Momentum for Change: Adaptation Learning Highway

Focus area: Adaptation
Website:
Location: Dailekh and Terathum in Nepal, East and South Garo Hills in Meghalaya, Karbi Anglong in Assam and Ukhrul in Manipur in addition to Uttarakhand, India.
Established: July 2009

The main objective of the Adaptation Learning Highway (ALH) was to facilitate a horizontal and vertical information and knowledge flow among communities and between communities, scientists and technical persons as well as the local administration to engage in policy and local adaptation strategy formulations as well as to ensure a process to stimulate a more responsive local governance mechanism for managing change and enhancing climate change adaptation (CCA).

The ALH was implemented in Nepal and India. The process has been highly appreciated by all stakeholders as the interactive forums - the community to community (C2C) exchange, the community-scientist interface as well as the policy makers and community interaction forum - provided opportunities for communities to voice their efforts in managing change as well as their concerns for support from local governments could be voiced and discussed with relevant authorities. The Community-Scientists' Interface (CSI) offered scientists a 'first hand' experience on ground realities and community abilities (and concerns) and the Policy Interaction Forum (PIF) provided the decision makers a rare opportunity to get a diverse view of grassroot needs and hence helped to make more effective decisions for action.

ALH findings have been utilized pro-actively for shaping the State Action Plan for Climate Change Adaptation for at least one state in India.

The ALH process has been adopted by the Government of Meghalaya, India as an approach to develop the micro plans for the Integrated Basin Development Programme - a flagship programme of the Government of Meghalaya.

We hope that the ALH will be mainstreamed as a process for annual planning by all IFAD project partners as well as by the respective governments, particularly in formulation/fine-tuning their respective CCA plans.

This approach can be highly instrumental in bringing about a larger degree of synergy between community aspirations and local/national/regional resource management, adaptation and mitigation objectives and also by stimulating greater consultation and participation in strategy/plan formulations.

Funding needs are minimal and basically are required for mobilising stakeholder's participation in the forums (travel, food, and venue) and may involve expenses for documentation.

A fundamental element of the ALH process is community engagement in the planning/policy formulation process - the C2C forums are primary to this objective followed by the additional foras in the ALH. The ALH not only brings out concerns in regard to climate change adaptation, it has proved to highlight livelihood issues which are central to poverty alleviation.
The ALH process has been adopted by the Government of Meghalaya, India as an approach to develop the microplans for the Integrated Basin Development Programme - a flagship programme of the Government of Meghalaya.

Funding needs are minimal and basically are required for mobilising stakeholders participation in the forums (travel, food, venue) and may involve expenses for documentation.

Mitigation / Adaptation

The ALH process can contribute to the formulation of planned adaptation strategies that incorporate local concerns and hence, can not only influence effective local adaptation, but actually contribute significantly to ensuring responsive local governance. This can significantly bring in the required synergy for mainstreaming adaptation into development.

Social and environmental benefits

The ALH engagement facilitates an inclusive consultation process and therefore is an effective tool for ensuring that the voices of the community, particularly the poor and disadvantaged, are heard by policy makers. The ALH thus, is an extremely effective tool for ensuring inclusive policy engagements and formulation.