The status of climate change adaptation in Africa and Asia

Ford, James D.; Berrang‐Ford, Lea; Bunce, Anna; McKay, Courtney; Irwin, Maya; Pearce, Tristan

doi:10.1007/s10113-014-0648-2

Cited by 173 publications

(133 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Even in regions with relatively high project involvement, such as East and South Africa, participation at the country level is fairly unequal. This finding is consistent with other studies in this special edition (e.g., Ford et al 2014) and other publications (Barr et al 2010), indicating that projects allocated by international agencies not only depend on a country's vulnerability, but also its implementation capacity to manage the funds. For example, countries such as Botswana, Chad, Gabon, Liberia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Zimbabwe share high vulnerability, a low adaptive capacity and a limited capacity to implement projects (Barr et al 2010).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Review of key initiatives and approaches to adaptation planning at the national level in semi-arid areas

et al. 2015

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Semi-arid areas are found in a large number of countries and regions of Africa and South and Central Asia. They display high vulnerability to climate change with considerable adaptation needs. In this paper, we review country-level and multi-country projects supported by international agencies. We examine the priorities and goals presented in national adaptation planning documents and in sectorial planning documents. Through this analysis, we seek to compare adaptation needs with current trends in national, regional and global projects and collaborations. Our results suggest that initiatives supported by international agencies play a considerable role in achieving national adaptation priorities, especially in areas such as agriculture and water management. However, compared with specific adaptation options such as drought-resistant species and irrigation (which tend to be the scope of the projects), the analyzed documents tend to see challenges in agriculture more in the contexts of food security, livestock and rural development. They emphasize the strong connection between rural livelihoods and sustainable land and ecosystem management. Priorities listed in the national documents but not captured in current initiatives include human health, pastoralism, security and migration. Our results also show high levels of mainstreaming adaptation into sectorial planning documents, especially those on poverty reduction; however, compared with the focus on the project level, they here emphasize adaptations focused on institutional development and governance. Finally, the outcomes indicate that global, regional and national initiatives are distributed unequally and that countries in Central and West Africa and Central Asia currently exhibit low participation, especially in national projects.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Review of key initiatives and approaches to adaptation planning at the national level in semi-arid areas

et al. 2015

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“…Ford et al (2014) find that trends in reported adaptation policy and practice differ substantively by literature source, highlighting the extent to which results are highly sensitive to the choice of document types included in a review. Quantitative and even formal qualitative evaluations of adaptation policy and practice efficacy are likely to be limited.…”

Section: Literature and Information Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…In contrast, for a research question with a very large and diverse amount of information, the reviewer may need to identify ways of placing limits on the review so that it can be feasibly conducted. This might involve restricting the review to a single literature source (e.g., peer-reviewed articles, articles indexed only in Web of Knowledge), or selecting a sample of the literature (e.g., Ford et al 2014;Kilroy 2015;Kamau and Mwaura 2013). A reviewer must place limits on the amount of literature that can be covered, and this may be done at the defining/scoping stage (Pawson et al 2005).…”

Section: Literature and Information Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This paper is part of a special edition commissioned by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to inform the development of their Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) program. The paper compliments six articles in the special edition that apply to varying degrees systematic approaches to reviewing current knowledge on adaptation to climate change in global vulnerability hotspots (Berrang-Ford et al this issue;Bizikova et al 2015;De Souza et al 2015;Ford et al 2014;Kilroy 2015;Lwasa 2014;Sud et al 2015;Tucker et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Systematic review approaches for climate change adaptation research

2015

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Recent controversy has led to calls for increased standardization and transparency in the methods used to synthesize climate change research. Though these debates have focused largely on the biophysical dimensions of climate change, human dimensions research is equally in need of improved methodological approaches for research synthesis. Systematic review approaches, and more recently realist review methods, have been used within the health sciences for decades to guide research synthesis. Despite this, penetration of these approaches into the social and environmental sciences has been limited. Here, we present an analysis of approaches for systematic review and research synthesis and examine their applicability in an adaptation context. Customized review frameworks informed by systematic approaches to research synthesis provide a conceptually appropriate and practical opportunity for increasing methodological transparency and rigor in synthesizing and tracking adaptation research. This review highlights innovative applications of systematic approaches, with a focus on the unique challenges of integrating multiple data sources and formats in reviewing climate change adaptation policy and practice. We present guidelines, key considerations, and recommendations for systematic review in the social sciences in general and adaptation research in particular. We conclude by calling for increased conceptual and methodological development of systematic review approaches to address the methodological challenges of synthesizing and tracking adaptation to climate change.

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“…This makes careful adaptation planning imperative, as climate change is projected to increase temperatures, alter the temporal and spatial distribution of rainfall and increase the severity of droughts and flooding across the region (Niang et al 2014). Climate impacts are taking place alongside rapid social, economic and demographic transitions that combine to influence development outcomes, including interacting challenges across the nexus of food security (Ford et al 2015), water availability and energy supply (Conway et al 2015). Climate adaptation planning is subject to challenges of the paucity of reliable climate information (Jones et al 2015) and uncertainties about the timing of impacts and their spatial distribution (Davis 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change adaptation and cross-sectoral policy coherence in southern Africa

et al. 2018

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To be effective, climate change adaptation needs to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors and greater policy coherence is essential. Using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, this paper investigates the extent of coherence in national policies across the water and agriculture sectors and to climate change adaptation goals outlined in national development plans. A two-pronged qualitative approach is applied using Qualitative Document Analysis of relevant policies and plans, combined with expert interviews from non-government actors in each country. Findings show that sector policies have differing degrees of coherence on climate change adaptation, currently being strongest in Zambia and weakest in Tanzania. We also identify that sectoral policies remain more coherent in addressing immediate-term disaster management issues of floods and droughts rather than longer-term strategies for climate adaptation. Coherence between sector and climate policies and strategies is strongest when the latter has been more recently developed. However to date, this has largely been achieved by repackaging of existing sectoral policy statements into climate policies drafted by external consultants to meet international reporting needs and not by the establishment of new connections between national sectoral planning processes. For more effective mainstreaming of climate change adaptation, governments need to actively embrace longer-term cross-sectoral planning through cross-Ministerial structures, such as initiated through Zambia's Interim Climate Change Secretariat, to foster greater policy coherence and integrated adaptation planning.

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The status of climate change adaptation in Africa and Asia

Cited by 173 publications

References 44 publications

Review of key initiatives and approaches to adaptation planning at the national level in semi-arid areas

Review of key initiatives and approaches to adaptation planning at the national level in semi-arid areas

Systematic review approaches for climate change adaptation research

Climate change adaptation and cross-sectoral policy coherence in southern Africa

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