Local communities are key players when adapting to climate change

While climate change is a global issue, the impacts are highly localized. If local communities are to adapt to climate change there is a need for local initiatives.

Moreover, adapting is not only about technological development and innovation – it is also very much a political issue deciding how to govern in these changing environmental conditions.

With the growing recognition of the political nature of adaptation, follows an increased focus of decentralizing climate change adaptation decision-making to the local level. Many new efforts are directed at strengthening local political institutions, such as local governments as well as local communities to influence these initiatives. Hereby, local knowledge can be combined with expert knowledge to enhance and improve adaptation initiatives integrating them into the local context, which improves sustainability.

This article explores how collaborative approaches to planned adaptation through an external actor, in this case the NGO CARE, can create linkages between local institutions and communities. The article examined the Adaptation Learning Programme in the Northern and Upper East regions of Ghana, which was implemented in 2010 by CARE International. One of the main elements of the programme was to strengthen local communities’ capacity to enable them to advocate for their needs in relation to the increased challenges they face from climate change at their local institutions.

The findings suggest that the two districts have received positive outcomes from this planned adaptation approach. Capacity building and advocacy training have made the communities more proactive, hereby increasing their interaction with the local or meso-level institutions.

Local government institutions have now come to recognize communities as key stakeholders in adaptation, evident in the integration of the Community Adaptation Action Plans into the Medium Term Development Plans. However, lack of funding hinders up-scaling of the programme.