Integrating community based disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation: examples from the Pacific

It is acknowledged by academics and development practitioners alike that many common strategies addressing community based disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation duplicate each other. Thus, there is a strong push to integrate the two fields to enhance aid effectiveness and reduce confusion for communities. Examples of community based disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) projects are presented to highlight some of the ways these issues are tackled in the Pacific. Various approaches are employed but all aim to reduce the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of local communities to the impacts of climate change and disasters. By focusing on three case studies, elements of best practice are drawn out to illustrate how DRR and CCA can be integrated for enhanced aid effectiveness, and also look at ways in which these two often overlapping fields can be better coordinated in ongoing and future projects. Projects that address vulnerability holistically, and target the overall needs and capacity of the community are found to be effective in enhancing the resilience of communities. By strategically developing a multi-stakeholder and multi-sector approach, community projects are likely to encapsulate a range of experience and skills that will benefit the community. Furthermore, by incorporating local knowledge, communities are far more likely to be engaged and actively participate in the project. From selected case studies, commonly occurring best practice methods to integrate DRR and CCA are identified and discussed and recommendations on how to overcome the common challenges also presented.