How to incorporate climate change adaptation in project design

Adapting to climate variability and change: a guidance manual for development planning
Authors: ; USAID Publisher: USAID Global Climate Change Program, 2007

It is important to consider the potential impact of climate change when planning and designing development projects. Understanding, planning for and adapting to changing climate enables individuals and societies to make the most of opportunities and reduce risk. This guidance manual looks at how to understand climate change as it may impact on project cycles and incorporating a six-step approach for assessing vulnerability and implementing adaptation.

These include:

• screen for vulnerability: a preliminary assessment of whether climate variability or change could compromise the integrity, effectiveness and longevity of a project
• identify adaptation options: working with stakeholders to identify alternative designs or management processes to better cope with climate variability
• conduct analysis: examine the consequences of climate variability and change as well as the effectiveness, costs and feasibility of adaptations that can reduce vulnerability to climate variability and change
• select a course of action: meet with stakeholders to review analysis results and determine if changes to current project design are needed
• implement adaptations: prepare an implementation plan to identify next steps
• evaluate adaptations: it may be difficult to evaluate effectiveness in a relatively short time period following implementation, however, an evaluation can be done to see if adaptations were properly put in place and whether there were any problems or excessive costs associated with them.

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