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IWRM
Water Management, Water Security and Climate Change Adaptation: Early Impacts and Essential Responses
Submitted by GWPO on Thu, 2012-02-09 21:12Year:
Publisher:
Pages:
Summary:
The technical background paper (3.95 MB) argues that water resrouces management should be a focus for climate change adaptation and that IWRM is the most suitable approach to adaptive action.
Funding Source:
Building Community Resillience in the Water Sector (IWRM) through Capacity Building, Policy Research and Action, Awareness Creation and Education
Submitted by wrcclimate on Mon, 2011-09-05 20:55
Summary:
The project sought to coordinate efforts to conserve and store water, reducing the effects of flooding through flood water retention, strengthening existing adaptation strategies (e.g. dry season farming), and providing mechanisms for timely climate forecast and information for communities in times of expected floods and drought in over ten Districts. Water storage facilities of different types depending on uses such as flood storm reduction, livestock watering, dry season gardening, groundwater recharge and domestic uses, were provided in over twenty communities across the three northern regions. These were preceded by customised awareness creation and tailor made capacity building and training activities. Major parners were Alternative Initiative for Development (AID), Centre for Human and Environmental Security (CHES), and University for Development Studies.
Adaptation Experience:
Results and Learning:
The project activities have shown contributions to building and strengthening the resilience of socioeconomically weakened communities with benefits trickling down to households especially those that are poor, having very limited resources with less mobility. Decision making for project activities had no gender imbalances as both gender contributed equally to approaches, the selection and siting of facilities as well as the overall management of connected small projects including expected benefit sharing. Water harvesting facilities were expected to not only serve food crop production purposes and gardening but also for livestock watering, and building and construction of houses, as well as for flood control in some cases.
Sustainability:
The factors that underline the replicability of the activities are already practical recipes for sustaining the project. Local communities are determined in their own little ways to emulate what have been achieved in other communities. However, these efforts would require some high level adoption and intervention to avoid lags in adaptation and to also ensure quality, the order of the day. Most materials developed under the project are already being used nationally especially those on flooding which are providing necessary resources for the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) hence some project activities are already enjoying an up-scaling and which must be sustained. Danida provided further support to the outcomes of this pilot so as to enhance sustainability. This takes the form of a practical climate change adaptation learning centre in Bolgatanga at the White Volta basin office to ensure sustained awareness, education and technical support through visitations made to the centre. However, this pilot phase should have been scaled up to real project status and then later years to programmes by the District Assemblies but just when the Assemblies started imbibing the concept of climate mainstreaming, the pilot phase was already concluding. A community investment support fund would in no doubt be an asset to continue with this project until such time that communities learn the appropriate way in harnessing water resources for their own water usage in the face of climate change and variability.
Replication:
The most achieved and conspicuous impact of the approaches for implementing the project was to ensure easy replicability and knowledge sharing. This includes technical and non-technical assistance from the WRC through interaction of various communities’ leadership and their offer to help neighbours. What this project has therefore nurtured as an innovation and thinking outside the box is to promote intercultural exchange of experiences with respect to the project activities involving the deliberate movement of people into new environments to assist in providing adaptation support. Awareness creation materials and information brochures are tangible resources that are being used by poor and vulnerable communities to tell their own stories and specifically what they are looking forward to doing. Such materials have enlightened several actors interested in adaptation. There were no big or small actors as equal playing field was maintained for all to do what was expected of them and in spite of being a pilot project with limited financial resources a lot more was achieved than commensurate with the level of funding. The potential to replicate therefore is very straightforward, readily available human capacity and requiring very little financial investment to undertake. For the good of sustainability most of the activities are now seen as cross-cultural in the context of adaptation to climate change rather than as livelihoods support only.
Funding Source:
1st Quarter 2010 PACC Newsletter: Building Resilience to Climate Change
Submitted by Thomas Park on Thu, 2011-09-01 10:27
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Summary:
This issue covers the PACC project and also on the IWRM (Integrated Water Resources Management) project. Related water activities are also highlighted and likewise climate change related events. Also inside this issue, a seasonal outlook for Tuvalu from May to July 2010 is also examined.
Funding Source:
Mainstreaming Climate Change into Integrated Water Resources Management in Pangani River Basin
Submitted by andrea on Thu, 2010-04-29 07:14
Summary:
This project is one of the first field-based climate change adaptation projects in Eastern Africa with strong links to basin and national planning and policy, and as such will build national and regional capacity, provide lessons and serve as a national and regional demonstration site.
The UNDP/GEF SCCF project is part of the Pangani River Basin Management Programme (PRBMP), implemented by the Pangani Basin Water Office (PBWO) in partnership with IUCN, since 2002. Activities under PRBMP are expected to continue into 2010. Co-financers supporting the implementation of the PRBMP include UNDP/GEF, IUCN’s Water and Nature Initiative (WANI), European Commission (EC).
The Project Executing Agency is the Pangani Basin Water Board. The UNDP/GEF project duration is three years.
Adaptation Experience:
The objective of the project is to prepare water managers and users for changing climatic conditions (especially reduced flows) through the provision of technical data, planning, and improved allocation, capacity building (conflict management) and awareness-raising.
Results and Learning:
Key lessons learned:
- Institute measures that speed up production of technical information: Although implementation rate has improved to some extent, the project is still experiencing slow movement for Outcomes 2 and 4. IUCN needs to institute measures that clearly demonstrate speeding up the production of the technical information from the two outcomes.
- Decouple outcomes, if possible, to ensure timely ensure the timely delivery of project outcomes in the most efficient way by the end of the project duration: Several changes at the project input/activity levels are recommended and approved by the PSC to exercise the adaptive management during the project implementation to ensure the timely delivery of the project outcomes in the most resource efficient way by the end of the project duration. The climate change component (Outcome 3) has been decoupled from the flow assessment (Outcome 1) so that the IFM can be completed without further delay without compromising the quality of the climate data to be yielded from the climate change component. Outcomes 2 and 4 depended to some extent on technical information generated under Outcome 1. Consequently the deliberate slow downs in Outcome 1 introduced some delays to these other outcomes.
- Be aware of logistical constraints (e.g. staffing capacity, deficiencies in methodologies of climate change modeling): In the community participation component (Outcome 2) the roadmap for establishment of the catchment forums has been revised to improve implementation and take into consideration the staffing capacity within the PBWO and SNV. This includes establishment of a core team to implement and monitor the process. The core team and experts are training facilitation teams to build the capacity ion IWRM in communities and to enable the formation of catchment forums. In terms of Outcome 1, experts' review of the original climate change modeling found deficiencies in the methodology. This resulted in delay in conducting the final workshop for the flow assessment to conclude the Flow Assessment component. PSC made recommendation on how to proceed with the climate change modeling and avoid further delay in concluding the flow assessment component, which allowed the move towards finalizing component 1.
- Identify synergies with similar projects and ensure there is coordination between them: The project and PMU faced challenges to ensure synergies and coordination among a number of projects under the Pangani River Basin Management Programme. It also faced challenges to ensure the timely delivery of outputs that heavily require communities' involvement and participation. The inclusion of new partners/projects in the existing Pangani River Basin Management Programme indeed posed challenges but brought opportunities and flexibilities at the same time which cannot be realized by a project-based approach. The PSC and PMU focused on the opportunities that the programmatic approach brought to ensure the overall project/programme objective, using the adaptive management. For example, budget reallocation from the community-based adaptation pilot activities to the climate study was necessary to ensure that the climate data generate by the project is scientifically reliable. The reallocation was approved by the PSC. Later, PMU, together with IUCN managed to source funding from another project under the same Programme to conduct the community-based activities without significant compromise.
- Allocate time to develop meaningful partnerships: The time needed to engage communities fully in the IWRM planning processes is gained partly by adding a few new partners/projects under the same Programme which resulted in the extension of the expected funded period of the Programme. Management and implementation of the Programme supported by multiple projects/donors will take significant extra efforts, but the project witnessed during this reporting period that it also offered significant flexibility.
Sustainability:
Further input is needed.
Replication:
Further input is needed.
