Ceq Climate Adaptation Paper_110509

Policy Paper

November 2009

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ADAPTATION RESPONSE: Principles and approaches for field programs For more information, please contact: Vanessa Dick Senior Legislative Associate for International Development InterAction [email protected] Brian Greenberg Director of Sustainable Development InterAction [email protected] Linda Poteat Director, Disaster Response InterAction [email protected]

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limate change poses one of the most serious 21st century challenges to global poverty reduction and economic development. Though least responsible, developing countries face the impacts of climate change first and worst, and have the least capacity to cope. Without decisive measures that incorporate lessons learned from a range of integrated environment and development efforts, vulnerable populations and development objectives are in jeopardy. Support for climate change adaptation measures, strengthened resilience and disaster risk reduction is critically urgent to minimize vulnerabilities and protect productive resources for development. 1. Climate change threatens livelihoods and food and water supplies by damaging the ecological base on which those depend. The vulnerability of poor communities is caused by a lack of capacity to cope with these climate impacts. 2. Lessons learned from integrated conservation and development programs provide useful guidance on ways to mainstream climate adaptation into more effective development and disaster risk reduction programs. 3. The scale of international funding for climate adaptation will need to match the scope and magnitude of the problem, and institutional arrangements should respect basic equity principles. 4. With ongoing operations in most countries of the developing world, US NGOs have unparalleled familiarity with the varying contexts in which adaptation and development programs take place, and should be recognized as valuable partners.

The Response to Climate Change: Bigger Expected Impacts Require More Robust Adaptation

www.InterAction.org 1400 16th Street, NW Suite 210 Washington, DC 20036 202-667-8227

• Recent evidence confirms that climate change is happening with greater speed and intensity than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted even two years ago.1 • The US must put in place immediate and scientifically sound emissions reductions targets. Yet even if global emissions stopped immediately, past emissions will lock in major temperature increases and climate changes. The magnitude and effects of these changes make decisive adaptation efforts essential. • The poor of the developing world are least responsible for climate change, but will most directly and immediately bear its consequences. Climate change will slow or reverse 1 United Nations Environment Program, 2009, Climate Change Science Compendium, 2009, UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya. Available online at: http://www.unep.org/compendium2009.

progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), putting at greater risk the livelihoods and well-being of the world’s poorest communities. • Among the many negative impacts of climate change that can confidently be predicted are: ◊ Agriculture: Increasing temperatures and changing seasons will lower crop yields, especially in tropical and semi-arid countries. Agricultural production in many African countries will likely be especially hard hit, with yields declining by 20-50% according to reliable estimates. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, food insecurity and malnutrition will increase, putting 25 million children at risk of chronic hunger or malnutrition by 2050. ◊ Freshwater resources: Greater unpredictability in the water cycle will result in droughts in some regions and flooding in others. South and East Asia are likely to face more flooding, while southern Africa will face increased risk of droughts. As glaciers in the Hindu-Kush and Andes retreat, river flows and flooding will increase in the near term, then decrease in the following decades with disastrous impacts. ◊ Human health: Disease vectors such as malarial mosquitoes will increase in intensity and expand into new regions. Climate conditions will interact with weak health infrastructure to impose worsening disease burdens, mortality and morbidity in vulnerable developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. ◊ Disasters: The number of disasters and disaster-affected people grew from 1.6 billion in 1984-1993 to 2.6 billion in 1994-2003.

◊ According to a CARE/UNOCHA report, the poor in Africa and in Central, South and Southeast Asia will face greater exposure to droughts. By late in this century, many millions more, particularly in the large delta regions of 2

Africa, will face exposure to floods and cyclones. Lowlying islands will face an even greater threat as more powerful storms interact with a rise in sea level. ◊ Ecosystems: The degradation of productive local ecosystems will cause climate-affected populations to migrate in search of water, food and livelihood opportunities. This will greatly increase the pressure on remaining forests and agricultural landscapes, further accelerating resource demands and environmental degradation. Resource competition among growing populations will drive civil unrest, presenting governance, conflict management and humanitarian challenges of enormous scope. ◊ Population: A projected doubling of population by 2050 in 26 of the least developed countries will exacerbate resource demands and population densities in vulnerable regions with already degraded ecosystems. The effects of climate change in low-lying coastal areas coupled with more intense storms and droughts in arid and semi-arid regions will create enormous humanitarian needs. • Poor, developing countries lack the institutional capability and human capital necessary to respond or adapt to climate change. The ability of governments and communities to meet the needs of their populations will depend on adequate, sustained support from the US and the international community. Support for climate change adaptation measures, strengthened resilience and disaster risk reduction is critically urgent to minimize vulnerabilities. • Experience shows that despite the increasing frequency of disaster events and growing numbers of at-risk people, investments in disaster management have reduced deaths. Up-front investment in adaptation measures will greatly reduce the impending costs of climate change. If these outlays are delayed or inadequate, climate impacts will be more severe and overall costs will skyrocket. • Climate change is already affecting vulnerable communities. From across the developing world, NGOs working with local communities are hearing stories about changing climates and weather. ◊ In Tanzania, poor communities in the south Nguru Mountains describe how it has become hotter and the onset of rainy and dry seasons has become less predictable. At the same time, they are experiencing more seasonal water shortages and crop failures, and competition over forest resources is raising tensions between adjacent communities. ◊ In Ethiopia, pastoral women are dealing with more frequent droughts. In addition to the usual daily household chores of cooking, cleaning and taking care of the

children, women and girls must now walk even longer distances to fetch water and to pasture their livestock during the dry season. ◊ In the middle mountains of Tajikistan, communities have observed an increase in the snow pack, shifts in the length and timing of the winter season, and increasingly erratic rainfall. They have identified food insecurity during the winter as a particular challenge. ◊ In coastal Bangladesh, communities are facing more frequent and severe floods as well as saltwater intrusion. ◊ In Nepal, melting glaciers are creating unstable lakes that threaten downstream communities with flooding. ◊ In Fiji and Vietnam, degraded mangrove forests worsen the effects of more intense storm surges and sea-level rises to threaten coastal communities.

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Principles and Guidelines for Effective Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction Programs Defining Adaptation: A useful understanding of “adaptation” is: effective responses to climate change that help sustain or stabilize social, economic and environmental conditions, and that prevent development gains from being undermined. Sound adaptation programs share many features with highquality development programs, such as participatory needs assessments and clear accountability. They differ, however, in an important way: sound adaptation requires analysis of vulnerability and exposure to climate shocks and stresses. Vulnerability and risk assessment requires an understanding of the institutional, political, knowledge and social resources available to communities to prepare for and respond to climate shocks. Principles or Characteristics of Effective Adaptation Programs: • Integrated Technical Areas and Approaches: Climate adaptation responses and development efforts should be closely integrated. The World Resources Institute has described the relationship between adaptation and development as occurring along a continuum. “Pure” adaptation activities occur at one end and conventional “development” activities at the other. Along this spectrum, adaptation priorities are incorporated into development objectives to ensure that both are realized. Integrated adaptation and development programs bring together technical domains such as nutrition and agriculture, population, reproductive health and environment, and agriculture and water management to reduce vulnerabilities, protect assets and strengthen livelihood security. • Country-Led and Community-Based: The implementation of adaptation programs should be managed by host countries and communities. Accountability for program outcomes should likewise be vested in country and community-level institutions. Multi-stakeholder participatory programs should not be viewed simply as a condition for adaptation funding, but as grounded in the obligation of

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governments to address the needs of their vulnerable populations. Host governments should engage their citizens in decisions regarding all aspects of adaptation and development programs, from analysis of problems to design, implementation, management and impact assessment. Strengthening of this leadership capacity at all levels from the local to transnational should become an investment priority for adaptation and development assistance. Ecosystem Perspectives Guide Adaptation and Livelihood Responses: Analysis of the sustainability of livelihoods should be expanded beyond narrow economic analysis to encompass ecoregion and ecosystem perspectives. Linkages among economic sectors and ecosystem processes must be mapped to ensure that environmentally unsustainable or destructive production systems are not supported by adaptation activities. Where possible, adaptation efforts should enhance the capacity of natural systems to boost resilience by buffering climate risks. Valuable but little-known experiences in sustainable resource management should be assessed to gain insights into the preconditions that will be essential for viable livelihoods in ecosystems under climate stress. Examples might include activities such as ecological agriculture, integrated water conservation projects and population-health-environment programs whose goals have been the promotion of healthier communities, more sustainable livelihoods and capacity building for increased community resilience. Rights-Based: The rights of vulnerable people to livelihood security and participation in decisions affecting their well-being should underpin climate adaptation programs. Empowerment for meaningful participation in governance processes related to adaptation should be understood as a principle based in citizenship rights. Vulnerability Assessment: Vulnerability assessments should be used to identify populations and contexts most at risk from climate change. Planning processes should incorporate environmental, social, economic, governance and gender vulnerability assessments into the design of program services. The factors that contribute to climate vulnerability should be analyzed and understood not only as “natural” conditions, but as social products. Marginal social and economic groups—including women and ethnic minorities who without support are least able to cope with climate impacts—should be a priority focus. Local knowledge should be actively sought and incorporated in activity designs to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of adaptation programs. Sustainability: Climate adaptation will be a long-term endeavor. Social, economic and environmental gains from adaptation programs should be durable and create local capacity that can be applied toward the continuation or expansion of adaptation activities. Essential support for institutional, human and ecosystem resources needs to last 3

much beyond the achievement of initial program goals. • Resilience and Risk Reduction: A proactive focus should be placed on decreasing the social, economic and environmental management practices that worsen vulnerability to climate change. Individuals, households and communities need to gain the capability to manage climate hazards and to recover quickly from negative impacts. Human, social, productive and institutional capital should be strengthened to build the resilience and ecological sustainability of productive assets such as agricultural production systems. • Do No Harm: Social, economic and environmental values should be maintained or increased through program activities. Best efforts should be made to avoid trade-offs that benefit one vulnerable group at the expense of another. Social and economic power relationships should be analyzed and understood to avoid actions that inadvertently work to reinforce the prerogatives of local elites. Conflict analysis should inform program interventions affecting economic resource use and governance mechanisms. Capacity building will need to anticipate a growing need to reduce conflicts and mediate conflicting claims on land, water and ecosystem services. • Gender Informed and Responsive: The unequal power relationship between men and women should be analyzed to ensure the needs of disadvantaged women are met on a priority basis. Vulnerability assessments and the optic of “do no harm” should complement gender analysis to illuminate the social, legal, health, economic, political and educational disparities shaping women’s often disadvantaged position. These disparities should be assessed and addressed so that program activities help remedy rather than reinforce the biases women face. • Strengthened International Frameworks on Displacement and Migration: Climate change impacts, vulnerability and resilience should be integrated into existing international humanitarian and development frameworks to ensure the protection of at-risk populations. This is particularly important in cases such as low-lying island nations threatened with submersion due to rising oceans, or where environmental causes force migrants to cross borders to escape nonviable states or ecosystems. Environmentally induced migrants therefore require some form of international recognition and protection. • Include Migration in Adaptation Strategies: Anticipated climate changes will render some regions, such as low-lying coastal areas, and associated livelihoods impossible to sustain. In many cases, the most practical and costeffective adaptation strategy will be relocation rather than potentially costly investments in adaptation technologies. Since resettlement conditions meeting environmental, social equity and human rights standards can also be expensive, this strategy needs to be underpinned by and accepted as “rights-based resettlement.” 4

Mainstreaming the Integration of Climate Adaptation and Resilience into Other International Priorities • The environmental, economic and social links between adaptation and development are close and critically important. At the field level, program interventions should become much more closely intertwined for reasons of environmental relationships, technical overlap, cost-effectiveness and increased impacts. Climate change directly affects the natural resources and healthy ecosystems on which human well-being depends. Economic and social development draws on the same assets. Vulnerability assessments need to anticipate whether activities beneficial to either adaptation or development might be counterproductive for the other. Though to date adaptation and development activities have frequently been planned and implemented separately, the climate adaptation and development communities are beginning to “mainstream” integration through restructuring and more closely aligning their activities. • Another high-priority area of integration is between climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction (DRR). With climate change promising to greatly increase the frequency and magnitude of humanitarian disasters, climate response measures must support capacity building for DRR. As with other areas of climate response, up-front investment in these capabilities will lower the scale and cost of natural and humanitarian disasters. Similarly, humanitarian disasters fundamentally disrupt development, imposing tremendous costs on economic infrastructure and social well-being. These consequences are much less expensive to address through DRR than through subsequent reconstruction and regeneration of economic assets. • Among the most essential kinds of integration will be much closer coordination in the planning process and field operations of US federal agencies that act in the international arena. Conventional technical and bureaucratic boundaries have hampered both the understanding of climate adaptation and the perception of opportunities for closer collaboration. Domains such as ecosystem resilience, food security, water management and global health (including family planning and reproductive health) have significant overlaps in the arena of climate adaptation and development. Institutional and policy mandates are needed to realize the synergies and savings that closer collaboration or integration promise for federal agencies operating in these areas. • Monitoring and reporting on national adaptation strategies and plans should be integrated into existing development monitoring mechanisms, such as those set up to monitor the MDGs. Existing indicators of livelihood security will be useful in assessing whether gains in adap-

tive capacity—especially of vulnerable populations and people—are sufficiently robust to protect the development process.

Key Issues for Adaptation Funding • The scale of funding for climate adaptation will need to match the scope and magnitude of the problem. Estimates of the annual cost of adaptation vary from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) $28-67 billion by 2030, to the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) $86 billion by 2125 and the World Bank’s $75-100 billion averaged between 2010 and 2050. • The developed countries with historic records of high greenhouse gas emissions are largely responsible for current climate changes. Steps to prevent the negative impacts of climate change will be unaffordably expensive for many of the vulnerable developing countries. The countries most responsible for climate change will need to support those least responsible by protecting lives, livelihoods and ecosystems that have been placed at risk. • The responsibility to address the impacts of climate change caused by the historic emitters is important to distinguish from the moral responsibility to support equitable international development. For that reason, adaptation activities, even though they have the potential to work in synergy with development and DRR, must be accounted and supported separately. The “additionality” of adaptation funding means that new and separate adaptation resources should be identified and tracked separately to ensure that governments do not relabel resources for development as part of adaptation response or vice versa. Implementing agencies must secure dedicated adaptation funding that can be added to development commitments as integrated programs move forward. • Adequate, up-front adaptation investments will be orders of magnitude less costly over the medium and long term than modest adaptation responses that are slow in coming. The most fiscally restrained and responsible strategy for the use of public resources is through ambitious and immediate adaptation investment to address the effects of climate change. This will need to be coupled with aggressive mitigation to stem the magnitude of the long-term problem over coming decades. • Most funding flowing from international agreements should flow through institutions that are fully accountable to the UNFCC, and which are committed to transparent financial reporting and management. Other appropriate standards for representative governance, community participation and streamlined access to funding should apply to those funds. Standards for transparency and financial management of adaptation funds generated

by US domestic policies and legislation should meet similar standards. • US federal agencies involved in international adaptation response should become much more closely involved with and supportive of multi-stakeholder coordination efforts that are already underway. The UNFCCC, World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and UNDP are examples of mechanisms to which, beyond resource commitments, the US can add technical value, institutional wherewithal and scientific capability. • Financial management should be consistent with the principles for aid effectiveness contained in the Paris Declaration. A likely scenario is for adaptation funds to be channeled through ministries of national governments leading sector development initiatives in developing countries. Management systems for those funds should then be included in broader efforts already underway to develop multi-stakeholder planning, strategies and decision-making mechanisms for sustainable development and poverty reduction. That process should also be tasked with development of shared objectives, indicators and targets to track and measure progress on country ownership, accountability and effectiveness. • The disbursement and use of adaptation funding should be “downwardly accountable,” meaning that it should primarily benefit vulnerable, disadvantaged populations and communities. Capacity building at all levels—from the local to the national and international, and for government, civil society and the private sector— will be essential for successful adaptation. But the goals of that capacity building and the assessment of its effectiveness should be based on developing services that meet the needs of vulnerable groups.

The Capability and Value of NGOs as Partners in Adaptation • With ongoing operations in most countries of the developing world, US NGOs have unparalleled familiarity with the varying contexts in which adaptation and development programs take place. NGOs have established programs and operating relationships with local communities, NGO networks, governments, universities, research institutions and businesses. The participatory multi-stakeholder approaches favored by many NGOs have enabled the formation of close relationships with underserved, hard to reach communities. NGOs are typically staffed mostly by host country nationals, whose language skills and local contacts greatly facilitate effective community-level fieldwork. With more responsive decision-making and less cumbersome bureaucratic processes than government agencies, 5

NGOs typically have greater flexibility and quicker program reactions. The capacity constraints of many host country governments mean that in many developing countries NGOs represent perhaps the deepest experience and bestdeveloped field programs. This experience means that the NGO community often has a clear understanding of the needs, opportunities and challenges of local-level work. • With local civil society often constrained by counterproductive policies and scarce resources, international NGOs that operate with similar philosophies and business models can be powerful catalysts for strengthening their local counterparts. As climate changes become more pervasive, success will increasingly hinge on building the capacity of local NGOs—as well as host governments—to assume a lead role in adaptation response. • The contacts and credibility NGOs have established in many countries position them as useful information sources, conveners and facilitators in support of the multi-stakeholder processes that will be essential to effective adaptation. As host governments, donors and multilateral agencies become more engaged in adaptation and look for effective local implementing partners, NGOs bring many capabilities and advantages.

An Ongoing Relationship with the Interagency Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation Working Group • The US NGO community is a well-organized and capable counterpart for US federal agencies involved in adaptation and development. NGO networks encompass the nonprofit, business and faith communities, whose shared interests in effective adaptation response can greatly amplify the technical and financial resources available to address climate change. The complementary strengths of NGOs and US agencies mean that a stronger, more expansive relationship can serve the shared objective of rapid, effective climate response and sustainable development. • InterAction, the largest association of US NGOs active in international humanitarian response and development, represents a potential contact point for future engagement with the Interagency Working Group. InterAction’s Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Working Groups focus on climate adaptation policy and program approaches. Regular future meetings between the Interagency Working Group and InterAction’s Working Groups can help to ensure that information sharing and program planning undertaken by NGOs and federal agencies are as well informed as possible.

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ANNEX 1 Demonstrated Partnership Models for Collaboration on Climate Adaptation The Group on Earth Observations (GEO): GEO (http://www.earthobservations.org/geoss.shtml) is a collaboration within which partners can develop new projects and coordinate strategies and investments. GEO’s membership now includes 80 governments and the European Commission, and 56 intergovernmental, international and regional organizations with mandates in earth observation or related issues. Ecosystems and Livelihoods Adaptation Network (ELAN): Now being developed by the World Wildlife Fund, International Union for Conservation of Nature and UNEP. This effort focuses on building capacity, accelerating application of existing knowledge, creating additional adaptation options and resources and informing national, regional and international bodies to ensure that their policies provide a supportive framework for action on ecosystem-based adaptation. ELAN operates through a central secretariat “hub” and thematic and regional nodes. Global Fund Board (GFB): The Global Fund establishes multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral partnerships for country-led coordinating mechanisms. The GFB includes nongovernmental delegates; intended beneficiaries participate in all decisions, including the management of funds. Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund (KPAF): The KPAF allocates funding through a set of criteria giving special attention to the needs of the most vulnerable communities. As an established fund, it offers an existing, proven mechanism for the management and disbursement of adaptation resources. Hyogo Framework (HF): The HF is an existing platform on which to build integrated disaster response in vulnerable countries. Host governments, local and international civil society organizations, UN agencies and some donor governments are engaged in this framework and, with appropriate policy guidance, can be mobilized for responses. See: http://www.preventionweb.net/english/ hyogo/national/list/?pid:23&pih:2. The UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction also offers an existing mechanism that can directly support integrated response. Community-Based Risk Screening Tool – Adaptation & Livelihoods (CRiSTAL): A project planning and management tool developed by IUCN, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Stockholm Environmental Institute’s US Center. Used at the community level to incorporate local knowledge about climate change and resource use considerations into development projects, it helps project planners and managers integrate risk reduction and climate change adaptation into community-level projects.

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