Climate adaptation projects in South Asia – A Review

Pakistan stands at the frontline of the climate crisis, with severe implications for its sustainable economic growth, poverty reduction efforts, and social cohesion (UKAID, 2023). The escalating impacts of climate change threaten to erode Pakistan’s GDP, development gains, and overall resilience. Without timely adaptive measures, more than 21 million Pakistanis are projected to fall into poverty by 2050 (GIZ, 2022). This urgent situation necessitates the development of adaptation programs tailored to local conditions to ensure greater ownership and sustainability of interventions that are resilient, transformative and scalable.

This study is an evidence review of climate adaptation projects and programs in South Asia, focusing on water security, urban resilience planning, and agriculture and food resilience. The study reviewed adaptation projects from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, in addition to regional projects. The primary objective of this evidence-based review is to analyse the successes and failures of these projects and provide actionable recommendations for designing, planning, and implementing business unusual adaptation initiatives in Pakistan. In a nutshell, this review aims to build a robust evidence base on adaptation interventions, improve policy engagement, effective implementation, and explore regional cooperation avenues to address challenges imposed by climate change.

Challenges

Pakistan's acute vulnerability to climate change threatens its economic stability, food and water security, and social cohesion. The country faces significant risks from climate extreme like rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, and extreme weather events like floods and droughts. These climate-induced challenges are further exacerbated by Pakistan’s socio-economic issues, including slow-moving economic growth, governance limitations, and entrenched gender inequality. Based on the review of the climate adaptation projects implemented in South Asian countries, the project aimed to confront these challenges by providing key recommendations for crafting effective future adaptation strategies tailored to Pakistan’s unique context to reduce the country’s climate vulnerability and risk. Through this review it sought to devise strategies to enhance resilience, reduce vulnerabilities, and enhance regional cooperation to address the broader challenges of climate change.

However, limited ownership of government in implementing local adaptation plans and the absence of effective local governance and institutional structures might be a critical barrier to overcome the challenges. Furthermore, adaptation is contextual - one size fits all mechanism doesn’t work, thus if the recommendations provided by the review are not contextually applied, it might not produce the desired level of impacts. 

Expertise

The study employs a comprehensive approach to analyse climate adaptation projects across South Asia, focusing on water security, urban resilience planning, and agriculture and food resilience. Initially, a preliminary literature review was conducted to develop an analytical framework, guiding the identification of a longlist of relevant adaptation projects. These projects were selected based on specific criteria, including their implementation in selected countries post-Cancun Framework (2010) and within the context of Paris Agreement (2015).

Once the longlist of project was identified, a traffic light screening method was used to shortlist the projects based on the project/program-related information available in the public domain i.e. project proposal, progress and completion reports, evaluation reports, and details on learnings and impact. This process narrowed down 135 longlisted projects to 20 for in-depth case study analysis, with a maximum of four projects per country or region.

Each shortlisted project underwent a deep dive using the analytical framework, with refined sub-questions focusing on the 3Es: Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Equity. This analysis also considered locally led, nature-based solutions and sustainability aspects. To triangulate and strengthen the robustness of the findings, key informant interviews with representatives from implementing partners were conducted. With key learnings like what worked, what didn’t, co-benefits and trade-offs, the team of experts worked to compare findings among projects across all three adaptation sectoral areas and drew lessons that are meaningful and practical for Pakistan’s context.

Impact

This project is expected to drive meaningful changes in climate adaptation efforts in Pakistan by offering tailored recommendations that address the country’s unique geo-political and climate context. The key recommendations will possibly enhance future adaptation programming and policy engagement by integrating localised and regional insights. Notable impacts include improved adaptation strategies across water security, urban resilience, and agriculture, which will foster greater resilience among vulnerable communities.

Key recommendations proposed by the study include shift from short-term, sectoral interventions to comprehensive, long-term strategies. The review also suggests leveraging ongoing climate reforms, supporting capacity building, and utilising frameworks like Pakistan’s National Adaptation Plan for strategic action. Furthermore, it also suggests prioritising evidence-based, sustainable and business unusual solutions, fostering partnerships and cooperations, promoting inclusive processes, integrating cross-sectoral approaches, locally led solutions, transformative technologies, ensuring financial sustainability, and learning from past experiences to address political sensitivities and transboundary challenges to advance climate resilience and scalable solutions. 

The insights from this evidence review are crucial to focus on building resilience through multi-scale interventions that generate multiple co-benefits while minimising trade-offs. These lessons are expected to enhance the effectiveness of climate adaptation efforts to reduce vulnerabilities and risks in Pakistan and serve as a model for similar initiatives in other regions facing climate challenges.

 
We are thankful to Dr Hameed Jamali, Regan Sapkota, and Muhammad Ahmed Hasan for their contribution to this project.