Community-Scale Adaptation Assessment:

1. Community-Scale Adaptation Assessment: Fieldwork methods for project impact assessment AIACC_AF14 Project: Lessons for Climate Change Adaptation in Northern, Eastern and Sahelian Africa

2. Overview • Project background • Fieldwork goals and approach • Fieldwork methods • Scoping: initial site visit • Data collection: second site visit • Validation: third site visit

3. Project background (1): Premise and Motivation • Urgent adaptation needs of most vulnerable groups • Increase current coping capacity through adaptation • DCs in need of SD-consistent adaptation strategies • Existence of local coping/adaptive strategies and lessons from other disciplines (e.g., SL, disaster mitigation, natural resource management); potential for integration • Many no-regrets options and co-benefits • But, disconnect between community needs and policy process; dominance of technical/structural response

4. Project background (2): Goal To support the process of climate change adaptation to effectively respond to the needs of vulnerable communities by documenting cases of effective community resilience-building and sharing lessons on why these cases were effective and how to support similar activity.

5. Project background (3): Research Scope • 3 or 4 case studies of successful SL projects in drought-prone communities • Project impact assessment (fieldwork): • Has the project succeeded in building community resilience? In what ways? To what effect? • Policy process analysis: • What enabling factors account for project success? What policies, conditions, etc. (micro, meso, macro-scale) are behind successful experiences? How can these be built upon/encouraged?

6. Project background (4): Steps • Background/Preparation • Project Impact Assessment (fieldwork) • Initial site visit (scoping) • Second site visit (data collection) • Third site visit (validation) • Policy Process Analysis • Synthesis

7. Project Impact Assessment: Goals • Measure/describe impact of successful SL projects (change in community resilience pre- and post-project) In order to: • Generate lessons for pro-poor adaptation policy, planning and implementation

8. Project Impact Assessment: Objectives • Gain community trust, commitment and participation in the case study • Confirm success of SL project • Develop/finalize indicators • Finalize and carry out data collection strategy • Fill data gaps and validate findings • Initiate policy process analysis

9. Project Impact Assessment: Approach • Rely on community participation and expert judgment • Develop locally relevant indicators and indicator criteria • Blend quantitative and qualitative indicators using adapted version of the Livelihood Asset Status Tracking System (Bond and Mukherjee, 2002) • Develop ‘word pictures’ with associated scores to measure changes in resilience

10. Initial site visit (scoping) PURPOSE: • garner community trust, interest in, and support of the project and the approach • confirm the success of the SL activities from community perspective • scope and schedule fieldwork, including participatory framework • identify key stakeholders and local informants

11. Initial site visit (2): Preparation CSR’s should be prepared to discuss: • a particular, locally-relevant climate extreme (signal event) • a set of generic, expert derived qualitative indicators • a process, including selection criteria, through which the community can consider and revise these indicators

12. Initial site visit (3): sample criteria for indicators

13. Initial site visit (4): sample indicators

14. Fieldwork: Second site visit (data collection) PURPOSE: • familiarize community with data collection strategy • develop full sets of indicators (quantitative and qualitative) • assemble indicator-based assessment sheets for use in interviews • carry out interviews and assemble ‘word pictures’

15. Second site visit (2): Sample assessment sheet Adapted from Bond and Mukherjee (2002)

16. Second site visit (3): Collecting data through WPs Approach to survey/interviews: • Use household circumstances during signal event as basis of comparison; compare with circumstances during recent or hypothetical event • Use assessment sheets (one for each capital) as basis of interview questions. For example: • “During the signal event (e.g., 1984 drought), what level of food stores did you have (in months)? Were they sufficient? If not, how great was the deficit (in months)? • During the recent drought (post-SL activity) , what level of food stores did you have (in months)? Were they sufficient? If not, how great was the deficit (in months)? • On assessment sheet, record number associated with interviewee responses to questions • From these responses, assemble word pictures for each interview • Record associated scores (for WPs pre- and post-SL activity) • Keep interview to 15-20 minutes

17. Second site visit (4): Resulting Word Pictures Hypothetical word picture of household’s access to natural resources (natural capital) Adapted from Bond and Mukherjee (2002)

18. Fieldwork: Third site visit (validation) PURPOSE: • validate preliminary findings, using group meetings, targeted interviews and triangulation • Resolve TF and Project Team questions/concerns, conducting necessary follow-up inquiries • carry out inquiries for policy process analysis Note: Third site visit activities may be conducted as part of an extended second visit.

19. Third site visit (2): Preparation CSR’s should be prepared to discuss: • preliminary findings of the survey process • a process for resolving key questions • a process for validating preliminary findings • a process for conducting policy analysis inquiries

20. Fieldwork Synthesis • Outline data collected on changes in household and community resilience • Summarize changes in resilience to climate impacts following project intervention • Discuss the validation process • Discuss the role of the project intervention in building community resilience