Participatory Scenario Planning (PSP)

Locally Led Adaptation & Resilience

Advocacy

Disaster Risk & Humanitarian Action

Participatory Scenario Planning (PSP) is an approach for collective sharing and interpretation of climate forecasts. It uses seasonal climate forecasts to inform decisions for more resilient livelihoods and risk management, thereby strengthening the adaptive capacity of communities at most at risk. Bringing together multiple stakeholders (meteorologists, community members, local leaders, government representatives, NGOs, and more), PSP workshops provide an avenue for a collective interpretation of meteorological and local forecasts and their probability and uncertainty. These are groups who would not normally meet, yet their collective knowledge and expertise is essential for successful climate adaptation. The PSP process places all actors and their knowledge on the same level, presenting an open space for key stakeholders to negotiate local priorities and their contribution to adaptation, usually with the assistance of an external facilitator (such as CARE program staff). Such activities under PSP allow the generation of plans that are more responsive to local needs and better-informed and more coordinated action between sectors in support of local priorities and adaptation strategies. 

Objectives of Participatory Scenario Planning  

1. Facilitate access to and shared interpretation of climate forecasts to generate information that can be understood and used, taking risk and uncertainty into account; 
2. Assist communities and local governments to agree on options, make decisions, develop and plan for climate-resilient livelihoods (by knowing forecasts and probabilities to spread and manage climatic risk);
3. Promote the integration of climate-resilient livelihoods and disaster risk management into local government planning processes;  
4. Create a common platform for climate communication that respects, reviews, and combines knowledge from communities and different groups within them, meteorological services, and service providers;  
5. Link government and community actors to enable response and support to community action plans and empower communities through improved contacts and relations. 

The Value of Combining Different Knowledge Systems 

Sharing community knowledge on past climate and seasonal predictions during PSP acknowledges the intimate, local-scale climate interactions rural communities experience through their livelihoods. This locally sourced knowledge is unique and unavailable elsewhere. Because communities possess direct experience with local climatic impacts, they are uniquely positioned to inform impact scenarios derived from seasonal forecasts. Gathering data from diverse groups—including women, men, indigenous populations, people with special needs, and the youth—provides critical insight into how climate affects specific gender roles and responsibilities, and how each group adapts. This collective knowledge contributes to a deeper understanding of differential capacities and vulnerabilities, which is essential for modeling how long-term climate changes may impact communities. Ultimately, this allows for the development of flexible strategies that address the various risk levels within impact scenarios, strengthening community resilience against future climatic shifts. 

CARE’s Adaptation Learning Program (ALP) 

The Adaptation Learning Program (ALP) for Africa aimed to increase the capacity of vulnerable households in sub-Saharan Africa to adapt to increasing and uncertain climate change and climate variability. From 2010 to 2015, ALP worked with communities, government institutions, and civil society organizations in Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, and Niger, with outreach to other African countries to develop innovative, community-based adaptation (CBA) approaches and strategies with farming and pastoralist communities to promote their integration into local and national government systems and programs.