Climate Change and Sustainable
Livelihoods
Strategies for Building Community Resilience
Session Overview
 Conceptual Overview
 What can the sustainable livelihoods approach do?
Example from India
Example from Sudan
 Sketch of Sudan Project (AIACC AF14)
 Group Discussion:
Defining a Research Strategy
What does “Sustainable Livelihoods” mean?
SL refers to a livelihood that:
 can cope with and recover from stresses and
shocks,
 maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets
both now and in the future,
 while not undermining the resource base.
The Sustainable Livelihoods
Connection
Poverty
Vulnerability to Shocks
Vulnerability to Climate Extremes and
Climate Change
Sustainable Livelihoods
Resilience to shocks
Climate Change Adaptation
What can the Sustainable
Livelihoods Approach do?
 Enhance a community’s portfolio of “social capital”:
composite of natural, physical, financial, technical and
human capital
 Increase livelihood security
 Enhance capacity to cope with climate-related shocks
 Build capacity to adapt to climate change
Why make the connection to
Adaptation?
The SL approach helps users to:
 Focus on most vulnerable people
 Assess their vulnerabilities and strengths
 Tap existing knowledge, ongoing efforts to determine
what works
 Enable community-driven strategies and action;
ensure buy-in and longevity
 Ultimately… fortify against climate-related shocks
Why make the connection to
Adaptation?
Urgent adaptation needs of most vulnerable groups
 Existence of local coping strategies
 Hard-won lessons from other (non-climate) disciplines (e.g.,
sustainable livelihoods, disaster mitigation, natural resource
management); potential for integration?
 No-regrets options and co-benefits
 Disconnect between community needs and the policy
process

An Example from India:
 Context: Poor rural
villages in the droughtprone state of
Maharashtra
Approach: Micro-catchment Restoration and
Community Development
Actors: Local Communities and the Watershed
Organisation Trust (WOTR)
Image source: http://www.wotr.org/
India: What happened?
Individual villages undertook a package of SL measures,
designed to regenerate and conserve the micro-catchments
upon which their community depends:
Community Organization
Soil, Land and Water Management (e.g., trench building)
Crop Management
Afforestation; Rural Energy Management (e.g,. tree-felling
ban)
Livestock Management; Pasture/Fodder Development (e.g,
grazing restrictions)
Micro-lending for supplemental income generation
Human Resource Development
India: How did it happen?

Community commitment, investment and control
– “Village Self-Help Groups”
– Participatory planning, implementation, management, self-assessment
– Targeted role for women

Opportunities for livelihood security
– Micro-lending; Supplemental income generation
– Community self-help groups
Consistency with local land ownership
 Support of local NGO (WOTR)
 Training and extension services
 Blending of “external” and traditional knowledge

India: What was the result?
Satellite imagery of Shenit Watershed
January 1996
December 1999
Prior to project implementation
During project implementation
Standard FCC Using IRS 1C LISS III band 2,3,4 data. Date of scan: 19th January 1996. Source: http://www.wotr.org
India:
What was the result?
The key outcome has been
reduced vulnerability to drought of
participating communities
As of 2001:






Number of Projects
Total Area Covered (ha.)
No.of Villages
No.of NGOs involved
No.of Districts
Total Population engaged
Image source: http://www.wotr.org/
128
135,812
176
77
22
210,000 (approx.)
An Example from Sudan:
 Context: Villages in the drought-prone Bara Province,
Western Sudan
 Approach: Community-Based Rangeland Rehabilitation
 Two main development objectives:
Create locally sustainable NRM system to rehabilitate
overexploited lands for the purpose of carbon sequestration
Reduce the risk of production failure by increasing the number
of livelihood alternatives… leading to greater local stability
 Key Actors: Villages within Gireigikh rural council, pilot
project staff, UNDP/GEF
Sudan: What happened?
A group of villages undertook a package of SL measures.
included:
 Institution Building
 Training
 Rangeland Rehabilitation
Replanting
Stabilization of sand dunes
Creation of windbreaks
Livestock restocking and management

Community Development
Water development
Rural energy management
Introduction of revolving credit
Drought contingency planning
(Image source: The Near East Foundation, http://www.neareast.org/main/nefnotes)
These
Sudan: How did it happen?
Project approach:
 Similarities to India case
 Community-based participation an essential
approach to improving rangeland management
 Activities not directly related to carbon sequestration
needed
Mgmt. plan arises from community assets/needs
Address long-term ecological goals with short-term socioeconomic (survival) measures
Sudan: What was the result?
 Community institutional structure created
– land-use master plans;
– oversight and mobilization structures
 Rangeland rehabilitation measures implemented
–
–
–
–
5 km of sand dunes re-vegetated
195 km of windbreaks sheltering 130 farms
Approximately 700 ha improved
Livestock restocking
 Community development underway
–
–
–
–
2 revolving funds
5 pastoral women’s groups focused on livestock value-adding activities
5 new irrigated gardens and wells
Grain storage and seed credit program
Sudan: What was the result?

Effectively combined
participatory planning, capacity
building and access to credit

Diversified production system
and established drought
contingency measures

High impact - Several major objectives exceeded original targets
project due to perceived benefits
Positive leakage - additional villages implementing project
strategies
Strategies slated for expansion and replication in Province


Image source: The Near East Foundation (http://www.neareast.org/main/nefnotes)
AIACC Project AF14:
Strategies for Increasing
Community Resilience in Sudan:
Lessons for Climate Change Adaptation
 A joint
project of the Sudan Higher Council for
Environment and Natural Resources and SEI-Boston
 Project Goal:
To contribute to efforts to build the
resilience of vulnerable communities to climate change.
AF14: Major Objectives
 Identify SL and environmental management
(EM) strategies that are effective at increasing
the resilience of vulnerable communities to
climate-related shocks
 Assess these in the context of underlying
conditions and of climate change
 Share lessons for promoting climate change
adaptation with the research, planning and
policy-making communities
AF14: Project Approach
The project will look at:
 Vulnerable communities within Sudan.
 Vulnerability and level of adaptation to current
climatic conditions.
 Community-based strategies for coping with and
adapting to climate-related stressors.
 Underlying conditions (socioeconomic, political,
ecological) that promote or inhibit these strategies.
AF14: Project Approach
Want to understand:
 what SL/EM strategies can do for a community
What measures and strategies used? To what effect?

what factors are needed to support or enable SL/EM strategies
What national and local policies, conditions, etc. are behind successful
strategies?
General steps:
– Identify and confirm “successful” SL/EM experiences
– Explore the nature of this success – use indicators to determine the way in which
the community is resilient
– Ask “why?” - what factors/conditions made it possible for strategies to be
implemented, to take hold and to persist
– Distill lessons on how to build community resilience to climate impacts
Developing a Research Strategy
1) Defining Research Goals
Key Questions
Sample Approach
2) Defining Methodological Approach
Key Questions
Sample Approach
3) Defining Research Scope
Key Questions
Sample Approach
Developing a Research Strategy (ctd.)
4) Defining Indicators and Data Needs
Key Questions
Sample Approach
5) Selecting Case Studies
Key Questions
Sample Approach
6) Developing a Research Protocol
Key Questions
Sample Approach
Conclusions
Tapping the SL Approach:
What can it do for adaptation?
Using this as a tool in adaptation assessment can help to:

Enable national planning processes to effectively consider the
most vulnerable groups; articulate unique local vulnerabilities

Identify locally-relevant resilience-building options

Build understanding of micro- and macro-level enabling
conditions for adaptation

Build local adaptation awareness and engage local NGOs
(potential adaptation project implementers)
(Image Source: Global Mechanism for the UNCDD website http://www.gm-unccd.org/English/Activities/Enabling.htm).