Integrating community-based adaptation and DRR approaches into ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation

This paper provides a conceptual framework, which is underpinned by principles of political ecology, to help frame the issues of local Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and adaptation from a human rights and resource rights perspective. As Community-based Adaptation (CbA) and Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), are gaining currency worldwide as an effective way to address the underlying causes of current and future disaster risk, there is a need to identify the overlaps between these approaches and explore their interdependence.

This document stresses that local DRR approaches can constitute effective stepping stones to achieve longer adaptation goals and address future climate risks. It also suggests that scaling-up DRR practice into existing adaptation policy requires an integrated and transformative approach to risk management. This, in turn, requires more carefully considerations of the social thresholds for progressive adaptation. In fact, institutions, both national and local, can play a crucial role in mediating these extremes by managing risks across a broad spectrum of sectors and stakeholders.

This document is an input paper of the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.