Year: 2009
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: An assessment is made of different channels for delivering climate adaptation at the national and smaller scales.Special emphasis is placed on well the channel can reach the poorest and most climate vulnerable.Actual and analogous cases of planned adaptation including national policy and planning, and social transfers are reviewed alongside cases of multi-and bi-lateral funded initiatives, NGO managed projects and private provision of adaptation relevant goods and services.While the climate and development contexts will determine the relative effectiveness of the channels some generalisable conclusions can be made.Where the political will to address adaptation needs exists it will be more effective to support programmatic approaches to planned adaptation where social transfers can be used to support the adaptive capacity of the poorest.Where the state is unwilling or unable to implement adaptation measures for all or some of its citizens non-governmental implementing agencies have roles to play in supporting autonomous adaptation.The private sector could be recruited to provide for the demand for adaptation goods and services from those able to afford them, thus freeing up public resources to address the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable.Combinations of these strategies are likely to have synergistic effects.Introduction and background: Adaptation by the poorest can be supported through different channels including policy mainstreaming, social transfers, adaptation projects, civil society or private sector actions.There is the tendency -sometimes born out of political expediency -to over-emphasise one option to the neglect of the others.This in part is because information on the relative effectiveness and complementary attributes of these channels under different circumstances is not available.These channels are assessed here not as alternatives or competitors but as options with differing comparative advantages that will need to be used in combination to achieve the main objective which should be supporting and enhancing climate adaptive capacity of the poorest.The ActionAid discussion paper 1 did a good job of assessing the attributes of different means of climate adaptation financing.The authors assert that the accessibility of funding to the most vulnerable is a crucial aspect for equitable adaptation.Thompkins and Hultman 2 state that in the "urgent question of funding and structuring the financial mechanisms, attention must be given to the questions of who should benefit from the funds, who can benefit from the funds and how can the funds be best used to enable those most in need of assistance adapt to climate change."They recommend a three pronged approach that includes firstly adaptation funds to distribute resources for development priority adaptation, secondly funds to assist specific climate change adaptation projects for those who could not afford to adapt without support, and thirdly a significant role for the private sector in the provision of adaptation funds to those in less dire need.However, these recommendations are not based on an empirically informed assessment of the comparative assessment of the pro-poor effectiveness of the channels identified.The research reported here takes the ActionAid assessment a step further by looking at the relative effectiveness and compatibility of different mechanisms for enhancing the adaptive capacity of the poorest living in different circumstances as a means of achieving more equitable adaptation.Collation and analysis of evidence: Evidence from actual or analogous cases of supporting adaptation through national planning, social transfer programmes, multi-and bilateral funded projects, civil society actions and private sector provision of goods and services was collated and reviewed.The evidence was assessed according to the following criteria: scale and comparative advantages, impact on adaptive capacity and effectiveness in reaching poorest.By assessing actual case performance against these criteria under different conditions inferences are made as to the relative effectiveness of the channels for reaching the poor who exist under different national economic circumstances and how, under these circumstances, channels can be best combined.Findings: First order findings -channels as stand alone strategies • Adaptation in national planning
Authors: Simon Anderson, T Geoghegan, J Ayers
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2067251950