Community Risk Assessment and Climate Adaptation Tools

Description

ProVention's involvement in climate risk issues focused on linking climate risk management and natural hazard risk management interests both in terms of policy coherence and operational approaches. The main goal of activities in this field was to encourage stronger linkages between the climate adaptation and risk reduction agendas, recognising the potential synergies in terms of advocacy and policy, assessment tools and practical adaptation/risk reduction measures.

Project goal

To increase global access to conceptual frameworks and analytical methodologies for identifying climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction options in different contexts.

By systematically documenting methods, illustrating how they have been used in specific case contexts, the project aimed to provide organisations working on DRR and adapation a better access access to methodologies and conceptual frameworks they can use in designing their programmes and implementation strategies.

The primary audience for the project’s products was governments, NGOs, international agencies and the private sector, who are concerned with the design and implementation of development programs on disaster risk reduction and post-disaster recovery.

Objectives

  • Review and document risk assessment and climate adaptation tools and methodologies that have been previously used in ISET programmes in South Asia.
  • Document new tools being developed and tested in field programmes.
  • Document how tools and methodologies are used to plan and implement intervention strategies in specific contexts.

Timeline

November 2006 – October 2008

Partners

Outputs & events

The publication “Working with the Winds of Change. Towards Strategies for Responding to the Risks Associated with Climate Change and other hazards” was released in November 2007 and presented during the Climate and Development Days at the Conference of Parties 13 in Bali in December 2007.

The publication From Risk to Resilience - Understanding the Benefits and Costs of Disaster Risk Reduction under Changing Climatic Conditions was released in September 2008 and presented at the IDRC 2008 in Davos and at COP 14 in Poznan.

Links

Related activities

ProVention supported and participated in the first three major conferences organised by the Red Cross / Red Crescent Climate Centre:

  • 26-29 June 2007: Red Cross Red Crescent Climate conference on the humanitarian consequences of Climate Change
  • 22-24 June 2005: Second International Conference on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction (see workshop report)
  • 26-29 June 2002: First International Conference on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction

In 2007 ProVention supported the development of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Guide and the production of a 7-minute video by IFRC, entitled “Climate Change: a major humanitarian challenge”, which were both launched at the Red Cross/Red Crescent International Conference at the end of November 2007.

In 2005-2006, ProVention was involved in a dialogue with the ISDR/IATF Climate Change and Disaster Reduction Working Group and the RC/RC Climate Centre on how tools used by the disaster risk reduction community can be put to use for climate risk assessment. A policy paper on this topic was presented by ISDR at the COP 11 in Montreal.

In 2002, ProVention provided support to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)-led global review of Regional Climate Outlook Forums. This resulted in several new initiatives aimed at increasing the availability of national and regional level climate variability information, as well as the development of new products to provide sector specific information. In March 2002, a teleconference was held with the World Bank, the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate Prediction of Columbia University (IRI), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to advance the development of an on-line toolbox that would support the exchange of knowledge between regions and provide a portal into regional climate forecasting. ProVention also supported and participated in an El Niño Preparedness Conference in the spring of 2002. The conference dealt with preparedness and monitoring measures due to the high likelihood of an El Niño event in 2002/2003.