Building adaptive Capacity in the informal settlements of maputo - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 25

in a changed social-ecological environment. Political alliances and power
relationships are therefore inevitable in adaptation decision-making, played out
not only in what gets decided, but who gets to decide (O'Brien et al. 2009a). In
this way, power directs us to question equity, both in process and in outcome:
'who decides what should be made resilient to what, for whom resilience is
managed, for what purpose?' (Nelson et al. 2007:410).
Yet while inequalities in power are unavoidable, power sharing requires
moving beyond the identification of power as struggle, or the site of conflict
between competing claims. With a focus on power, the risk is that it is perceived
as immutable and owned by different actors, rather than as determined through
relationships that can be reshaped through collective processes (Collins and Ison
2009). In fact, when capabilities are expanded through collective action rather
than wresting of power, complex systems can be tackled and benefit secured
for and by poor communities. There are several different approaches that, if
embedded into development practice, can support the process of analysing and
building relationships between actors and institutions in ways that open spaces
for power sharing (Borrini-Feyerabend et al. 2004; Ensor 2011).

Knowledge and information

Communities will need to expand their knowledge and access to information,
while those with decision-making power in governance regimes will need
to recognize the knowledge of vulnerable local actors. Informing adaptation
decisions ( Figure 2.1 ) by bringing together different actors with a view to

Power
sharing:

Voice and
influence

Knowledge and
information:

Experiment
and testing:

Informing
adaptation
decisions

Locally relevant
adaptation
options

Figure 2.1

A framework linking areas for action on adaptive capacity