Iied dbsa project

7.3 Tools useful at a community / grassroots level for integrating climate change adaptation into livelihood strategies

The case studies considered in this initial exploration indicate the importance, for adaptation, of a solid understanding of livelihoods, and in particular vulnerability. As the case studies also show, positive results are beginning to emerge from projects that encourage participatory development, value traditional and local knowledge, and take a holistic approach to addressing people’s livelihood needs. What we are really talking about is sound development practice that respects local people and local realities. Given that reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience of poor communities is likely to be critical for adaptation, the sustainable livelihoods (SL) framework, with its emphasis on understanding the complexity of people’s livelihoods and its focus on vulnerability and strategies to overcome this, is an important existing methodological approach. Similar forms of the SL framework have been used by a range of development organisations (including DfID, CARE and UNDP) for over a decade.

The realisation that effective adaptation is essentially sound development formed the basis of the well-regarded AIACC Sudan project, which aimed to show that certain sustainable livelihoods measures operate as climate change adaptation options and that such measures can (and should, given the numerous co-benefits) be integrated into the planning of national adaptation strategies⁴¹.
The case studies highlight the importance of empowering local people through increased awareness-raising on the impacts of climate change and by making scientific information more accessible and understandable. Local and traditional knowledge about local conditions and appropriate skills and practices can also provide unique solutions to climate change adaptation. These forms of knowledge need to be recovered, preserved and taken into account. Once these practices have been identified and understood, appropriate new practices can be introduced, achieving synergies between indigenous knowledge and newer forms of knowledge being generated by recent climate research.
Much of the success of the process used in the Suid Bokkeveld case study to enable farmers to identify and take action to address climate challenges can be attributed to a learning approach in which local knowledge and experiences were able to create synergies with scientific knowledge⁴². Flexibility is a key component of successful local adaptation approaches. This means that supportive macro policies and strategies need to be designed to confer the needed level of flexibility. Given the urgency for action and the scale of the anticipated effects, immediate progress is needed and this can be achieved through a “learning-by-doing” or experiential approach. Action research is a particularly useful tool and can achieve real results at the same time as gaining a fuller understanding of local realities.⁴³ This action learning approach appears to be a vitally important component that facilitates the development of effective and locally-owned adaptation strategies. Thus action learning as an approach can be considered as an important strategy to support more formal tools for integration of adaptation.
Community-based adaptation (CBA) is an approach that links local knowledge and participation with the global science dealing with expected impacts. As Huq⁴⁴ points out, projects that result from using CBA methodologies tend to be similar to standard development projects, but differ in their input and the integration of climate change responses into development practices. They are generally implemented as action learning processes, which assist communities in adapting to both short-term climate variability and long-term climate changes. However, the methodology of community-based adaptation is still in its early stages, with few implemented projects as yet.
As the Vhembe case study indicated, social and political dimensions are determinants of local adaptation strategies. We need to ask ourselves what the best tools from the existing social assessment toolbox are to maximise the integration of this kind of information.
Successful adaptation will depend on the ability to close loops quickly and proactively. This means that increased emphasis will have to be placed on having monitoring and feedback mechanisms in place. Effective monitoring and evaluation will be necessary at all levels. At the grassroots, this means enabling people to track their own environmental change.⁴⁵ Projects that are well documented, with good monitoring and evaluation at all levels from a holistic and sound baseline, will enable the development of evidence-based recommendations and the right policy lessons may be drawn out as time goes by and projects gain more experience. The results of pilot projects need to feed into national and local development planning, and project findings also need to be communicated between projects. Linkages need to be made between an action learning approach and monitoring and evaluation procedures – in other words, an orientation and approach that integrally link M&E to organisational learning processes⁴⁶. In order to scale up the positive results of pilot projects within an area, municipalities need to become learning organisations.
“It is all very new, and we are all talking about it, but most of us are not really aware of what we need to do.”

Concerning gaps and constraints, Malgas et al (2007) point out that problems arise where local institutional infrastructure (such as the extension service) is inadequately developed to support local adaptation initiatives. In some of these instances local civil society has been able to fill the gap, as evidenced by the Suid Bokkeveld case study, but clearly is not in a position to support rollout on a wider scale. Rollout will also require better linkages to be made between the positive pilot projects and provincial and national levels of government. While it is certainly true that there is communication between national policy makers and researchers involved in some of the positive pilot projects, it does not appear as if optimal mechanisms have yet been found to maximise and expedite integration of valuable adaptation lessons into policy. The need for an overarching policy to guide adaptation responses has been mentioned above.

Despite the positive integration of climate change science with local knowledge in the pilot projects described above, there is a need for better links to climate science. This will include disaggregating the data that one can be more confident about, and finding efficient ways to make this usable at the local level⁴⁷. The Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town and the Stockholm Environment Institute are working on a ‘climate change explorer tool’ that will enable people to obtain downscale data to integrate into planning and development activities. The University of the Witwatersrand is currently working with the Western Cape departments of nature conservation and agriculture on bringing climate change into geographical information systems (GIS), as a way to decentralise climate change analysis for decision support. Updating existing information tools such as GIS and developing new tools such as the ‘climate change explorer tool’ will be important aspects of integrating climate change into both impact and spatial assessment tools.