting a comprehensive literature review to identify existing digital solutions in agriculture, focusing on climate and environmental risk management. This review aimed to collect

and synthesize results from previous studies, reports, and relevant publications on digital innovations that support agricultural resilience in the face of climate change. Key themes reviewed include the types of technologies being used, the platforms and analytical techniques deployed, and the overall impact of digital services on decision-making in the agricultural sector. The literature review also explored cross-cutting issues such as data privacy, harmonization, and institutional capacity. Our methodology and review relied on the Digital Agri Hub Dashboard (https://digitalagrihub.org/web/guest/dashboard). This online platform allowed us to identify and profile top-performing digital agriculture platforms in each target country. For each platform, the dashboard provides standardized, up-to-date information, including: (i) Number of users, (ii) Types of services offered (e.g., weather advisories, agronomic tips, market prices), (iii) Delivery channels (e.g., SMS, mobile apps, call centers, radio) and (iv) Geographic coverage (national, sub-national, or regional reach). This tool ensured a consistent and comparative assessment across countries. To complement the use of Digital Agri Hub, a diverse range of online repositories and institutional websites were consulted, including: the Alliance Bioversity International & CIAT (https://alliancebioversityciat.org/publications-data): CTA (https://www.cta.int/fr/digitalisation), IITA (https://www.iita.org/), AGRA (https://agra.org/), AfricaRice (https://www.africarice.

org/riceadvice), GSMA (https://www.gsma.com/r/digital-agriculture-maps/), WMO (https://public.wmo.int/en/our-mandate/ weather), IFAD (https://www.ifad.org/), FEWSNET (https://fews.net/), Go Africa Online (https://www.goafricaonline.com/). We also used Country-specific portals such as: (i) https://agriculture.gouv.ci/ for Ivory coast; https://minagri.gouv.cd/ for DRC; etc. Social media platforms were also used to discover informal or emerging services. A mixed search strategy was employed for the literature review. For quick mapping, search queries such as “Top 100 Digital Agriculture Services + [Country]” were used. The tilde symbol (~) was used to uncover related results. Online direc- tories like Go Africa Online were also used to identify private actors. Only services with an online footprint were included. Offline-only services (e.g., USSD without documentation) were excluded. Regional or global initiatives active in the countries were included when relevant. The core keywords include: “climate digital services” and “agronomic digital advisory services”. These were combined with specific country names (e.g., “+Côte d’Ivoire”, “+Burundi”, “+DRC”, “+Ghana” “+Rwanda” “+Nige- ria”) to target geographically relevant results. Given the prominent role of private sector actors such as startups, additional terms like “startup”, “digital platform”, “agritech” were also incorporated to identify non-governmental service providers. The literature review provided a foundational understanding of the digital advisory landscape in each country but also

revealed gaps and context-specific information that required further exploration. To address these gaps and update the literature findings, a series of interviews were conducted with the service providers.