Publication

Climate change is a stressor on human and natural systems and socio-economic sectors. It poses an additional challenge to the already difficult task of managing ecosystems and promoting sustained economic development in developing countries, in view of the relatively weak institutional capacity and the existing constraints on social and economic development. Climate change has emerged as a major concern for sustainable development, especially in poorer countries. Since the mid-nineties, when the scientific and development community began to stress the importance of adaptation to ensure a climate-resilient development pattern, a number of international bodies and donors (from international and bilateral organisations, non-profit bodies and academia) have developed tools1 to facilitate the work of practitioners around the world.

Climate change adaptation requires extensive knowledge and information on a wider spectrum of economic activities across sectors. There is a huge observed gap between desirable capacity to deal with adaptation and actual one existing at the national or community level in many developing countries. However, one of the factors hampering practitioners of adaptation in many developing countries from gaining capacity is a lack of comprehensive knowledge and information that could serve for planning and implementing adaptation measures needed. There are tools developed to assist practitioners; however, there still is a great need to improve the capacity development process.

This report reviews the entire gamut of adaptation tools globally, and provides a critical insight into their use in Asia and the Pacific. It also presents the gaps and analyses their shortcomings via-a-vis their applicability among the target communities and the adaptation outputs, and enumerates ways to bridge this divide.