Institutional support for climate change adaptation and community responses: the case of the Simalaha plains in Zambia

ThesisPresent-day research recognises the critical role played by local government institutions and NGOs at meso-level in supporting adaptation to climate change in rural areas. In Zambia, however, much attention is heavily focused on natural science and economic analyses studies on climate change, while little is known about how institutions closest to local communities support adaptation to emerging climate change challenges. This research presents findings from a qualitative and quantitative study conducted to investigate the role played by local level institutions at meso-level in supporting adaptation to climate change in the Simalaha area of the Southern and Western Zambia, and how communities respond to the support. It was found that public organisations primarily support soft climate change adaptation projects because they are cheaper to implement and do not attract huge budgetary allocations. Some of the supported adaptation and coping intervention projects include providing food hand-outs, new hybrid of crops, advice and training on the use of conservation farming. Financial investments supporting hard adaptation projects such as technological and infrastructural development are almost exclusively supported by donors through local NGOs, though they also support soft adaptation projects such as livestock production. Overall, the meso-level institutional support was equally distributed among all wealth categories – the poor, middle-poor and the non-poor. In principal, this means that poor people still get less because they lack personal alternative assets such as livestock to assist them cope in difficult situations. Although relevant as a coping intervention, when crops fail due to droughts, food hand-outs do not improve people’s adaptive capacities to handle future droughts. Benefits have been seen from the use of conservation farming when practiced properly. However, farmers perceive it to be excessively laborious and thus fail to practice it consistently. These results imply that there is greater need for government, local government institutions and NGOs at meso-level to support adaptation interventions that respond to all affected groups with an emphasis on the poor, if adaptation to climate change is to be enhanced. Key words: Adaptation, Climate change, Meso-level institution

Polycentrism: A case study on water access and management in community-based water tenure in Makopa and Simukale villages

The objective of this study is to map community solutions to deal with climate variability and how information is mobilized into or interfaces with the next layer of government interventions that brings new perspectives in understanding how local solutions can be better mobilized into external solutions to climate change adaptation through horizontal and vertical integration processes, with a focus on living community-based water tenure in rural Zambia. This study intends to highlight access rights and management to community water resources and land in rural areas of two low-income communities. This is achieved by comparing bottom-up living integrated customary land and water tenure and vertical and horizontal decision-making processes at different levels of governanc

The climate change agenda in Zambia: National interests and the role of development cooperation

In the past ten years a significant number of policies and projects have been implemented in African countries in order to address climate change. At the same time, African countries have become more vocal in the global climate change negotiations. And yet there has been little analysis of domestic climate change agendas in African countries. This working paper is a modest first step in understanding the climate change agenda in one particular country, namely Zambia. The paper focuses on three features: It provides an overview of the disaster management and climate change framework at national level, it examines the role and extent of aid to climate change, and it discusses the interests of the central government in climate change. The paper finds that donors have played a central role in nurturing and influencing the climate change agenda in Zambia, and in developing the institutional framework for disaster management and climate change. However, the climate change agenda in Zambia is not only a donor construction: Although the issue is not high on the political agenda, there are de facto government interests related to climate change. This includes securing funding for civil service activities on the ground; addressing sensitive political aspects of disasters and food security; and dealing with possible threats to the national economy and political stability

Conflict and cooperation in local water governance: Inventory of local water-related events in Namwala District, Zambia

Recent years have witnessed an increasing focus on water as a source of conflict. So far, much of the focus has been on the risk for transboundary water conflicts. Our current knowledge on local water conflicts is however more limited, and trends to be based on sporadic accounts of local water conflicts rather than on systematic empirical evidence. At the same time, the extent and nature of local water cooperation is often overlooked, just as we know little about the particular role of the poorest in water conflict and cooperation. the lack of such knowledge jeopardizes current initiatives taken in many developing countries to ensure a more efficient and equitable water governance. To fill this gap, the Competing for Water research programme developed a conceptual and methodological framework for developing comprehensive inventories of local water-related conflict and cooperation. This report documents the results of applying this framework in Namwala District, Zambia, and discusses the implications