The Multiplicity of Climate and Rural Risk

It is easy to blame everything on the weather, but this can be misleading. Climate change has become a focus of attention in efforts to understand the new sets of challenges being faced by rural people, but undue emphasis on a single set of hazards can be misleading. This new working paper explores the interplay between climate and other aspects of rural risk.

Rural risk needs to be understood in relation to climate change, globalisation and other factors, particularly with regard to how these risks are perceived and managed within different policy frames and among local institutions involved with agriculture and rural development. This working paper analyses the changing and multidimensional landscape of risk in terms of how it impacts on natural resource management governance, strategies and decision-making. Pro-poor growth and community-based risk reduction policies are contrasted so as to highlight their implications for local actors struggling to deal with climate variability and market volatility. Food security is presented as an example of an area where policy coherence in responding to these multiple challenges is lacking, but where rural people and institutions are nonetheless adapting in their own ways.

Ian Christoplos is a Project Senior Researcher at DIIS. This working paper draws on his extensive work as a researcher and as a consultant involved in both risk reduction and climate change adaptation efforts. The paper was prepared as a scoping review of entry points for further research that could contribute to better alignment of climate change efforts with the perceptions and priorities of rural populations at risk.