Adaptation implementation: institutional actors and policy channels
The very nature of adaptation, that its focus is not global in nature but addresses local concerns, has delayed discussions on the subject. Yet, the impacts of climate change are already evident, and huge adverse consequences are expected for global efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals. There is thus an urgent need to build adaptive capacities and reduce vulnerability to increasing climatic variability and climate change. It is well understood that there are differential potentials that exist across regions, communities and individuals to cope with climate induced changes, triggered by the constraints related to lack of well defined technological and financial support mechanisms in place, as well as existing institutional capacity and policy venues.It is important to create the enabling environments needed to strengthen adaptation measures, specifically in case of developing countries, given their heavy dependence on resources that are climate reliant (e.g., the agricultural sector) and often comprised of activities that are not very organized in structure (e.g., subsistence agriculture and informal markets). Therefore, the role of institutions and policies holds relevance not only in the horizontal but also the vertical context - at the global, central, state and local levels. A framework of action is required to be devised to strengthen adaptation implementation, encompassing integration of activities across various levels asking for a multi-level governance framework that spans across global to local levels. This would include the need for identification of various stakeholders that hold relevance in strengthening adaptation. Key policy windows should be identified on the basis of sector and cross-cutting themes. To the degree that we rely on case studies, our focus will be on extracting lessons that can be generalized across communities and regions. This will be a challenge, given that adaptation is a very location-specific process, and developing countries are diverse, thus many lessons will unavoidably be specific to individual cases, and not necessarily straight forward to generalize.
Key research questions to be explored would include:
- What are the existing and promising models of adaptation implementation? Who are the actors, administrative bodies, and institutions (at the global, regional, national and local levels) who would need to be mobilized or created to implement adaptation activities through these models? What is the current level of awareness, capacity and involvement of the relevant actors?
- Where are the gaps and strengths among these actors in key developing countries? What is their current level of capacity in key developing countries?
- What are the needed policies? Through what policy channels do they enter and advance through the formal policy making process? What opportunities are there for adapting policy cycles to accommodate adaptation activities?
- Is there a need for creation of enabling environments to foster adaptation activities? What are the relevant barriers?
- What kind of framework can be developed to strengthen adaptation?
