Building Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change in Southeast Asia
Climate change is expected to bring extreme and damaging weather conditions like stronger and more frequent typhoons, and more intense rainfall, which almost always result to flooding and flood-related damages. Exacerbated by anthropogenic factors, climate impacts result to damage to property and infrastructure, to the disruption of economic activities, loss of income, illnesses, injuries and even death. This project, which is being implemented in Cambodia, Philippines and Vietnam, aims to build the capacity of local governments in mitigating and adapting to climate change, especially in conducting vulnerability assessment and adaptation analysis. To operationalize the empowerment of the local governments, the project aims to measure and develop maps of overall and sectoral relative vulnerability to climate change of the communes/barangays in the selected project sites. It will also analyze social vulnerability of local communities in terms of gender, geographic location, ethnicity, and socio-cultural, demographic and political-economic features and their potential community-based adaptation. The ethnographies across cases used to derive a framework that contributes to understanding community vulnerability and adaptation in Southeast Asia will also be analyzed.
Additionally, the study will also document and assess economic viability of selected adaptation options adopted by households, design collective adaptation options for selected localities, and undertake economic analysis of these options using Cost-Benefit Analysis, Cost-Effective Analysis and Multi-Criterion Analysis frameworks. Lastly, the project aims to offer policy recommendations to enhance local capacity to adapt to climate change at the local level and for Southeast Asian countries. Using the results of the study, specific groups and areas that are likely to be most affected by climate change, and its impacts, will be identified, and the best strategies and options for mitigating the impacts can be determined.
Partner:
- International Development Research Centre (IDRC|CRDI)
- Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia