Opportunities and Challenges of Promoting

Climate Change Adaptation at the Local Level:

Case Study of Community Adaptation Planning in

Nepal

Bimal Raj Regmi, Cassandra Star and Sushma Bhattarai

International conference on climate change innovation and

resilience for sustainable livelihoods

14th January, 2015

Presentation Outline

Setting the Context

Research objectives & methodology

Summary of findings

Conclusion & Way Forward

Conceptualizing CBA & CAP

Community Based Adaptation (CBA) is an approach has often been referred to as a bottom-up adaptation approach, which recognizes that the majority of finance for climate change adaptation is currently channelled through national governments, with no assurance that these resources will reach the poorest and most vulnerable people (Huq & Ried, 2007) .

Community Adaptation Planning (CAP) is a process through which the vulnerable and poor households within communities get involved in assessing their vulnerability, identifying adaptation deficits and planning for responses and preparedness to deal with the adverse impacts of climate change (Regmi & Subedi, 2011).

Critical gaps in Community Based Adaptation (CBA)

What are enabling conditions for ensuring effectiveness of CBA in practice? (Huq, 2011)

What kind of policy favors scaling community based adaptation in Nepal (Ayers, 2012)?

What are approaches and mechanism suitable for effective mainstreaming in practice (Label, 2012)?

How can local level adaptation be effective to address vulnerability of household and communities (Ayers, 2013)

Research Objectives

The major objective of this research is to identify appropriate and effective mechanisms via which communities can benefit from mainstreaming Community Based Adaptation in Nepal.

Research Methods

Structured Interview: Households at community level to assess the benefit of effectiveness of adaptation (N=128)

Focus Group Discussion: Community members and implementing agencies: overall effectiveness to the village (N=9)

Brainstorming discussion: Community members, NGO, Government for building consensus on the issue and mechanism proposed- 1 district level workshop

Key Informants Interview: community members to map the general trend of development and climate change adaptation intervention history (N=9)

Research Location

Summary of research findings

Approach to the assessment

The effectiveness of CAP was determined by examining vulnerable household’s and communities’ perception of the benefits received from the adaptation interventions.

The project on local adaptation plan of action (LAPA) was used as case study to look at the effectiveness of CAP.

Effectiveness of CAP at local level

Effectiveness*

Reducing Household and Community level risk of climate change

Medium

Building capacity and institutional strengthening Medium

Benefit sharing mostly for the vulnerable households

Very low

Enhancing collaboration and coordination among local stakeholders

Medium

Access to information, knowledge and technology on climate change

Low

* Based on perception of interviewed households and outcome of FGD, KII and Brainstorming workshop

Climate risk versus Climate Vulnerability

67% 3%

20%

7% 3% Drinking Water

and irrigation

Fire equipment

Income generation

activities for poor

Capacity building

Revolving fund

Most of the investment of CAP is on risk reduction and general

development activities.

There are issues on technology identification and identifying the right

adaptation practices suitable for dealing with local level vulnerabilities.

Capacity building & institutional strengthening

Village Development

Committee

Effectiveness of adaptation in capacity-building (n=128)

Not

Effective Less Effective Effective

Very

Effective Total

Dhungegadi 1 23 32 8 64

Bangesaal 2 15 43 4 64

Total (no) 3 38 75 12 128

Total (%) 2.3 29.7 58.6 9.4 100

CAP has enhanced the capacity of local forestry institutions like CFUG in CCA planning.

VDC and DDC level climate change coordination mechanism were tested. However, only CFUG is mobilized at the local level and benefits are also enjoyed

by the executives

How Participatory is CAP?

SN Categories of Stakeholders Participation Status of Stakeholders

1 Government officials (at VDC level), Executive

members of Community Forest User Groups,

and VFCC, NGO facilitators, project staff

More engaged in making decision

about the LAPA in terms of both time

and input

2 Invited general members of community groups Consulted and informed (but limited)

3 General members Informed by various means (passive

consultation)

4 Non-group members Neither consulted nor informed

CAP is more focused at the grass root level and mostly the officials of local bodies and community institutions.

Non-group households and majority of the general members of CFUG were passive in CAP process.

The linkages with the district and national level is lacking.

Access & Benefit sharing

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Dhugegadi Bangesaal

% o

f in

ve

stm

en

t

Study VDCs

Poor and vulnerable

General Public

Majority of the benefits of CAP is community oriented and not specific to the vulnerable households

Less than 10% of the budget is spent on targeting the poor households The poor and vulnerable households have less access to resources

Enhancing collaboration & coordination

Others (Political parties, School, Religious and ethnic organization)

Community Groups (Forestry

User Group, Eco club, Mothers group,

cooperative)

Non-Government organization, Donor Funded Projects and other

social organization

Local Governmen

t (VDC, DDC, VDC and district

line agencies )

Village Forest

Coordination

Committee

(VFCC)

Due to CAP interventions, local institutions are coming together. This is important because it will help in building synergy and reducing tradeoffs.

How inclusive & participatory is CAP- Conclusion

Although a majority of the households perceived the CAP intervention was partly successful to empower local, this study found that there were concerns at the community level with regards to decision making and benefit sharing.

Community approach does not necessarily benefit all the poor and vulnerable households. This is because community based approaches are constrained by power dynamics and discriminating social structures where elites and powerful individual and group dominate the resource use and decision making.

The finding argue that in order to achieve climate change adaptation for the most vulnerable requires a ‘bottom-up’ and locally inclusive approach to adaptation planning that is sensitive to the disaggregated nature of climate change vulnerability.

Way forward The evidence presented has revealed that the ideal enabling

conditions for effective CBA mainstreaming is to have an inclusive local structure and supportive policies and governance mechanisms.

At the household and community levels, there is a need to develop approaches and mechanisms that enable a more explicit transfer of power to vulnerable households and place them at the forefront of decision-making and benefit-sharing.

One possible avenue to address the governance challenges at the local level, in the case of Nepal, is to involve meso level institutions (NGOs, and local and district government) and higher levels of government more effectively.

Acknowledgement

The organizers of this conference for providing the opportunity to participate in this event.

To all the research participants and particularly communities in the research areas.

Prof. Susanne Schech for supervisory guidance.

Thank you