Household types as a tool to understand adaptive capacity: case studies from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Bangladesh and India

Williams, Liana J.; Afroz, Sharmin; Brown, Peter R.; Chialue, Lytoua; Grünbühel, Clemens M.; Jakimow, Tanya; Khan, Iqbal Alam; Minea, Mao; Reddy, V. Ratna; Sacklokham, Silinthone; Rio, Emmanuel Santoyo; Soeun, Mak; Tallapragada, Chiranjeevi; Tom, Say; Roth, Christian

doi:10.1080/17565529.2015.1085362

Cited by 19 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Households with no off-farm income sources were usually the most financially vulnerable to the effect of higher crop variability because they were particularly reliant on agricultural income. These findings are consistent with those of Rurinda et al (2014), Williams et al (2016), andLopez-Ridaura et al (2018).…”

Section: Crop Variabilitysupporting

confidence: 91%

Impacts of multiple stressors on mountain communities: Insights from an agent-based model of a Nepalese village

Roxburgh

Stringer

Evans

et al. 2021

Global Environmental Change

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Mountain communities in developing and transitioning countries are experiencing a period of rapid social, economic, and environmental change. While change has long been a feature of mountain life, the rate, magnitude, nature, and number of the transformations now taking place is unprecedented, with profound implications for the sustainability and welfare of mountain communities in the coming years. It is therefore vital that their potential impacts be understood. Considering stressors in isolation can give a false picture as each stressor alters the context within which the other stressors are operating. Holistic approaches are needed. In this paper, a variety of stressors are concurrently simulated within an empirically informed agent-based model of a rural Nepalese mountain community so that their combined impact can be studied. The potential effect of changing fertility rates, increasing crop yield variability, and earthquakes on household finances is considered for the period 2015-2030. Results show that higher fertility rates, increased crop yield variability, and earthquakes all have negative long-term effects on household finances, and that each of these stressors compounds the effect of the other stressors in an additive fashion. Results further highlight heterogeneity in the capacity of households to cope with stressors and demonstrate the important role that happenstance can play in exacerbating the effect of stressors. Our findings suggest that development practitioners should explicitly take multiple stressors into account when considering interventions. They should also contemplate improved microtargeting of households to increase aid effectiveness over the longer term, while recognising that household vulnerability is often dynamic.

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Section: Crop Variabilitysupporting

confidence: 91%

Impacts of multiple stressors on mountain communities: Insights from an agent-based model of a Nepalese village

Roxburgh

Stringer

Evans

et al. 2021

Global Environmental Change

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“…Historically, land ownership was closely associated with the social groups (caste). In India, the officially recognized social categories include Forward Castes (FC), Backward Castes (BC), Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) (Williams et al, 2016). In the study areas, the large and medium landowners mainly belong to the forward castes (Maratha, Rajput) and a small per cent are of de-notified tribes, VJNT (Banjara).…”

Section: Profile Of the Social Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing differential vulnerability of communities in the agrarian context in two districts of Maharashtra, India

Kuchimanchi

Nazareth

Bendapudi

et al. 2019

Climate and Development

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Climate variability causes multiple difficulties to rural poor. The loss in agriculture production is the most predominant impact among many, especially in drought-prone regions of India. Aggravating this further are the non-climatic risks like depletion of groundwater, land fragmentation, lack of post-harvest structures and disappearing and deteriorating common property resources among many others. Within this context, the current study presents how agrarian livelihoods in rural Maharashtra has been transforming to adapt to both the changing climate and non-climatic drivers. A community engaging vulnerability assessment tool was used to explore the climate risks and vulnerabilities of different social groups. Insights indicate that vulnerability is socially differentiated and across farmer categories and social groups. Caste and social standing play a significant role in access to resources, land ownership, livelihoods choices and approachesimpacting their vulnerability to climate change. The study concludes that vulnerability assessments need to be conducted at lower scales, as climate risks vary even within small clusters of villages. This understanding helps designing programmes and policies that build adaptive capacities of rural poor and thus recommends integrating community engagement into academic research is critical.

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“…The MGNREGA has important implications for how policy might envision and pursue future efforts for pro-poor climate support. To begin with, vulnerably is a multi-faceted phenomenon; no single kind of support is likely to be enough (Fischer & Chhatre, 2015;Williams et al, 2015). While the need to integrate climate vulnerability reduction with broader rural development objectives is by now widely recognized (Ayers & Dodman, 2010;Schipper, 2007), recent scholarship has focused on the potential synergistic effects that may emerge by linking broad-based social protection policies with more specific interventions to target climate risks (Davies et al, 2009;Lemos et al, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Policy innovations for pro-poor climate support: social protection, small-scale infrastructure, and active citizenship under India’s MGNREGA

Fischer

2019

Climate and Development

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While extensive scholarship has explored principles for pro-poor climate support, there is a need for knowledge of specific strategies that can achieve these objectives on the ground. This paper examines India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and its effects on climate risk reduction. Although the MGNREGA was not designed specifically as a climate programme, it incorporates three key elements with the potential to advance pro-poor climate assistance objectives: (a) social protection through the provision of minimum wage labour; (b) the development of small-scale, natural resource-focused infrastructure; and (c) a decentralized, 'community-based' planning architecture. Analysis of a primary dataset comprising 1400 households and 798 projects in India's state Himachal Pradesh, interpreted through intensive qualitative fieldwork, shows that both projects and labour have helped vulnerable households confront climate and other risks, while the Act's decentralized architecture has expanded the channels for citizens to claim support for local challenges. The paper argues for the importance of building a broader 'ecosystem' of support to target diverse local needs, and of the need to strengthen the political architectures through which vulnerable groups access these benefits on the groundespecially in the context of decentralized approaches for climate assistance.

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Household types as a tool to understand adaptive capacity: case studies from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Bangladesh and India

Cited by 19 publications

References 37 publications

Impacts of multiple stressors on mountain communities: Insights from an agent-based model of a Nepalese village

Impacts of multiple stressors on mountain communities: Insights from an agent-based model of a Nepalese village

Assessing differential vulnerability of communities in the agrarian context in two districts of Maharashtra, India

Policy innovations for pro-poor climate support: social protection, small-scale infrastructure, and active citizenship under India’s MGNREGA

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