The Nordic Africa Institute

PROJECT

From Climate Change Adaptation to Climate Resilience – Identifying the missing links

Started • 01 January 2021

This research network project aims to understand the current state of climate change adaptation policies and practices in vulnerable settings – smallholder farmers and urban marginalized poor – in Kenya and Tanzania. The Nordic Africa Institute is the coordinating organisation and the participating institutes are Kenyatta University (Kenya) and University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania).

The specific aims of the project are to:

  • Understand the adaptation and resilience practices followed in the case study areas in Kenya and Tanzania at different stages of the occurrence of an extreme climate event.
  • Understand the core reasons for the unpreparedness/lack of adaptive capacity/lack of climate resilience. Is it because of the lack of dissemination of relevant and timely climate information, or is it because of the lack of social, institutional and financial capacities among these vulnerable sections and the respective local administrating organizations?
  • Suggest and formulate possible sustainable solutions and mechanisms to address these issues incorporating better facilitation of top-down climate information dissemination and bottom-up integration of traditional/local environmental knowledge systems and practices.

The findings from this project have the potential to uplift a large section of vulnerable societies in the developing world through identifying and finding solutions to bridge the gap between a reactive climate adaptation strategy to a sustainable and resilient strategy. Furthermore, it will support the fight against poverty and sustainable development in these countries. In particular, the solutions will address the linkages of research and policy, thereby enhancing the research-policy uptake of the climate adaptation strategies.

This three-year project is funded by a research network grant from the Swedish Research Council (VR).

Project leader: Shilpa Muliyil Asokan

Project participants: Joy Obando, Ronald Ndesanjo, Raphael Mulaha Kweyu and Madaka Tumbo