Facilitating Community-based Climate Adaptation: Lessons from Climate-Smart Villages

This 5-day course is grounded on IIRR’s decades-long experience in Asia and Africa addressing household food security and livelihoods using regenerative agricultural approaches. This course is intended for people working in the field of agriculture, nutrition, natural resource-based livelihoods, and climate change adaptation (CCA).

Background

Climate change has a considerable impact on the food security and livelihoods of rural communities. Effective and sustainable interventions are linked to the engagement of stakeholders in identifying risks and possible actions. Small holder agriculture and family farming are now recognized as important platforms for delivery on scale.

This course draws from a seven-year rich experiences of IIRR with Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), where establishment of local adaptation platforms such as climate-smart villages (CSVs) play a vital role in the promotion of agroecological approaches collectively called – climate-smart agriculture (CSA). The course will introduce basic concepts, emerging trends and issues, and facilitation of strategies that address challenges brought by climate change. Participants will be introduced to participatory approaches through field visits to rural areas in Cambodia where community-based adaptation processes are practiced. To further generate evidence and the role of local platforms in supporting CCA in agriculture, IIRR has likewise been investigating the contribution of CSA and CSVs in enriching local food systems for better nutrition, enhancing livelihoods, increasing household resilience, and helping enhance gender equity and inclusion.

This customized training course aims for participants to increase knowledge and witness first-hand, how food systems-sensitive CCA platforms are established, sustained and scaled at community levels. Specifically, through the CSV approach, whereby CSVs are likely able to serve as multi-functional platforms responding to a wide range of local priorities and objectives. While CSA recognizes that climatic risks to agriculture-based livelihoods are occurring at a much greater pace and intensity than before, it was realized that in order to address it, context-specific local solutions are needed.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, the participants shall have:

1. Gained understanding of basic concepts, principles, and approaches to sustaining natural resource-based livelihoods, and household food security and nutrition;
2. Increased awareness on the risks and vulnerabilities posed by climate change to food security and livelihoods and identified innovative and participatory approaches for improving respective food security and livelihood initiatives amidst climate change;
3. Identified farming systems and proven technologies that help sustain agriculture economies to increase farm resilience, and on scaling and sustainability approaches with communities having access to resources for resilience building that can be widened through collaboration with different stakeholders;
4. Drawn up benefits derived from other community-based adaptation projects, best practices, lessons learned, and challenges experienced by smallholder farmers in CSVs and through Village Development Fund and Savings Groups (VDFSG) in communes; and
5. Formulated an action plan taking into account lessons derived from the course and will be translated into actions.

Course Contents

This 5-day course includes face-to-face discussions on concepts and actual field-based interaction with farmers who are members of village groups or a Village Development Fund and Savings Group (VDFSG) in communes in the districts of Srae Ambel, Thma Bang and Botum Sakor, province of Koh Kong in Cambodia. During the field visits, the participants will have an opportunity to interact with farmers, researchers, extension workers and innovators.

Module 1. Basic Concepts and Principles: Climate Change Adaptation, Resilience, Food Security and Nutrition

This module will cover key concepts, principles and relevant development frameworks that will be discussed to broaden analysis of current climate change challenges. These will provide the participants with a solid conceptual basis when partnering with communities to tackle and sustain natural-based livelihoods, household food security and nutrition.

• Session 1: Participants’ Sharing on Interventions and Programs/Projects related to CCA, Resilience, Food Security and Nutrition
• Session 2: Key Concepts, Principles and Development Frameworks on Climate Change Adaptation (CCA), Resilience, Food Security and Nutrition

Module 2. Engaging Communities in Climate Change Adaptation Work

The participants will be exposed to participatory approaches in vulnerability and climate risk assessments, identification of CSA options, innovation community planning like participatory technology development, participatory action research, community adaptation planning and explore partnerships with other organizations. Also, on the process of setting up and managing of CSVs, which IIRR has championed, will be discussed thoroughly.

• Session 1: Participatory Approaches in Vulnerability and Climate Risk Assessments and Identification of CSA Options
• Session 2: Process of Setting-up, Managing CSVs and Community Adaptation Planning and Exploring Partnerships

Module 3. Managing Challenges and Building Resilience

This will be an opportunity for participants to learn from field visits to communities with CSVs in Koh Kong Province, where there will be discussions with smallholder farmers on farming systems and proven technologies that help sustain agriculture economies to increase farm resilience. Scaling and sustainability approaches will be discussed along with communities’ access to resources for resilience building that can be widened through collaboration with different stakeholders.

• Session 1: Field Visits to Climate Smart Villages (CSVs), Village Development Fund and Savings Group (VDFSG) in Koh Kong Province
• Session 2: Debriefing/Reflection on the Field Visit to CSVs

Module 4. Action Planning

The participants will prepare an action plan that synthesizes lessons learned from the course and translate these into actions that will improve their climate change programs/projects back in the communities they serve in Luzon and Mindanao, Philippines. There will be an opportunity for the participants to present their respective action plans in plenary with a Panel of Reactors along fellow participants who will provide feedback to the plans presented. Facilitator(s) will ensure that action plans are based on the participants’ field realities.