From "Climate Proof" to Coastal Community Resilience

The first attempt to address Climate Change in MFF started in November 2007 in Yogjakarta, Indonesia when representatives of institutional partners, dialogue countries and four MFF member countries (India, Indonesia, Seychelles, Thailand) provided their suggestions on the process, and discussed the 15 Programmes of Work (PoWs) of MFF in terms of their relevance to Climate Change adaptation.

A working paper on the approach to mainstreaming climate change considerations into MFF initiative and projects was presented during the 5th Regional Steering Committee meeting in 2008. After this meeting, the document "Climate Proof: A guide to mainstream climate change into MFF projects,” was produced jointly by UNEP, UNDP and IUCN and published in 2010. The central idea of 'Climate Proof' was a four-step approach that assists proponents to consider the potential impacts of climate change on project design. At its core, 'Climate Proof' aimed at enhancing the resilience and adaptive capacity of a project.

While 'Climate Proof' is still valid, and applied as reference tool targeting single project design the need for a more holistic and programme-wide approach to address Climate Change has been identified. Therefore, since 2012, MFF started to consider building coastal community resilience applying the ecosystem-based approach as a guiding principle for delivering MFF's grant facilities in a more strategic manner. The approach cuts across the PoWs and links the National Strategy and Action Plan (NSAPs) with local actions.

The ecosystem-based approach to building coastal community resilience, including mangrove conservation and rehabilitation, is often considered a triple win solution to sustainable development of ecosystem dependent coastal communities. It supports biodiversity conservation and enables improvements in economic livelihoods and human well-being while also providing cost-effective risk reduction against such threats as coastal erosion, storm surges and tsunamis and, furthermore, provides opportunities for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

The conceptual resilience model emphasizes the complex interdependency between the ecosystems and the social systems. Therefore, to be effective and assure long-term sustainability, an ecosystem based approach to managing or building resilience into coastal communities must be informed by a complete system analysis that identifies potential gaps in coverage or missing links between resilience components.

Through a series of participatory workshops and with Shyamnagar (Bangladesh) as a pilot area, MFF has taken an analytical yet participatory approach in developing a Resilience Framework and a protocol for its application in the wider MFF programme. Through context specific framing of the MFF Resilience Framework, the MFF Resilience Analysis Protocol provides an understanding of the coupled socio-ecological system, where social resilience is inseparable from ecological resilience. The 2012 Mid-Term Review strongly supported the development of the MFF Resilience approach and in Phase 3, this approach to resilience will be applied to guide a more strategic allocation of Small and Medium Grants in geographical and thematic areas and contribute to developing resilient ‘model communities’ serving as examples to be replicated both at the national and regional levels.

Targets of the MFF Resilience Approach will include:

• strengthening resilience to climate change and natural hazards by using case studies from the Small Grants Facility and building capacity for adopting the ecosystem-based approach;
• improving coastal governance by advocating for collaborative management, economic valuations, Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) and other benefit sharing mechanisms; and,
• emphasizing the full range of economic and environmental values of coastal ecosystems focusing on mangroves using the MFF Knowledge Management and Communications platform.

Developing a shared understanding of resilience approach

MFF took an analytical yet participatory approach in unfolding the resilience approach in the MFF context. A series of workshops with MFF National Coordinators, Small Grants Facility managers and other core stakeholders were organized to introduce the resilience concept and to get feedback on how practical the approach will be in their respective country programmes. The Global Climate Adaptation Partnership (GCAP), an independent expert organization specializing in climate resilience, provided technical support throughout the process. The resulting process aimed at making the MFF grant facility more strategic and coherent.

The first workshop was about "resilience framing", and was held in Bangkok in late 2012. The main purpose of this workshop was to familiarize the participants with the underlying concepts of the resilience approach and in particular its application in the MFF context, with special focus on MFF's Small Grant Facility in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Viet Nam. The workshop clarified a number of important issues including:

• "framing" of resilience has to be context specific, based on an understanding of the complex interface between societal and natural systems in the intervention area.
•  universal blue prints and "one-size fit all" do not work in climate change adaptation and risk reduction,
•  home-grown solutions are often more sustainable.

MFF held a second workshop in Bangkok in March 2013 with participation of MFF staff and partners from across the region. The main purpose of the workshop was to bring together MFF countries for a focused 'south-south' learning exercise that continues the process of developing a resilience framework for MFF.

A simulated resilience planning exercise helped the participants arrive at programmatic goals and objectives for the MFF resilience framework . The exercise assisted participants in developing a broad pool of strategies with resilience components, characteristics, and predictive indicators. At the end of the workshop, a generic MFF Resilience Framework was drafted emphasizing the “coupled socio-ecological” dependency of a coastal system.

Applying the MFF Resilience Framework

The MFF Resilience Framework (MFF-RF) provides a broad programme approach and in order to test the applicability of the of the framework at country level, two national workshops and a field study were held in Khulna and Shyamnagar in Bangladesh in May 2013.

The two workshops in Bangladesh supported development of a Resilience Analysis Protocol (RAP) which is a tool for applying the generic MFF-RF at the local (project) level. The RAP was developed in Shyamnagar through a number of key informant interview and focus group discussion and tested with local government leaders, different resource users groups, and officials from government agencies.

In Shyamnagar, the RAP helped answer two critical questions for resilience planning: "Resilience of what?" and "Resilience to what?" The RAP generated a detailed (empirical) understanding of the major issues that are of concern to stakeholders, and an understanding of the uncertainties and drivers in Shyamnagar's Social-Ecological System. The RAP process engaged stakeholders in developing a shared vision and strategies for building resilience in Shyamnagar. This stakeholder engagement helped refine the resilience analysis protocol itself.

Way Forward

The Resilience Analysis Protocol is in the process of finalization. Once finalized, it will be implemented in all MFF countries and used to develop a better understanding of issues and problems in target areas, especially before making call for proposals to MFF Grants Facilities. In this way the RAP will become an important tool for a more strategic delivery of the MFF programme support and to facilitate the continued efforts towards building coastal community resilience.

For more information, please contact: