Climate Leadership for

Effective Adaptation and Resilience

(CLEAR)

CLIMATE CHANGE AND PAKISTAN CLEARPakistan is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The agriculture sector, in particular, is impacted by long-term reduction in rainfall; increase in the frequency of droughts and floods; and variability in seasons, particularly higher temperatures and delayed start of colder months. These changes adversely affect crop sowing, maturing and harvesting cycles. More specifically, higher temperatures may reduce crop yields and encourage insect and pest infestations. Changes in rainfall may lead to crop failures, destabilise cultivation cycles, and lead to declines in yield. Agriculture contributes 21% to Pakistan's GDP, and employs 43.7% of the labour force (Economic Survey 2013-2014). Adverse impacts on agriculture pose a serious threat not only to the national economy but also to food security. Therefore, climate change adaptation in the agriculture sector has emerged as an important priority for Pakistan.

In 2012, LEAD Pakistan began implementing the “Climate Leadership for Effective Adaptation and Resilience" (CLEAR) project. CLEAR addresses:

(I) lack of capacity and information among local government and community partners;

(ii) limited and ineffectively articulated public demand for government action on climate change adaptation; and

(iii) lack of awareness among vulnerable communities about their rights in relation to climate change.

The Climate Leadership for Effective Adaptation and Resilience (CLEAR) project has been implemented by LEAD Pakistan in collaboration with a strong network of local partners. This five-year project, nearing its conclusion, focuses on rural agricultural adaptation to climate change and promotes resilience among small-scale farmers in Sindh and Southern Punjab. CLEAR works with partner organisations in 13 districts including: Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur, Multan, Rahimyar Khan, DG Khan, Thatta, Badin, Dadu, Hyderabad, Ghotki, Larkana, Khairpur and Shaheed Benazirabad.

The project works closely with local organisations and community partners to promote better understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change; helps contextualise local impacts within the broader climate debate; and supports adaptation interventions, through micro-projects,to help smallholder farmers in Punjab and Sindh adapt to impacts on agriculture such as rising temperatures, variations in rainfall, and changing crop cycles etc.

ARTICULATING CHANGECLEAR in collaboration with local partner organisations identified smallholder farmers reliant on rain-fed or irrigation dependent cultivation of rice, wheat and cotton. These farmers were among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and concomitant concerns of food insecurity and sustainability of livelihoods. CLEAR organised extensive community meetings to establish a better picture of the threats facing local communities. Following this research, CLEAR carried out a series of participatory consultations with representatives from government departments, partner communities, and local partner organisations. These joint consultations were in addition to the separate meetings held with district officials working in sectors most affected by climate change i.e. agriculture, irrigation, livestock etc. in addition to members of the district planning committee. The consultations were motivated by a spirit of learning and adopted a consensus based practical approach to problem solving. Consequently, participants were encouraged to debate climate change issues and impacts affecting them, prioritise key issues, and propose practical solutions that could be trialed through area and issue specific micro-projects.

Each plan was encapsulated in a district specific Local Adaptation Plan of Action (LAPA) and was approved by representatives from local government departments and community partners.Government endorsementhelped ensure that each district LAPA was viewed as a valuable planning tool, and to support future policy uptake. Similarly, community partners had to be onboard since they were directly involved in project implementation. Furthermore, their experience would determine the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of each micro-projectand future out-scaling efforts.

Planning discussions in each of the 13 districts revolved around a range of issues such as agriculture and fisheries, water resources, food security, livelihoods and health. Overwhelmingly, partners were preoccupied with threats to agricultural productivity and yield. Proposed better management practices for agriculture included water efficiency, land leveling, alternative crop selection and developing adaptive crop calendars.

LEAD's extensive network of partner organisations implemented the micro-projects in collaboration with selection community beneficiaries. Each partner organization was responsible for recording project implementation methodology, tracking project progress, challenges and successes.While each of LEAD Pakistan's partners under the CLEAR project may have adopted a slightly different intervention design and implementation methodology, each partner was trained in the same way, and given the same background information. Partner outreach to communities followed the same overall methodology, especially in terms of understanding and identifying specific issues facing smallholder farmers.

Successful micro-projects showcased actions that make smallholder farming more resilient to climate shocks, more sustainable, and capable of achieving a measure of financial and food security. Less successful projects offer an opportunity to learn from practical methodological and implementation mistakes. Ultimately CLEAR's interventions should be embraced and promoted by the government, other civil society groups and international organisations, as initiatives capable of increasing agricultural productivity and climate resilience among acutely vulnerable smallholder farmers.

THE ROAD AHEAD

1. CLEAR has been successful in embracing and showcasing the philosophy that climate change adaptation, especially initiatives geared toward vulnerable and marginalised rural populations, must be embedded within local contexts, cognizant of practitioner constraints and should address local needs in order to be relevant and successful. Furthermore, adaptation efforts should move beyond relying on local communities and NGOS. Government interest and action, local, provincial, and national, is necessary to sustain and promote adaptation interventions with widespread reach. Robust change in adaptation planning and implementation can only emerge when provincial influencers both within government and others advocate for change in allocating resources, prioritising adaptation interventions, and formulating concrete plans of action.

2. CLEAR has developed a proof of concept solution relying on a varied evidence base to demonstrate that adaptation and climate resilience interventions can be undertaken at low cost and that community level behavioural change is central to their long-term success.

3. Community engagement and building robust partner networks are essential for disseminating climate change awareness and training local communities on how to become more resilient. CLEAR has demonstrated that sustained community engagement and partner outreach are pivotal for supporting climate change awareness. Conducting evidence based informational and awareness raising sessions that concretely link climate change impacts with changesin agricultural productivity and livelihoods and the necessity for incremental adaptive change has helped LEAD Pakistan's stakeholders understand the challenges that face them.

4. Adaptation efforts informed by current research and analysis and supported by focus group discussions with vulnerable groups and consultations with government departments, and discussions with partners are more likely to succeed than not.

5. Organised and continuous interaction with relevant government departments helps in project implementation and may support future uptake. For instance, CLEAR's partner HDO in Kot Addu worked alongside the district agriculture department and built a strong relationship with them. This effort paid off when the district government tasked 3 members of the department to work with HDO during project implementation. Each of these focal persons was also required to report to a supervisor, who acted as a departmental ally for HDO. As a result of this relationship – the focal persons participated in farmer trainings and field schools, and supported the trainings by both attending and sharing their expertise.

6. It may be useful to train local farmers or educated/ literate younger people from farming communities and train them in nacca installation and land leveling techniques. The latter is a skilled service that farmers who have adopted land leveling need to hire externally. Training in these techniques may improve employment prospects, generate income, and ensure sustained interest and ownership of these practices. It may also assure that these changes in attitudes and practices are sustained, as the information stream remains intact even when the local partner withdraws from the project/area upon project completion.

7. Community leaders must be brought into the discussion and should be engaged in local initiatives. While bottom-up approaches are necessary to make changes, large-scale impetus for change is pushed forward by community leaders – who have the resources, the social, political and financial confidence to push for greater change.

8. Government engagement should be formalised through agreements or MoUs that include indicators of change, success, failure etc. Since posted officials may change frequently and disrupt relationship building – formalised agreements with departments provide a measure of continuity. None of the partners we spoke to had formalised agreements with government departments. This may have been because they failed to either recognise this as an option or because CLEAR did not require it of them as part of project implementation.

9. When designing future interventions, it may be useful to develop clear and measurable indicators to assess the effectiveness of each project, its sustainability and potential for replication and up-scaling. These indicators should be viewed as part of the project design and implementation process. Another way of measuring effectiveness, even if only anecdotally, is to determine how many neighbouring communities have sought information regarding a particular intervention; to what extent have other groups attempted to replicate the intervention in their own communities using their own resources; and how successful has this out-scaling been.

OverviewBudget £522,335

Time frame 42 months2,815 women; 5,744 men

beneficiaries41 community based adaptation projects

LEAD House, F-7 Markaz,Islamabad, Pakistan - 44000.T: +92-51-2651511 F: +92-51-2651512UAN: 111-511-111E: main@lead.org.pk W: www.lead.org.pk

Written by Khadija ZaheerEdited by Hasan Akhtar Rizvi and Tahir RasheedProduced by Communication UnitCopyright © 2015 LEAD Pakistan

10. The expense associated with government engagement (e.g. travel and daily allowance etc.) is a serious concern and needs to be addressed to make future engagement more sustainable.If allowances of this nature are sanctioned by LEAD Pakistan then such external costs should be built into micro-projects. However, this stance is not wholly unproblematic. It is important to note that these costs may also indicate that the local partners did not have robust ties with district government and were unable to generate enough goodwill to ask for government support.

11. The gravity of the issues facing the local community (acute water shortages, drought like conditions) means that adaptation interventions under such circumstances face tremendous community scepticism in terms of their effectiveness and ability to make livelihoods more resilient particularly when it comes to shifting from major staple income generating crops such as wheat, sugarcane and cotton.

Further ReadingThe CLEAR project has produced a series of case studies, policy briefs and project reports over its lifetime. These are all publicly available through LEAD Pakistan's website.

Detailed information on local partners and associated micro-projects is also available. The former will help the Government and other interested civil society organisations to identify appropriate partners across 13 districts in Punjab and Sindh. The latter will serve as key information sources on intervention design and implementation.

Based on the CLEAR project's real-time, real-world experiences a series of policy briefs have been developed. The briefs are intended for policy-makers and planners. Concise and evidence-based the policy briefs link context specific issues with broader national debates on climate change and adaptation. They also make recommendations for future policy design and programme uptake.

LEAD Pakistan envisions the CLEAR project as one more step in their journey towards integrating adaptation and resilience planning into future interventions.

Please visit us at: www.lead.org.pk

LEAD PakistanLeadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) Pakistan is a non-profit organisation, working to create and sustain a global network of leaders, who are committed to promote change towards patterns of economic development that are environmentally sustainable and socially equitable. LEAD Pakistan was established in 1995 and since then it has evolved into one of the most dynamic development sector organizations in Pakistan. About the ProjectCLEAR project is a 5 years initiative of LEAD Pakistan focusing on Climate Change impacts on the lives of poor people and farmers in Southern Sindh and Punjab and streamline their local climate adaptation practices and develop district based Local Adaptation Plans of Actions.

DisclaimerThis publication has been funded by UK aid from the UK government; however the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government's official policies.