Project for the Protection of an Urban District Community to Cope with Climate Change

Summary

The intervention was conducted to strengthen local resilience and capacities to adapt to climate risks, particularly floods, by implementing a participatory process for diagnosing, analysing and planning sustainable strategies for preventing and combating disasters;

Thus, the main activities were:

Seeking to better understand the factors that keep the population groups vulnerable to floods, the links they establish between these floods and climate change, and the proposed endogenous responses.
Analysing the actions implemented to prevent and combat floods, the technical and organisational capacities that underpin them, and their strengths and weaknesses.
Developing sustainable strategies for prevention and combating by means of a social dialogue and learning process, testing their implementation and disseminating the lessons learned to enable them to be owned both by the population and by public and municipal policy-makers.

The first phase of the intervention was funded in the context of the implementation of the Adaptation to Climate Change programme (ACCA), financed jointly by CRDI (Canada) and DfID (UK). The second phase was funded by the World Bank through the PUGEMU project.

Other participating actors included:

base population groups
associations/groups of young people and women
community opinion leaders (religious, customary, etc.)
local politicians and municipal councillors
managers and technicians in the target municipalities
managers and technicians from the ministries of the environment and civil protection
researchers from universities

The project lasted 6 years, ending in October 2015.

Process

Local expertise for resilience and flood management was identified, and the local administration facilitated a process of involving local actors and establishing the consultation frameworks to ensure the sustainability of the project. Project activities were then coordinated by the project team of CREDEL.

All vulnerable groups are included as members of the consultation frameworks and are involved in the participatory search for participatory action.

The strategies for identifying adaptation actions took into account the evolution of the contexts of the community, analysing the strengths and weaknesses of endogenous adaptation strategies. A directory of good strategies was issued and made available to the community. The actions of the project were relayed by the municipal platforms and the National Civil Protection Agency.

Impact

The central State's implementation of the municipal platform activities to reduce disaster risks and adapt to climate change will enable the activities of the programme to continue.

Resilience has increased thanks to the planning of adaptation strategies based on seasonal forecasts carried out by the institutions responsible for meteorology and hydrology.

Other

There are platforms at the national, departmental and municipal levels. The mission of these platforms is to undertake a situational analysis regarding the reduction of disaster risks and to take necessary measures in crisis situations.

The Mayor is the president of the municipal platform for reducing disaster risks. This project contributed to the strengthening of the capacities of the members of the platform and to the development of municipal contingency plans based on CRDI, DfiD and PUGEMU funding.

Today, municipalities are obliged to set a budget line for disaster management.

Thanks to the actions of our project, there is a general awareness of measures to reduce disaster risks, a municipal contingency plan is drawn up and disaster risks are included in municipal planning.

Summary

Process

Tell us about the extent to which the CBDRM intervention was ‘owned’ by the community. Were local skills and knowledge used? What was the role of the local government? How were the CBDRM activities coordinated? By whom?

To what extent were the most marginalised and at-risk groups included in the CBDRM process? Focus on women, children and youth, the elderly, and persons with disabilities. Are there any other marginalised groups in your society who were included in the CBDRM activities?

Were the CBDRM activities adjusted in any way to account for changing priorities and/or contexts in the community? If so, how? Think about mechanisms to monitor changes and learn from the activities, and who this monitoring and learning is coordinated by.

Impact

Please reflect on how well the initiative has been able to continue beyond the end of the programme. To what extent were local resources used for the CBDRM activities? How long since programme completion have the CBDRM practices continued?

Please describe how lives have changed since the CBDRM project. Think about different people’s levels of resilience and vulnerability.

Other

Discuss the availability of long-term funding for CBDRM in different budgets. To what extent do incentives and disincentives exist for CBDRM? Please provide any details, including reference to the continuity and diversification of funding.