Influencing policy and action on Climate-Change adaptation - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 238

declining annual rainfall amounts and drought, projected to intensify over the
next 50-100 years (URT 2003). Most people in the area engage in smallholder
rain-fed mixed-crop farming and livestock-keeping practices. Maize, beans,
lablab beans ( lablab purpureous ), green vegetables and other crops are cultivated.
Coping strategies vary between groups, making some more vulnerable than
others (Eriksen and Lind 2009). Strategies include planting early-maturing
seeds and drought-resistant crops, migration by cattle-keepers in search of
water and fodder outside the district, selling off livestock, seeking employment
opportunities in town, reducing the frequency of meals and the amounts eaten,
and increased dependency on non-timber forest products such as charcoal-
making, wild fruits and bush meat. However, these strategies are by no means
adequate to sustain the communities. Without effective planned adaptation
strategies, Same farmers will continue to be severely affected by climate-change
impacts, given the situation of pre-existing socio-economic stresses and other
factors.
The PAR project was based on the assumption that conjoining research
and policy processes could help to foster social transformation by ensuring
that research findings and recommendations reach the relevant stakeholders
in time, and in usable formats. The PAR researchers explained that although
local farmers do undertake various autonomous adaptation strategies, the
effectiveness of such strategies is increasingly limited due to a range of factors,
including lack of timely and reliable weather forecasts concerning rainfall. PAR
researchers then sought to find ways that could enable farmers to know and act
according to weather conditions in a timely and effective manner.
In this chapter we use the results of the RPA to focus solely on the interactions
between the various actors participating in the PAR project, arguing that the
politics of interaction are as important as the accuracy of information delivered.
It is not our intention to evaluate the scientific validity of the PAR findings
or the relevance of policy recommendations: what we aim to demonstrate
is the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement in influencing social
transformations among targeted audiences.
methodology
Because the PAR project involved interaction between researchers from Sokoine
University and national actors in Dar-es-Salaam and sub-national actors in Same
District, we conducted repeated semi-structured interviews and focus group
discussions with actors, from village to national levels. These interviews were
combined with an extensive review of documents, and observation techniques.
The semi-structured interviews used guiding themes on actor interests,
knowledge, perceptions and roles in the design and application of climate-change
adaptation strategies for agriculture. Interviews also sought to elucidate what
the roles and responsibilities of other actors should be - for instance, we asked
farmers to explain what they wanted the district government authorities and