Case Study Example
Community Resilience to Climate-Related Impacts
Through Rangelands Rehabilitation in Sudan
The vulnerability of rural agricultural-based communities to climate risks provides a perfect
context within which to illustrate how projects can be evaluated within the NAPA process.
This example, which includes a mixture of actual and hypothetical data, is based on an actual
project implemented in Sudan in the 1990s to explore carbon sequestration issues in Sahelian
drylands -- a topic which one might consider at first to be relatively far afield, but as you’ll
see vividly illustrates an example of a project which is highly synergistic with a NAPA
project ideal.
Let’s take as a given that there has been a national and/or subnational consultative process
solicited inputs and project ideas that identified rangeland rehabilitation as a potentially
important NAPA activity. Within this broad stakeholder judgment, how should one prioritize,
select, and present projects in the NAPA project document? What follows below is an
assessment of one particular project in Sudan using a common tool for project prioritization
and selection - multi-criteria assessment (MCA).
Problem Definition
The Community-Based Rangeland Rehabilitation for Carbon Sequestration and Biodiversity
project was implemented in a drought-prone area in central Sudan to promote a simple model
of community-based natural resource management utilizing participatory techniques with
short-term economic and long-term ecological benefits. The major environmental issue
addressed by the project was land degradation, the major causes of which were considered to
be recurring droughts, cultivation on marginal lands, falling livestock and crop production
and chronic food insecurity.
At the time of the project there were little if any effective risk-hedging strategies that were
being implemented by local communities to addressing these problems. As a result the region
had seen widespread flight to urban centers, devastation of livestock herds, and severe
impoverishment. The project was implemented among a rural population - a mix of
agropastoralists and transhumants overwhelmingly dependent on crop and livestock
production – that have proven extremely vulnerable to chronic and acute drought events.
Project Objectives
The project had two overall development objectives: (1) to create a locally sustainable natural
resource management system that could both prevent overexploitation of marginal lands and
rehabilitate rangelands for the purpose of carbon sequestration and biodiversity preservation,
and (2) to reduce the risk of production failure by increasing the number of alternatives for
sustainable production strategies, thereby leading to greater stability for the local population.
Conceived as a pilot effort to test a model of community-focused intervention, the project
was intended to be replicated in other semi-arid areas of Sudan if proven successful.
Project Design Elements
The project took a distinctly “sustainable livelihoods” approach in addressing several key
areas of local vulnerability in parallel, namely poverty alleviation, natural resource
management, technology transfer, and women in development. Two design elements deserve
special mention. First, long-term improvement in natural resource management could only be
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achieved if accompanied by activities that met near term community needs. For this reason,
numerous measures were implemented that directly addressed socio-economic conditions
rather than carbon sequestration per se. These included village-level irrigated gardens,
handicrafts and food processing, water point development, livestock restocking, soap
production, revolving credit systems, village-level fodder production, animal health
management/training, household macaroni production, pest management, and drought
contingency planning. Second, community-based participation was an essential approach to
improving rangeland management. This led to an implementation strategy that relied on
existing, traditional mechanisms of leadership, social discipline, alliances and reciprocity
between tribes that used the same land resources.
Potential Project Alternatives
To meet the rangeland rehabilitation and risk reduction objectives of the project, a number of
alternatives could have been considered. There were several potentially suitable project
alternatives cited and discussed in the Project Document, as follows: a) gum-belt restocking,
b) crop and livestock improvement activities, c) irrigated fodder production, and d) water
point development. These were not considered in a multi-criteria assessment framework at
the time of the project proposal. Each option has several advantages and disadvantages, and
the application of the MCA process helps set these out clearly. For the sake of illustration,
each is now considered in a MCA framework for possible suitability as a NAPA-compatible
project.
Project Criteria Selection
An evaluation of alternatives using multi-criteria assessment techniques relies on a process of
establishing relevant criteria, weighting those criteria, and then ranking results. This allows
an evaluation of the effectiveness of the project and each alternative relative to the overall
aim of reducing local vulnerability. The initial step in using this method is to convene a
representative stakeholder group to identify suitable evaluation criteria. For illustrative
purposes, four criteria are assumed to have been selected by a stakeholder group: agricultural
production, livestock production, intervention cost, and community capital enhancement.
These criteria fulfill the requirements of the MCA process in that they are relevant, distinct
from each other, and stakeholder-driven. The list is certainly not exhaustive, and you should
think about how the list could be appropriately expanded. In part, these criteria have been
chosen because there are rough numerical estimates available, based on assorted project
documents and government statistics.
Of course, there is only one option available (i.e., the community rangeland rehabilitation
project), but use of data means that each project alternative can be scored in terms of the
criteria. Furthermore, by scoring on some kind of standardized basis, attributes that are
readily quantifiable (such as annual millet yields) will not overwhelm other attributes that are
more amenable to qualitative assessment (such as local capacity strengthening).
Using an absolute scoring system for each criterion generates an MCA matrix as shown in
Table 1 below. For simplicity, the “no-project” alternative is excluded. One can see from this
table, for example, that the irrigated fodder production alternative has a higher agricultural
production levels than any of the other alternatives.
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Table 1: Absolute criteria scores of the project and its alternatives
Criteria
agricultural
livestock
community
production
production
Cost
capital
Alternative
(tonnes)
(# of sheep)
(million $)
(participants)
rangeland rehabilitation
190
175
5
900
gum-belt restocking
175
0
50
20
crop/livestock improvement
135
35
202
50
irrigated fodder production
210
0
35
100
water point development
0
0
450
150
The outputs above are not much good to us in their present form. Standardizing will help us
compare across criteria and projects. Using a standardization of 0 to 100 for each criterion
generates an MCA matrix as shown in Table 2 below. One can see from this table, for
example, that the irrigated fodder production alternative receives the highest (i.e., best) score
when considered against the other alternatives for agricultural production.
Table 2: Standardized criteria scores of the project and its alternatives
Criteria
agricultural
livestock
community
Alternative
production
production
Cost
capital
rangeland rehabilitation
91
100
100
100
gum-belt restocking
83
0
10
2
crop/livestock improvement
64
20
2
5
irrigated fodder production
100
0
14
11
water point development
0
0
1
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Criteria Weighting
As with the establishment of criteria, weighting also requires participation of stakeholders to
make the process more inclusive. While this approach is more subjective than the earlier
steps, which have been based on the application of government or project data, it is
comparatively objective when compared to ad hoc, non-stakeholder-driven assessments.
For the purposes of this case study, let’s assume that stakeholders have agreed that the prime
function of the five risk-reducing alternatives is to build at the household level as well as the
overall community level the ability to avoid crisis responses to future drought events. They
have decided that the criterion that is most relevant to this function (i.e., community capital)
should be weighted by a factor of three, and an equal weighting given to the other three
criteria. When this weighting is inserted in the table, it has the effect shown on Table 3.
Table 3: Weighted criteria scores of the project and its alternatives
Criteria
agricultural
livestock
community
production production
Cost
capital
Weighting factor >>>
16.3%
16.3%
16.3%
50.0%
Alternative
rangeland rehabilitation
14.8
16.3
16.3
50.0
gum-belt restocking
13.5
0
1.6
1.0
crop/livestock improvement
10.4
3.3
0.3
2.5
irrigated fodder production
2.7
0
2.3
5.5
water point development
0
0
0.2
8.5
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Total
100%
97.4
16.1
16.5
10.5
8.7
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Discussion and Conclusions
In this illustrative application, the multi-criteria assessment table indicates that the rangeland
rehabilitation project is the “best” type of project, yielding a score of 97.4, which is nearly 6
times the score of its closest competing alternative, the crop/livestock improvement project. It
is important to note that this result is a direct outcome of the stakeholder-driven set of criteria
and weighting process. If, for example, agricultural production was considered a much more
important criterion than community capital, then a far different result may have resulted. In
fact, conducting sensitivity analysis on the weighting scheme – in close consultation with the
stakeholder group – can be a very useful way of assessing the robustness of the conclusions.
We recommend that such analyzes be conducted in any multi-criteria assessment.
In conclusion, it is worth stressing several points. First, multi-criteria assessment techniques
work most effectively when they increase transparency. To do this, involve stakeholders in
decisions about criteria and weighting prior to filling the table with numbers. This will
ultimately help promote donor confidence and hence facilitate the securing of necessary
funds to implement the project.
Second, the assessment process is used to provide insight into what will be a final investment
decision. The MCA process is a “one shot deal” to guide the decision about which alternative
is best. It is extremely important that the sensitivity of the results be thoroughly scrutinized to
ensure confidence in the outcome.
Third, multi-criteria assessment is logical and fairly straightforward to understand. This
makes is readily explainable to others involved in the NAPA process. Its major strength is
that it seeks to allocate responses objectively. When reinforced by effective participation of
stakeholders in identifying criteria and determining weighting levels, the process becomes
transparent and comparatively objective.
Finally, multi-criteria assessment offers the means by which an established planning tool
could be applied for use in NAPA project identification. It does, however, require availability
of data as well as active participation by stakeholders to be effective. When such participation
occurs, the process can increase transparency and by extension bilateral donor confidence.
References
Dougherty, W., Abusuwar, A., Abdel Razik, K., 2001. Sudan: Community-Based Rangeland
Rehabilitation for Carbon Sequestration and Biodiversity SUD/93/G31, Report of the
Terminal Evaluation, October.
Least Developed Countries Expert Group (LEG), 2002. Annotated Guidelines for the
Preparation of National Adaptation Programmes of Action, July.
United Nations Development Programme, 1993. Sudan: Community-Based Rangeland
Rehabilitation for Carbon Sequestration and Biodiversity, Project Document.
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