Climate Change and development - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 282

Recommendation 2: create spaces for engagement and
negotiation between diverse interests and actors
As pointed out in several contributions to this volume, transformation in
the political sphere will require development actors to shift their mode from
focusing on implementation of practical actions to placing primary attention to
adaptation as a process. This directs attention to negotiations and the creation
of spaces for the emergence of cross-scale relationships and shared power in
communities with diverse formal and informal governance relationships. As
Ensor et al. (this volume) point out, the focus of adaptive capacity needs to be
structural, rather than technical, hence local politics must be taken seriously.
Drawing on their case study from Mozambique, they underscore the need for
flexible, adaptive governance systems that can foster adaptive capacity, showing
how power sharing, knowledge and information, and experimentation and
testing can contribute to greater resilience.
Engagement means much more than consulting and informing local
communities in development efforts: it requires creating arenas for negotiation
and promoting power-sharing relationships through collaborative actions,
for example in adaptation experiments or tests of alternative livelihood or
infrastructural approaches. Development actors can serve as mediators between
government and community interests. For example, Wamsler and Brink
( Chapter 4 ) note that government and development actors can support urban
dwellers in negotiating their needs and rights through shared learning dialogues.
It also means addressing the politics of interactions that are important in the
production and application of scientific knowledge, including the role of power
relations and interests in planning for adaptation. Using a three-lens framework
to examine actors, narratives and interests, Kulindwa and Mshale ( Chapter 13 )
describe how social transformations may be promoted by conjoining research
and policy processes. This underscores the significance of multi-stakeholder
engagement through forums that enable actors to meet and exchange ideas.
Several of the chapters point out that these systemic changes may require a shift
in individual and collective mindsets, including among development actors,
as a means of increasing the ability of social actors to influence the long-term
resilience of their social-ecological systems through changes in the social and
political context. Here, transformations in the personal and the political spheres
are closely related.
Recommendation 3: empower the most vulnerable into
planning and decision-making processes
Although creating space for dialogue between diverse interests is important, it is
seldom sufficient for empowering the most vulnerable. While most adaptation
projects strive to include vulnerable groups, the processes of selecting who is
to participate are often highly politicized. As pointed out in the chapters by