Assessing and enhancing project impacts on local adaptive capacity

1. Assessing and enhancing project impacts on local adaptive capacity Experiences from Mali and Bangladesh Aliou Faye (IUCN Mali) & Abdul Quddus, IC Bangladesh Adaptation Day (Montreal, December 2005)

2. Project Summary Project To strengthen the capacity of vulnerable communities to cope with Aim: climate-related disasters and adapt to climate change through ecosystem management and restoration (EM&R) or sustainable livelihoods (SL) activities. Partners: IUCN, IISD, SEI-B, InterCooperation Funded by: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) Duration: 2001 – 2005 (with possibility for extending) Structure: Project Team members from each partner institution Secretariat based in IISD’s European Office in Geneva Phase One: research & communications Phase Two: facilitating adaptation – tools Phase Three (proposed): Capacity building, adaptation monitoring Approach: a) Starting point of adaptation: Reducing current vulnerabilities b) Emphasis on locally-driven, bottom-up approaches to adaptation that complement efforts at national and international levels;c) Adaptation should be based on peoples’ livelihoodsd) Given the importance of environmental resources and services to vulnerable peoples’ livelihoods, adaptation must incorporate EM&R

3. CRISTAL(Community-based Risk Screening Tool – Adaptation & Livelihoods) • Rationale: • Community-level projects may improve adaptive capacity or constrain it • Also, project planners and managers can introduce activities that are neutral where they could have a positive effect • Purpose: • Help users to systematically understand the links between livelihoods and climate • Enable users to assess a project’s impact on community-level adaptive capacity • Assist users in making project adjustments to improve its impact on adaptive capacity • User:Community-level project planners and managers

4. FORMAT: Hardcopy & CD-Rom DESIGN: • Set the climate context: Identify impacts of current climate hazards and climate change in the project area, including strategies for coping with these impacts; • Set the livelihood context: Identify resources needed to help people conduct their livelihoods, flagging those that are strongly affected by climate stress and important to coping strategies; • Screen project activities: Assess how project activities affect the availability and access to key livelihood resources that are strongly affected by climate stress and/or central to coping strategies; and • Manage climate risk: Adjust project to increase opportunities to enhance availability / access to key resources, and activities that undermine availability / access are adjusted

5. Mali: Background • Located in Sahelian zone, West Africa: 60% arid and desert • Facing recurrent drought, occasional flood, deforestation and desertification • 80% people depend on agriculture/ rural sector

6. Mali test: PAGEIT (Projet d’Appui à la Gestion des Écosystèmes Inondables dans le Delta Intérieur du Niger) • IUCN project working in wetland area in the north of Mali (started in 2004, funded by Netherlands, Sweden) • For sustainable livelihood improvement through decentralised natural resources management • Project activities include: • Rehabilitation of channels, • wetland forest restoration and conservation, • Awareness raising on endangered species, • Improving local resources management rules

7. Results of Mali Test • Project activities generally improving people’s adaptive capacity – through equitable access to, and better management of, natural resources • A couple of negative impacts identified (rehabilitation of channels affecting roads; protection of hippo affecting movement of boats) • Project activities with negative impacts adjusted (construction of bridges, boating outside demarcated hippo habitats

8. Bangladesh: Background • Located in the north-eastern side of South Asia bordering the Bay of Bengal; mostly low-lying and full of rivers and wetlands; 44% people are poor; depends significantly on agriculture • Various natural calamities (floods, drought; tropical cyclone; hailstorms, risk of earthquake) with increasing frequency • Sea level rise is a great concern for coastal areas; upward movement of salinity is already experienced

9. Bangladesh Tests: 3 Projects • Livelihoods, Empowerment and Agroforestry Project (LEAF) – funded by SDC and implemented by Intercooperation through 20 local NGOs • Poverty alleviation project; follows sustainable rural livelihoods and value chain management approaches. • Activities include institutional development of community based organizations; skills development in NRM and other income generating activities; gender mainstreaming; farmers’ marketing extension • Gorai River Restoration Project – funded by Netherlands Govt, implemented by Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) • To prevent environmental degradation in the Southwest region • Activities include river dredging and other engineering devices of water flow regulation in Gorai river (main branch river of the Ganges) • Southwest Area Integrated Water Resources Management Project - funded by ADB, Netherlands Govt, Japan, GOB, implemented by BWDB • Livelihood improvement and economic growth through participatory management of flood control drainage (FCD) systems • Activities include participatory management of water management facilities as well as livelihood improvement activities (vegetable and fruit growing, agro-processing, livestock rearing, handicrafts making and better marketing)

10. Results of Bangladesh Tests • LEAF activities generally improving people’s adaptive capacity – by diversifying sources of income; creating access to resources, markets and services; and improving social capital • SAIWRM Project had some potential negative impacts on adaptive capacity (e.g. land acquisition, resettlement) • Participants gave useful feedback on the tool (suggesting simplifications)

11. Lessons-learned from field testing • CRISTAL raises awareness on climate change issues • Provides an entry point for discussing observations of climate variability and the impacts of climate change • Specifically, it demonstrates the links between climate change, people’s livelihoods and potential impacts of project activities on peoples’ adaptive capacities • It is useful in improving project designs • Participatory project analysis and adjustments, using the tool, improves people’s participation in the project activities • The tool needs certain refinement

12. NextSteps • Tool currently being revised based feedback from internal review and field tests • Revised versions will be tested on IUCN and Intercooperation SL/NRM projects Tanzania and C. America (Nicaragua or Honduras) • Results will feed into ‘final’ hardcopy and CD-Rom versions of the tool, available in mid-2006 • Tool will form basis of capacity building and field implementation phase of project, and will continue to be revised/updated as needed