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Adaptation policy and adaptation realities: local social organization and cross-scale networks for climate adaptation on Mount Kilimanjaro

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Abstract

Least developed countries have prepared national adaptation programs of action (NAPAs) to coordinate international adaptation funding to reduce social vulnerability to climate change. The adaptation programs have been written for consistency with existing sectoral policies and development agendas—policies which have thus far led to inequitable and incomplete decentralization of responsibility to organize and manage adaptation at the local level. The capacity of local social organization and of cross-scale networks and flows of knowledge and resources from higher levels of government is insufficient to facilitate socially equitable and sustainable adaptation to climate change. Tanzania’s NAPA, poverty reduction strategy paper, and sectoral policies for forest, water, and agriculture/livestock illustrate the coordination of adaptation plans with existing policies. National and regional statistics and a survey of households on Mount Kilimanjaro—a regional priority for climate adaptation in Tanzania—demonstrate significant gaps in local social organization and cross-scale networks for adaptation. Challenging existing structural causes of vulnerability will be difficult under adaptation plans written for complementarity with the very policies that have produced social inequality. Outside of a few development projects of limited geographic extent, there is limited evidence for socially equitable and sustainable adaptation outcomes. Sustainable adaptation will require substantial new commitments to developing local capacity and cross-scale networks.

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Notes

  1. Kates (2000) argues that large-scale engineered adaptations are likely to disrupt and displace vulnerable populations, and may also prove to be vulnerable in the long-term. Eakin (2005) describes Mexican adaptations to globalization, where maize was replaced with loans irrigated horticulture and increased vulnerability to severe drought. O’Brien et al. (2009) describe how community-based natural resource management in Southern Africa increases vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.

  2. Qualitative observations were confirmed with precipitation data in adjacent villages to the east and west of Mweka, made available by the Pangani Basin Water Board and Machare Coffee Estate.

  3. Sponsors of environmental groups include the Jane Goodall Institute Roots & Shoots Program, Mali Hai, Machare Coffee Estate, COMACT (part of the Global Environmental Facility Small Grants Program), and others.

  4. The author verified the findings of Pauker et al. in daily observations of television news during fieldwork, and ongoing monitoring of English and Swahili-language newspaper websites in Tanzania. Focus group discussions and participatory observation confirm that beliefs in Mweka are consistent with this criticism.

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  1. Department of Geography, Middlebury College, 287 Bicentennial Way, Middlebury, VT, 05753, USA

    Joseph Holler

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Holler, J. Adaptation policy and adaptation realities: local social organization and cross-scale networks for climate adaptation on Mount Kilimanjaro. GeoJournal 79, 737–753 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-014-9549-7

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