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  • From community-based to locally led adaptation: Evidence from Vanuatu

    Author(s)
    Westoby, Ross
    McNamara, Karen E
    Kumar, Roselyn
    Nunn, Patrick D
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Westoby, Ross
    Nunn, Patrick
    Year published
    2019
    Metadata
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    Abstract
    The Green Climate Fund, donors, governments and non-governmental organisations, among others, are pouring vast amounts of financial and human capital into community-based adaptation across the developing world. The underlying premise is that the world’s majority—who have the minority of financial capital—are living on the margins and are the most vulnerable and at risk from climate change. Such a reality, coupled with a deficit understanding of the majority world, is resulting in significant implications for how the ‘adaptation industry’ (those that fund, design and implement projects) go about their work. Drawing on research ...
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    The Green Climate Fund, donors, governments and non-governmental organisations, among others, are pouring vast amounts of financial and human capital into community-based adaptation across the developing world. The underlying premise is that the world’s majority—who have the minority of financial capital—are living on the margins and are the most vulnerable and at risk from climate change. Such a reality, coupled with a deficit understanding of the majority world, is resulting in significant implications for how the ‘adaptation industry’ (those that fund, design and implement projects) go about their work. Drawing on research evaluating 15 community-based adaptation projects in Vanuatu we found that despite genuine attempts, projects invariably fell short of success, longevity and sustainability. We argue that the indifferent, albeit variable, success of most projects is attributable to the construction of the geographical scale of ‘community-based’ and the deficit view flowing down to the ‘community’ through hubris policy, funding guidelines and individual implementers. Our findings show that ‘experts’ are working in Pacific communities, conducting assessments that involve asking what ‘community’ needs are, going away to design projects, coming back and implementing projects, which communities are inevitably challenged to sustain once funding has ceased. We postulate that these limitations stem from such a formation of adaptation work that pejoratively fails to see Pacific Islanders in situ as the best litmus test of their own agendas, needs, aspirations and futures and in the best position to make decisions for themselves about what and how they might become more resilient. We claim from a growing body of evidence and new frontiers in research that, rather than adaptation being ‘community-based’, it needs to be ‘locally led’, not limited to ‘communities’, and should take place across different entry points and incorporate, as appropriate, elements of autonomous/Indigenous peoples ownership.
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    Journal Title
    Ambio
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01294-8
    Note
    This publication was entered as an advanced online version.
    Subject
    Tourism
    Science & Technology
    Life Sciences & Biomedicine
    Engineering, Environmental
    Environmental Sciences
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/394098
    Collection
    • Journal articles

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    • Gold Coast
    • Logan
    • Brisbane - Queensland, Australia
    First Peoples of Australia
    • Aboriginal
    • Torres Strait Islander