Assessing vulnerability to climate change for development planning

Climate change and extreme weather variation is being experienced by all of us today. Droughts, excessive rains and increasing heat conditions are becoming frequent and are affecting the natural resource base. These changes threaten food production, water availability, increase human and animal health problems, impact natural ecosystems, increase risk of disasters and catastrophes. Besides this, rural India is faced with a huge development gap.

While climate change adaptation is becoming a buzz word, how does a planner understand and assess the various aspects of vulnerability that exist within a village, and include these into project design? How can funds be allocated for that which reduces the vulnerability of specific groups, making a village as a whole more climate resilient? Resilience can be gently included within a project proposal, even if a project is not specifically climate related.

Vulnerability assessment, hence, is key to a successful development project as also to a climate change adaptation project, as they reveal the systems, species, populations, entities that are most vulnerable to expected climatic changes and market forces, often depending on factors such as exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. This helps in focusing project interventions especially in relation to (5 capitals / resources) financial, social, human, infrastructural, and natural resources in a manner that enables optimal balance between these.

Co-DriVE DESIGNER is a Vulnerability Assessment Tool that generates a set of indicators that point out vulnerabilities in the 5 capitals that can help make projects more robust. When Co-DriVE DESIGNER is used, it sets the base for monitoring the progress of project implementation vis-à-vis the health of these capitals.

Program objectives:

• Understand the importance and need for moving from development planning to planning under conditions of uncertainty
• Develop capacity to analyze and synthesize information that helps one assess vulnerabilities and incorporate it in to the project planning cycle
• Identify interventions that may actually be increasing vulnerability to climate change further, and helps make appropriate mid-course corrections
• Anticipate vulnerability to climate change while designing a project, which can lead to more robust projects that serve the intended communities better. It thus reduces the risk of activities becoming obsolete prematurely, prevents wastage of funds invested, as also time and energy in such projects
• Provide the ability to develop no / low regret interventions

Program content:

• The "why" of vulnerability to climate change and its importance
• Assessing vulnerability with an introduction to CoDriVE DESIGNER a tool for project planning
• Hands-on experience of application of CoDriVE DESIGNER in project villages
• Discussion of case studies where CoDriVE DESIGNER has been applied