The project ‘Community-based Adaptation to Climate Change in Nissan District (CBA CC)’ was launched in mid-2012 to increase the community adaptive capacity and resilience to existing hazards and the impacts of climate change. Three years on, this evaluation demonstrates that the project raised capacity and resilience – it notes a strong positive impact on food security, organizational capacity, as well as progress towards more equitable gender relations at the household level. The projectâs implementation approach – using core groups trained in a wide range of agricultural techniques which then disseminated knowledge across all villages – was found to be highly effective. The merit of these groups is recognized by local government, which plans to integrate them into formal governance structures.
The evaluation confirms that the process of adaptation to both climate change and challenges in natural resource management takes time, and while the project provided solid groundwork, further efforts are required to sustain the livelihoods of the people on Nissan and Pinepal islands into the future. This concerns both structural measures (additional rainwater tanks) as well as organizational strengthening – capacity-building of the Nissan District Administration (NDA) is seen as particularly crucial to further raise the islandersâ adaptive capacity.