Adaptation Futures is the world’s premier conference on climate change adaptation, with the participation of about 1,000 scientists, practitioners, business leaders and policymakers from around the world to connect, learn and inspire. Adaptation Futures 2018 aims to facilitate dialogues for solutions between key actors from diverse perspectives and regions. There is a special website for the event: more information can be found here PfR participated at the Adaptation Futures (AF) Conference in Cape Town on 18-22 June 2018. Titled “Dialogues for Solutions”, and the first Adaptation Futures conference held in Africa, the conference aimed to: Facilitate dialogue between research, governments, civil society, international agencies and business; Continue the shift from problem diagnosis to solutions and innovations; Link adaptation to sustainable development, investments and planning; Have a strong focus on Africa and the global South.
This year, PartnersforResilience (PfR) had special visibility at Adaptation Futures, and had an opportunity to share experiences, tools, lessons learned and insights to the community of practitioners. Secondly, it is a way to strategically engage with (potential) partners to explore synergies and potential partnerships to scale resilience and good practices. Opening session: Yohan Santosa from Karina PfR Indonesia gives great opening speech I With support from Climate Centre’s role in the AF Organising Committee, PfR’s Yohan Santosa of Karina Indonesia was one of the few Community representatives at the high-level opening ceremony. Yohan brought in local perspectives to a debate on policy and practice on climate change adaptation and linked his story strongly to PfR’s capacity building agenda on policy dialogues. Yohan reflects on his learning journey within PfR and how he has used his lessons on bringing local voices to multi-stakeholder platforms to enhance community resilience. The full video of Yohan’s speech is here
PfR hosted a side event: The best of both Worlds I A Cordaid led PfR side event on Urban Resilience with Heleen van der Beek (Cordaid) doing the opening remarks; Thandie Mwape as the Moderator; and Valerie Brown as the Rapporteur; with Julie Mulonga (Wetlands International) and Yohan Santosa (Cordaid) as Panellists. This PfR side event titled “The best of both worlds: Technical and participatory approaches for urban resilience”, was a great way for PfR to amplify its collective voice on the IRM approach through case studies. The objective of this session was to gain a better understanding of the benefits of participatory approaches in urban resilience and integrating technical solutions. Different case studies were presented by panellists from Wetlands International (Panama case); Cordaid (Marunda-Indonesia case) and South Africa (Cape Town-road infrastructure project). The three cases delved deep into processes applied to bring communities on board to work with governments in projects that impact their lives (socially and environmentally). This was followed by a debate on challenges, solutions, and the future of resilience-building. PfR’s Steering Group member and Cordaid’s Manager for Resilience, Heleen van der Beek chaired the session and stressed PfR’s experience in applying the integrated risk management approach.
Panelists agreed that multi-stakeholder engagement processes are never smooth-sailing, require substantial time and financial resource investments for relationships and trust building. Practitioners advancing the power of community engagement must start to demonstrate the negative effects of lack of engagement. PfR gave an example of deadly tensions that mounted in Kenya (Laikipia) in 2017 around access to natural resources between a drought-stricken community and a neighboring private commercial ranch. CSOs played a role to facilitate dialogues for conflict resolution. Main outcome of the session: reinforced lobby on the power of community engagement. The Climate Centre hosted several events at Adaptation Futures, including a Community Kraal that provided a space for conference participants to meet and share their knowledge and lessons on adaptation: stories linking grassroots’ experience to the adaptation community of practice.
Story by Thandie Mwape