Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity: Synthesis and Lessons from Ghana, Kenya and Niger

Locally Led Adaptation & Resilience

Disaster Risk & Humanitarian Action

Community-based adaptation (CBA) empowers vulnerable women and men and their local governments and service providers to take action to protect themselves, their livelihoods and their communities from the impacts of climate change. Effective CBA is based on a solid understanding of climate change vulnerability and adaptive capacity from the perspective of local stakeholders in the communities involved.

This document provides a synthesis of analysis of climate change vulnerability and adaptive capacity conducted by the Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP) with communities and other actors in Ghana, Kenya and Niger. It draws out learning from these processes, focusing on two key dimensions: common themes across the three countries in terms of the dynamics of vulnerability and adaptive capacity; and the value of participatory analysis of climate change vulnerability and adaptive capacity as a foundation for CBA. The document also discusses the implications of the learning, providing recommendations for CBA in Africa and beyond.