Links between climate change and development are becoming increasingly apparent. There is now little doubt that climate change is happening and that it is largely caused by human induced greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions are driven by socio-economic development patterns characterized by economic growth, technology, population and governance. At the same time these patterns also influence people’s vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, which will in turn influence socio-economic development and thereby future greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change is seen as posing a challenge to meeting important development objectives and to unsure the sustainability of development assistance projects. Specifically, climate change could affect projects’ deliverables (such as water supply, infrastructure, food security, human health, natural resources management and protection against natural hazards) and the vulnerability of the communities or ecosystems that are intended to benefit from the development projects.
Ass well the development projects aiming at improving the living conditions and access to resources for local communities could enhance their local adaptive capacity helping them to respond successfully to the impacts of climate change.

This session wants to highlight some tools and guidelines:

1. to understand how climate change may affect existing projects outcomes,
2. to ascertain the extent to which existing development projects already consider climate risks or address vulnerability to climate variability and change, and
3. to identify opportunities for incorporating climate change explicitly into future projects.

We suggest a few tools/manuals that have been developed by some development cooperation organizations:

1. Climate Change Adaptation Guidance Manual - USAID.
   The Guidance Manual is aimed at USAID country missions to assist in the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation in all projects. At present the manual is being tested in Honduras, South Africa, Mali and Thailand in sectors such as agriculture, coastal development and flooding, water infrastructure, and fisheries and livelihoods. Future projects may cover protected lands management, integrated river basin management, and health. The manual leads project designers through a series of steps to help them understand whether their project may be vulnerable to climate variability or change. The manual encourages stakeholder engagement and provides guidance on where to find more information and assistance in gathering data.  http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/environment/climate/docs/reports/cc_vamanual.pdf   

 

1. CRiSTAL – IISD, IUCN, SEI, Intercooperation.
   This project-based tool is aimed at numerous users and is currently being piloted for Nicaragua, Mali, Tanzania and Sri Lanka in sectors such as agriculture, water resource management, infrastructure, and natural resource management. The tool requires detailed project inputs and vulnerability data. The tool delivers vulnerability and livelihood profiles as well as details for project modification. A parallel tool is being planned which aims to focus on the project portfolio side which would be intended to help programme managers integrate adaptation concerns into their over project portfolio at the strategic planning level. More information: www.iisd.org/security/es/resilience/climate_phase2.aspb

1. ADAPT - World Bank.
   This computer-based (Excel) tool is designed to evaluate the multilateral/bilateral development project. It is multi-sectoral (e.g. agriculture and irrigation, biodiversity, infrastructure) and global, although the geographic foci are South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The tool couples an expert system on the sensitivity of project activities to changes in climate variables with real, projected climate and climate-derived data from GCMs and other models. The tool flags activities that are sensitive to (or in a positive sense, adaptive to) climate change, gives advice on adaptation activities and provides a knowledge base for further review. More information: www.worldbank.org/climatechange

 

• Guidance notes on tools for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction - ProVention Consortium.
  The Provention Consortium has recently published a comprehensive compendium of short briefing papers on tools and methods for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction. These approaches have much in common with climate change adaptation, particularly in their approach to tackling current variability, risk frameworks, and approaches to overcoming barriers to cross-sectoral work. More information: http://www.proventionconsortium.org/?pageid=32&projectid=1