Rural Institutions and Climate Change: Discussion Forum

Welcome

Welcome to the Rural Institutions and Adaptation to Climate Change website. The objective of this website is to explore, discuss and pool information on how vulnerable populations cope with and adapt to climate change, and the role of local institutions in enhancing their capacity to adapt. This will be initiated through a Discussion Forum and will bring together practitioners, policy makers and the academic community to share information, best practice and experience on issues related to local institutions and climate change. Following the Discussion Forum, the website will continue to provide a repository of knowledge, and a platform for exchange of information on events, studies, institutions and experience relevant to this topic.

This research is part of an ongoing TFESSD-funded study on Mobilizing Rural Institutions which examines how rural institutions affect governance and livelihood outcomes for different rural households in five transitional, developing country contexts: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Orissa in India, Vietnam, and Yemen. (http://www.worldbank.org/mobilizinginstitutions)

Climate change impacts on rural poor and their livelihoods

Climate change will have three main impacts on rural poor and their livelihoods: increase environmental risks, reduce livelihoods opportunities, and in consequence, stress existing social institutions. Its effect will occur through hazards and mechanisms that may be historically familiar, and for which the rural poor have often developed a rich repertoire of strategies and adaption practices. To strengthen the adaptive capacity of the rural poor, therefore, governments and other external actors need to strengthen and take advantage of already existing strategies that many households and social groups use collectively or singly. Examining the environmental risks that rural populations have historically faced, their cultural responses to these risks, and the institutional configurations that facilitate individual and collective adaptation strategies is therefore a fruitful area of inquiry and policy analysis for generating effective coordination with external interventions.

The Role of Local Institutions in Adaptation to Climate Change

The responses of local institutions to climate change in developing countries will be a key part of the global response to both adaptation and mitigation. Information on how and under which conditions local institutions can help reduce climate change-related vulnerability, enhance adaptive capacity, and promote sustainable livelihoods through more effective development policies and programs is currently sparse. Understanding how local institutions respond will be critical to producing effective policy responses which effectively mobilize and assist local communities.

All adaptation practices occur in institutionally rich contexts, and the success of adaptation depends on specific institutional arrangements. Local institutions are therefore necessary enablers of the capacity of households and social groups to deploy specific adaptation practices, and without them rural poor will find it far costlier to adapt in ways relevant to their needs. The framework proposed in this discussion forum suggests five major classes of adaptation practices that are available to the rural poor in varying measures depending on their social networks, access to resources, and asset portfolios: mobility, storage, diversification, communal pooling, and exchange. Given the importance of institutions to adaptation, it is critical to establish how different kinds of institutions reinforce particular combinations of adaptation practices. External interventions can reinforce livelihoods practices and local rural institutions by supplying four types of supports: informational, technological, financial, and leadership that reduces the costs of collective action. The framework also suggests that local institutions in the public, civic, and private sector are an appropriate mechanism to channel external inputs that strengthen the adaptation practices of the rural poor.