The challenge of strengthening integrated approaches in - Environment and adaptation to climate change ESRC_briefing_paper_1

Challenges of bottom up and top down

The challenge of strengthening integrated approaches in

policy and practice was addressed from two angles: how

to scale up project experience within government, and

how to ensure that international policy commitments are

translated into practice. The case from Nepal (op. cit.)

recognized the challenge of disjointed policy and practice

in government. This was tackled by building district

government capacity to support integrated analysis and

planning in communities, and incorporate the outcomes

into district development plans.

Oxley (p. 6) shared experience from grassroots

monitoring of implementation of the Hyogo Framework

for Action – an internationally agreed policy on national

support to disaster risk reduction. This multi-country

civil society process has had many benefits in terms of

improving downward accountability and opening spaces

for dialogue between communities and policy makers.

Similar methodologies could be applied to monitoring

policy commitments to supporting climate adaptation.

Integrated frameworks

Frameworks and approaches are evolving to help guide

staff, partners and policy makers towards more integrated

practice, and there is also a need for learning processes

to ensure they are effective.

The Adaptive Social Protection framework described

by Arnall et al. (p.7) brings together social protection,

DRR and CCA approaches to ensure that asset transfers

contribute to climate-resilient livelihoods. Ewbank (p.

8) articulates a set of steps developed by Christian Aid

for incorporating climate change analysis into existing

participatory vulnerability and capacity assessment,

drawing on both climate science and local knowledge

to inform risk assessment and develop future scenarios.

Practical Action’s Vulnerability to Resilience approach

(Pasteur, p. 9), rather than attempting to forecast an

uncertain future, highlights building communities’

capacity to adapt to a wide range of potential climate

outcomes. Through improved access to relevant

information, technologies, skills and resources, they

are able to modify livelihood strategies and respond to

changing disaster risks.

Twigg (p. 11) recognized that frameworks are useful

tools but that learning processes are also important

to ensure that they are adapted to local contexts.

Experience developing a set of Characteristics of a

Disaster Resilient Community produced lessons for more

process-oriented approaches.

Conclusion

The papers and workshop discussions demonstrated

strong agreement that integration of livelihoods, DRR and

CCA approaches has much to offer. However, challenges

still remain. Although scaling up of integrated thinking

into national planning systems was touched upon, it

remains a critical challenge. Frameworks and models of

good practice now exist amongst NGOs and researchers.

Building understanding, capacity and appropriate

structures for adoption within government and other

institutions is now a priority.

A further challenge is how to deal with the gap in

knowledge about the climate over the next 20 years.

Whilst short-term weather forecasts and long-term

climate predictions can be quite accurate, much

uncertainty lies between. Scenario planning is of

relevance when there is confidence about possible

outcomes. However, more work is needed to better

understand adaptive capacity, that is, the dynamic ability

to adapt to sometimes unpredictable change.

Finally, it was recognized during the seminar

that most practitioners were still working with the

expectation of reaching a climate agreement that would

limit us to a rise in global temperatures of less than 2

degrees centigrade. If this is not achieved, and global

temperatures rise to 4 degrees or more, with vastly

increased risks to livelihoods and ecosystems, then the

above approaches may not be sufficient to maintain

well-being and more radical strategies will need to be

considered.

Author

Katherine Pasteur

Practical Action

Schumacher Centre for Technology and Development,

Bourton on Dunsmore,

Rugby CV23 9QZ, UK.

Email: Katherine.Pasteur@practicalaction.org.uk

Climbing above the flood level in Bangladesh