A new publication breaks down results from the Climate Investment Fund’s resilience programming and helps us understand how to better support people in adapting to climate change.
Climate change creates new challenges for people - threatening livelihoods, access to resources, public services, physical safety, and a wide range of socio-economic outcomes. Specific groups are affected more than others due to gender, poverty, disability status, or socio-cultural context. Since 2008, CIF’s Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) has been supporting women, men, and specific social groups in some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries. These investments have led to a wide range of adaptation benefits.
We looked into the type, volume, and robustness of results achieved for 15 million people in 16 countries in our latest Results Deep Dive. Here’s how they were reached:
1. Access to Infrastructure
Projects that provide new or improved access to hard or soft infrastructure, such as climate-proofed roads, buildings, or climate information services, typically reach the largest number of people overall. For example, in Niger, the African Development Bank enabled the dissemination of weather forecasts and other meteorological products, reaching almost 4.4 million indirect beneficiaries. In Bangladesh, the Asian Development Bank supported nearly 2.6 million people through infrastructural improvements such as roads, bridges, shelters, and rural markets.
2. Development of Livelihoods within a Landscape
Integrated, landscape-level approaches to building the resilience of people through new, improved, or diversified livelihoods have proven a critical feature of PPCR’s targeted support at the individual and household level. Many of these projects help ensure income-generating activities for people who depend on climate-vulnerable natural resources, such as rain-fed agriculture, pastoralism, or fisheries. Niger provides another great example for this approach, with approximately 3.4 million people benefiting from a World Bank project combining agricultural support, support for pastoralists, forest-related support, and social protection activities in poor households.
3. Integrated, Sector-Specific Benefits
Some PPCR investments have enabled integrated approaches to building the resilience of people and communities while anchoring investments in specific sectors. For example, one of Bolivia’s projects, implemented by the World Bank, illustrates how investing in sustainable water resources management can successfully support multiple dimensions of resilient livelihoods. In total, the project benefited 60,000 people (or 429% of the project target) through irrigation, flood protection, infrastructure, and other river basin management approaches. The InterAmerican Development Bank complemented this approach with an additional focus on increasing access to potable water and irrigation.
4. Localized Solutions and Physical Protection
This type of PPCR support for people is notably found in Small Island Developing States and combines localized investments with approaches that protect people from natural hazards and climate shocks (e.g., hurricanes, cyclones, and floods). For instance, Samoa’s Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Coastal Resources and Communities Project, implemented by the World Bank, benefited more than 140,000 people through improved water supply, resilient agriculture and fisheries, mangrove rehabilitation, flood management, and more.
5. Building Adaptive Capacity
PPCR has helped strengthen the adaptive capacity of people to cope with the effects of climate change through approaches tailored to key groups and individuals. For example, providing technical training, facilitating the mainstreaming of climate resilience into community- and government-led planning efforts, and de-risking private sector solutions. Overall, more than 633,000 people have been trained. This approach is also relevant for the private sector, with an IFC Project in Bangladesh reaching 65,300 people for training in climate resilient agriculture and food security.
Learn more on these results, along with more insights on gender outcomes and how to measure people’s resilience, by reading the CIF Results Deep Dive PPCR: Climate-Resilient People here.