Climate Resilience

Climate change leads to extreme and unpredictable weather patterns, where those who live in poverty are disproportionally impacted. Those who have contributed the least to climate change suffer the most from its effects. More frequent disasters, combined with global economic and population growth, will exert enormous pressure on natural resources.

Implementing Countries

Norway through its oil industry, and being an industrialised country, is a significant contributor to the development of climate change, both in a past and present sense.

NCA believes that it is just and fair that we are responsible of cutting our emissions while also assisting those affected negatively by climate change. We will therefore work to address the proper management and preservation of natural resources in order to mitigate the impacts of climate change on the world's poorest people.

Communities resist, absorb and recover from climate change is the goal of NCA’s Global Climate Resilience Programme, which is an evolution of two climate-related programmes from NCA’s previous strategic period. More aspects of the former Climate Adaptation programme are visible in the current programme, but with a shift in focus from reducing communities’ vulnerabilities to climate change to increasing their resilience to it. Few remnants of the former Climate Mitigation programme are evident, which is in response to evidence that focusing solely on climate change mitigation and adaptation does not foster community resilience. Access to renewable energy is however integrated into this programme along with the economic empowerment and WASH programmes. By focusing on climate resilience, NCA seeks to support communities to improve their preparedness, response and recovery from climate-related events through local structures, such as community task forces.

The core methodologies are Community Based Adaptation (CBA), which refers to adjustments in ecological, social or economic systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli; Disaster Risk Reduction; and Community Based Disaster Risk Management, which is a systematic approach to implementing policies to lessen the impact of natural disasters. In the CR programme, NCA empowers civil society organisations, including faith-based organisations (FBO), to support communities to resist, absorb and recover from climate change.

This is done through three primary types of interventions: competence interventions, such as training and skills building; interventions focusing on social structures such as community task forces or other grassroots structures; and structural interventions, including infrastructure to reduce the impact of hazards.

NCA mainstreams strengthening civil society across all CR interventions and fosters ownership by emphasising participation at all levels, from the grassroots organisations, such as community-level committees, through to duty-bearers, such as national and local-level government agencies. FBOs and other community organisations are natural partners in NCA’s CR programme as they are among the first responders to disasters and can mobilise volunteers through a moral obligation.

Our Results

Results case

NCA’s local partner ADRA in Angola successfully scales up rainwater harvesting system now adopted by municipalities

Access to adequate water is a major challenge for communities in the south of Angola, where periodic droughts are becoming frequent. 

Why:

Providing a durable solution for poor families to take advantage of rainfall through harvesting precipitation is crucial as it increases their resilience and reduces the risk of disaster in their communities.

What:

To solve this challenge, four rain water harvesting cisterns were built using successful blue prints of NCA’s local partner Diaconia in Brazil. In NCA’s progress report to Norad for 2017, this result was highlighted. The south-south partnership between Diaconia and ADRA fostered not only community commitment to water harvesting for drier periods, but it also taught Angolan communities how to better manage water availability over time. Since NCA reported the progress of the water cisterns in the 2017 report to Norad, ADRA has been able to convince the municipal administrations to replicate the water harvesting systems in Gambos and Cacula municipalities in the province of Huíla. The municipalities have included and budgeted for the construction of 100 cisterns in their plans. These water harvesting tanks can collect 5.2 million litres of water, and ensures that during the arid season, 950 people will be sustained with 15 litres of water per day.

How:

Community and faith leaders in Gambos and Cacula raised their concerns about the lack of coping and response strategies with duty bearers. ADRA, assisted with advocacy tools from Diaconia, presented the new method of collecting and retaining rainwater to the municipalities. The municipalities recognised the potential this presents and adopted the model into their planning. This shows that when people are mobilised, and community- and faith leaders present a new and practical solution to authorities, municipalities are willing to pay for the investment of crucial life-saving infrastructure.