Barriers to implementing planned community-based adaptation in developing countries: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Although adaptation to climate change is vital in vulnerable developing country communities, there are limits to what these communities can do autonomously. Many face existing challenges such as poverty, food insecurity and lack of resources. Hence, there seems to be a logical case for planned community-based adaptation (CBA) in these contexts, but there is limited empirical evidence of planned CBA in developing countries. Numerous barriers hinder the implementation of planned CBA. This systematic literature review investigated what these barriers are and how they influence adaptation. Context-specific social, resource and physical barriers are significant, and these overlap and interact with one another. The most pervasive of these barriers relate to poor coordination within and between organizations responsible for planning and implementing adaptation actions, who adhere to discourses that are often technical and managerial and therefore not well suited to supporting CBA, and a lack of, or irrelevant knowledge/information on climate change as well as ineffectual communication between stakeholders involved in CBA actions.

Farmers, food and climate change: ensuring community-based adaptation is mainstreamed into agricultural programmes

“…In Bangladesh, key problems identified were lack of inter-agency coordination, communication barriers and literacy gaps. These barriers to CBA, including communication and literacy gaps, are highlighted in other studies (Spires, Shackleton, & Cundill, 2014). Proposed solutions that may be cost-effective as well as institutionally feasible include: farmers' organizations and low-cost platforms for shared learning on adaptation, particularly across local and national levels; better use of non-print communications media to overcome literacy gaps, in particular verbal communications by radio, mobile phones and face-to-face exchange; as well as tackling market barriers through trade reform, improved transport and storage facilities.…”

Variation in perception of environmental change in nine Solomon Islands communities: implications for securing fairness in community-based adaptation

“…However, the complexity of this task is often underestimated in the existing literature. For example, a critical examination of perception is absent in a review of literature that focus on the challenges to CBA (Forsyth 2013;Spires et al 2014), despite agreement that "[e]xisting knowledge and experience of changes within communities need to be acknowledged as starting points for opening up conversations about adaptation." (Spires et al 2014: 9).…”

“…Community-based alternatives to top-down governance are invoked precisely to account for this diversity and to harness local understandings of change (Green et al 2010), and community-based adaptation approaches in particular have received increasing attention among researchers and practitioners (Ensor et al 2016;Ensor et al 2014;Spires et al 2014;Forsyth 2013;Dodman and Mitlin 2011). Local ecological knowledge can provide information about slow and rapid climate and ecological changes at the community level (Sagarin and Micheli 2001;Couzin 2007;Alexander et al 2011) and also play an important role in defining the way environmental change is interpreted and understood as risk (Adger et al 2013;Brook and McLachlan 2008;Naess 2013;Aswani and Lauer 2014).…”

Can community-based adaptation increase resilience?

“…Rooted in the evolving praxis of Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) and Participatory Action Research (PAR), CBA interventions typically draw on Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) methods to understand the impact of climate change, the social and ecological context, and the efficacy of potential adaptation interventions Reid et al 2009). The rise of interest in CBA among practitioners (Ensor, 2014;Ensor and Berger, 2009;Mitchell and Tanner, 2006;Schipper et al, 2014) has been mirrored in recent years by an increasing body of critical reflections in the academic literature (Dodman and Mitlin, 2011;Forsyth, 2013;Spires et al, 2014). For many, a central claim of CBA is that it increases resilience (Ayers and Forsyth, 2009;Forsyth, 2013;Heltberg et al, 2012;Simane, 2013).…”

“…Significance is placed on methods capable of eliciting local knowledge and understanding of the complex relationship between climate change hazards and livelihoods (Pringle and Conway, 2012) and on avoiding barriers to adaptation that arise from poor communication between those with different knowledge systems (e.g. between those who create and those who use climate information) (Spires et al, 2014). Butler et al (2013) reflect practitioner experience (e.g.…”