In Timor-Leste, climate change is already affecting many of the island’s rural population who rely on agriculture to feed their families and make a living. CARE has worked with vulnerable women and men to implement climate resilient land management practices (such as increasing soil fertility and establishing permanent gardens), which support sustainable livelihoods and household food security.

CARE Timor Leste’s aims to include the Community Based Adaptation (CBA) Framework in its project interventions, with the development of a crosscutting theme in the framework – a mechanism that is essential to the achievement of project goals. Capacity building is not achieved through awareness raising and training alone; communities are ‘capacity building-by-doing’, whereby community members are personally involved in on-the-ground project activities.

Learning from the MAKA’AS project and others, showed CARE Timor Leste that working directly with community members and establishing and strengthening knowledge and skills in technical areas, as well as local governance structures, is more sustainable. This includes specific knowledge and skills on climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and sustainable livelihoods, but also more generic knowledge and skills on participatory governance, and management.