ALM UNDP

Summary:

Background

The consequences of climate variability and climate change are potentially more significant for the poor in developing countries than for those living in more prosperous nations. Vulnerability to the impacts of climate change is a function of exposure to climate variables, sensitivity to those variables, and the adaptive capacity of the affected community. Often, the poor are dependent on economic activities that are sensitive to the climate.

This guidance manual was prepared by USAID to help project planners understand and address the climate’s impacts on their project. The team conducted four pilot studies to develop and test the approaches described here. The studies focused on different sectors and different vulnerabilities on three continents where USAID works.The project cycle includes four basic steps: problem diagnosis, project design, implementation and evaluation. This sequence is viewed as a cycle owing to the dynamic nature of assistance: the completion and evaluation of one project could provide the impetus for a subsequent project to build on the previous project’s accomplishments, or address issues that were absent in the previous design or emerged over the course of implementation.

There is a six-step approach for assessing vulnerability and identifying and implementing climate change adaptations which follows a developmental path parallel to the more general project cycle.

The six steps include:

• Screening for vulnerability
• Identifying adaptions
• Conducting analysis
• Selecting a course of action
• Implementing adaptation
• Evaluating adaptation