Browsing by Subject "climate change adaptation"

Climate change impacts can substantially vary between regions, which requires regional decision-making on how to best moderate the adverse effects and seek potential benefits. However, actors can experience multiple barriers during climate change adaptation decision-making, which need to be overcome to enable more efficient and successful regional adaptation processes. This thesis aims to increase the knowledge on how actors can approach overcoming barriers to adaptation in a regional and cross-sectoral climate change adaptation decision-making process. A qualitative case study is conducted, which focuses on inspecting a regional climate change adaptation pilot project in the Finnish region of Pirkanmaa. Various regional and local actors participated to and collaborated on the project. The study constitutes of 11 expert interviews that are subjected to directed qualitative content analysis. The thesis utilises an analytical framework which leans on institutional theory and incorporates concepts from actor-centred institutionalism and empirical literature on barriers to and opportunities for adaptation, adaptive capacity, and adaptation decision-making processes. With the use of this framework, this thesis answers the research question of: What are the perceptions, preferences, and capabilities of the involved key actors regarding the regional climate change adaptation decision-making process in Pirkanmaa, Finland? This thesis discovers that the actors perceive mainly informational and institutional barriers to impede the decision-making process, in particular the understanding phase. Nevertheless, many of the barriers can be tackled during the process with both informational and institutional opportunities, in addition to social opportunities through the improvement of networks. The actors also have several preferences with regard to how the barriers should be overcome. Such preferences include clarifying the actors’ roles and responsibilities at the start of the understanding phase of decision-making, as well as ideas yet to be tested, such as unifying regional utilisation of adaptation-related data. The study does not manage to provide conclusive answers on the initial capabilities of the actors. Still, clear indications could be detected pertaining to the increase in elements of adaptive capacity, such as information, institutions, and skills, following from the numerous opportunities that the actors experienced. The explorative and descriptive results of this thesis bring new perspectives and an empirical contribution into the field of overcoming barriers to adaptation by focusing on climate change adaptation decision-making at the Finnish regional level. These findings can be used as a basis for upcoming research, but they can also be applied by various actors in designing current and upcoming climate change adaptation decision-making processes.

In this thesis I focus on a novel disaster response and preparedness mechanism called forecast-based financing. The mechanism is linked to the changing paradigm of humanitarian response that calls for more localized and more resilience building solutions to addressing and preventing humanitarian crisis. It is also in the core of the anticipation agenda which argues that waiting for disasters to happen is not a sustainable option and that forecast data and pre-agreed triggers and actions should be used in order to prevent both loss of lives and mitigate the cost and impact of disasters. Main hypothesis is that climate related hazards to livelihoods and food security seems to be the sector where forecast-based financing could have most potential for increasing resilience and sustainability. Slow onset crises with long lead-time allow for better targeting and more variety of actions. As the lifetime of the action is longer, there is less chance of action which is in vain. Furthermore, the actions which are more localized, for example direct support to farmers, can decrease their vulnerabilities. I aim at taking a critical approach to assessing this potentiality associated with the forecast-based financing mechanism through case study. The three cases (Mongolia, Kenya, Zimbabwe) were selected from pilots implemented by the main actors: the Red Cross, World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Start Network. This thesis uses a combination of evaluative and heuristic approach to qualitative case study analysis. To answer the first research question, 1) is the forecast-based financing mechanism successful in prioritization of actions in a way that best address the needs and resources of vulnerable populations, I aim at finding out if mechanism is effective (or potentially effective) in delivering impact. For the second research question, 2) are the actions sustainable and do they bring socio-economic benefits that go beyond meeting acute humanitarian needs, I will see if new pathways are found for confirming the defined hypothesis. I am using heuristic approach in terms of finding new links e.g. between actions and needs of either donors, actors or beneficiaries. I asses and analyse available reports and evaluations (secondary data) of the selected operations. I conducted eleven (11) semi-structured key informant interviews (primary data) using practitioner’s perspective for retrieving qualitative data, for further understanding and for triangulation. All key informants were affiliated to the cases. My analysis show that the potentiality for development impacts and long-term transformation of the forecast-based financing is there but it is not utilized in the cases reviewed nor is it perceived in a same way across practitioners of different backgrounds. Currently the mechanism is used more for effective response, not for addressing the root causes of vulnerability. In general, the entitlement or empowering of a person who is affected by disaster currently does not go beyond securing bridge over lean season, avoiding negative coping mechanisms or e.g. better yield or survival of livestock. Sustainability potential of the forecast-based financing seems to be currently underutilized and international funding envelopes do not offer an alternative to the humanitarian funding launched case-by-case. Most of the practitioners interviewed were clearly in favour of linking and using forecast-based financing in some way to long-term programming, thinking outside of the framework of humanitarian response, extending lead time significantly and adding positive reinforcement inputs. I argue that with a lead time that goes long in advance, towards development actions, the mechanism needs to be reframed for the donors and the sources of funding might need to be reconsidered. To implement meaningful resilience actions in slow onset cases, triggers need to be early enough and actions in two phases: 1) anticipatory and benefiting from forecast and 2) early response. At beneficiary level the actions should be geared up to better address underlying socio-economic vulnerabilities and take advantage of the long lead time.