Coupling human development and adaptation through enhancing adaptive capacity and equity in climate change adaptation projects: Insights from practitioners in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa

The impacts of and the ability to respond to climate change are closely intertwined with poverty, inequality and inequity. Addressing the underlying development and structural causes of vulnerability must, therefore, go hand in hand with efforts to reduce climate risk and impacts. However, there is relatively little research on how best to achieve this in practice. The growing number of place-based climate change adaptation interventions provide an opportunity for empirical research on how these projects contribute to the livelihood security and climate resilience of vulnerable and marginalised groups. We used a composite framework to guide our research questions and analysis drawing primarily on the notions of specific and generic adaptive capacity, and three dimensions of equity, namely recognitional, procedural and distributional equity. We undertook 37 online interviews with practitioners from adaptation projects in South Africa, Ghana, and Kenya. Interviews covered, firstly, project activities related to reducing climate risk and building livelihoods (providing insights into how projects develop specific and generic adaptive capacity and for whom); and secondly, the processes employed to incorporate local knowledge, values and practices, ensure inclusivity and transparency, and benefit marginalised groups (giving insights into how equity is promoted). Our findings provide evidence to show that, while most projects focussed on actions to reduce climate risk and impacts (specific adaptive capacity), numerous activities also contributed to building generic adaptive capacity, especially where integrated approaches that supported livelihood diversification were employed. Endeavours to reduce inequity were observed across all projects through, for example, targeting marginalised groups, building on local practices and priorities, and being cognisant of the need to be inclusive through ‘gender sensitisation’ workshops, use of participatory methodologies, and ensuring transparent governance processes. Overall, the findings provide a useful foundation and set of learnings to develop further towards more equitable adaptation.