Building adaptive Capacity in the informal settlements of maputo - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 27

learning providing the basis for a subsequent cycle of experimentation, testing
and review. This process is at the heart of adaptive capacity, leading to changes
that are effective in context and providing locally relevant adaptation options ( Figure
2.1) . Patt (2008) suggests that the most adaptive societies are those with actors
who have the capacity to experiment, and institutions in place to support them.
Here, we emphasize the need for experimentation with technologies and
policies, institutions and processes.
Both opportunities for and constraints on experimentation and testing are
significant. At the local level, technology choice encompasses the ability to make
informed decisions on alternative adaptation technologies. It results from the
amount and quality of information that is available, and the emergent knowledge
gained through shared learning and earlier choices. Addressing choice thus
places an emphasis on extending information sources through the breadth of
stakeholders and the facilitation of visits, exchanges or trials. Technical capacity
- or the skills and knowledge to engage in experimentation - brings into focus
the inequalities in educational background, prior experience, support or assets
that may exist between stakeholders - and that will need to be mediated - if local
capacities are to be expanded (Murwira et al. 2000). At larger scales, climate-
change experiments are now being conducted in many urban locations, designed
to increase understanding of climate impacts and responses; in the process, they
are opening new spaces for political engagement and joint actions (Bulkeley and
Castán Broto 2012; Castán Broto and Bulkeley 2012).
From 'development as usual' to adaptive capacity
These three dimensions provide a framework for understanding development
support for adaptive capacity. That framework offers a model in which multiple
participants from different scales are brought together (in power-sharing
relationships) to blend their different perspectives (sharing knowledge and
information) and to undertake actions that can generate shared learning (testing
ideas in context, generating new knowledge and information). The result can be
a flexible, collaborative and adaptive governance system. While many examples
of adaptive governance approaches are to be found in the literature (Folke et al.
2005), there has been less implementation experience, particularly in contexts
of the Global South. This presents an important challenge for development
actors seeking to support adaptive capacity through their work. The particular
manifestation of and - crucially - how to move towards adaptive governance
arrangements is highly context-specific, hinging on a range of factors including
existing institutions, the mix and capacities of stakeholders, and the political
context at local and higher levels. Table 2.2 illustrates the shift required from
conventional to adaptive governance, highlighting the gulf between resilient,
adaptive systems, and the conventional, well-established development regime.
Table 2.2 thus illustrates the challenges entailed in engendering support for
adaptive capacity through development practices.