African voices on the frontlines of climate change

Note: I should disclose that my interest in syntheses of adaptation case studies is not incidental. I am a contributor to a research project building a database of more than 120 published studies of local adaptation and institutions. See the link to one of our initial presentations on the ‘Research’ page of this blog.

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Climate Frontline is a recent report depicting the rural people’s responses to climate change in several African locales. The turn towards larger scale comparisons and syntheses of climate adaptation is an interesting development for research, which until recently consisted primarily of individual case studies.

Compiled by several NGO, Climate Frontline aims to allow “African women and men describe, in their own words, how climate change is affecting their lives and how they are adapting to survive.” More specifically, perhaps, the project organizers aim to transmit stories from the “climate frontline” to major donors and aid organizations. Why else collect the experiences of a handful of farmers in a colorful English-language webpage? The organizers, it seems, hope to convince donors to provide “sufficient and reliable climate change adaptation support for these communities.”

The cases in the report and website are divided into five sections: Unpredictable rain, Deforestation, Agricultural methods, Knowledge and education. Each of section includes three cases, which generally follow a similar sequence: a) outline the climatic/environmental problems; b) describe the steps locals take to deal with them, and c) show how these steps alone are insufficient to lift people out of poverty, sustain soil quality, etc. A concluding section, titled ‘The way forward’ argues that adaptation funds should be channeled to these existing “community-based” adaptations, rather than government or NGO projects alone.

Surprisingly, (or perhaps not) only in a sub-section titled “What other issues require attention?” does the report stress how “climate change, poverty reduction, and resilience to shocks and stresses are very closely related.” Persistent poverty, discriminatory laws and cultural norms, and poor governance appear only as “other issues” on the climate frontline.

The report implicates climate and climate change as the cause of suffering and vulnerability of rural Africans. Although this position has received explosive coverage in the midst of the current media hype surrounding climate change, it is a familiar storyline.

The report provides interesting details on the range of activities rural people are undertaking related to climate, from novel farming techniques to new professions. It begins to explore the factors that might distinguish different kinds of ‘adaptation’ – whether they are externally-supported, spread through social networks, based on predicting the climate and weather, or not.

Climate Frontline points out the ubiquity and diversity of local adaptation responses, and the importance of these local actions in shaping the outcomes of development interventions. However, it also uncritically tows the NGO line that rural people can’t survive without external help. More troublesome, it joins the ranks of development reports that imply that it is climate-focused interventions that can “transform surviving communities into thriving communities.”

We need to remind ourselves of the obvious, in the current climate discourse: many people in these communities were not thriving before climate change. We can learn from existing collections of voices, in Africa and elsewhere, why people have only just survived and continue to only just survive, even as climates, environments, and markets change.