It is clear that technology, investments, policy and regulations alone will not be able to provide the solution. A multi-stakeholder engagement on a sustained basis, starting at the community, sub-national, national and regional levels is required to arrive at a consensus, convergence and compact on the principles, content and metrics of what is to be done.

The close linkages between climate change adaptation and development have led to calls for addressing the two issues in an integrated way. ‘Mainstreaming’ climate information, policies and measures into ongoing development planning and decision-making has been proposed as one solution. Making more sustainable and efficient use of resources is the other solution. Mainstreaming requires a cross cutting policy approach which will not only address climate resilient development in the planning process but will also make the already existing policies climate compatible.

In India, several national and state policies such as the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) and the State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC) have elaborated the co-beneficial role of adaptation in some of the major sectors such as agriculture, infrastructure, water, urban and rural development. To ensure effective execution of these plans and policies, a bottom up process is required to feed in successful adaptation practices at the local level.

According to Development Alternatives (DA), integrating climate change adaptation in national and sub-national planning can help to:

In order to mainstream climate change adaptation into development plans and policies, it is very important to understand the deep relationship between climate resilience and development. For example, climate change, rising temperatures and over exploitation of water resources is likely to deplete ground water resources in the future. In order to fulfil the water needs of communities in the future, digging of wells or mere installation of hand pumps will not be sufficient. The planners will have to consider water management practices by prioritising options such as aquifer mapping, groundwater recharge through rainwater harvesting, water auditing, water budgeting etc. This will require adaptive planning with consideration of precipitation received, infiltration rate, runoff and recharge rate or in other words climate resilient development.

Based on Development Alternatives’ experience of working on Climate Adaptive Planning, a framework has been developed by DA for mainstreaming climate change adaptation into the planning process.

This framework provides a mix of top down and bottom-up approach for climate change adaptation planning. This decentralised process defined for development planning in India provides a robust frame and platform for mainstreaming climate concerns into village and district plans and synergising with the state and national level sustainable development agenda. The framework is discussed in detail below.

1. Situation Analysis: In order to view existing development planning and policies from a climate change lens, it is first important to critically analyse existing data, information and capacity building needs from a climate change view. It is also crucial to reviews gaps in the current plans, schemes, planning and implementation processes. This phase also identifies building blocks for integrating climate change concerns in planning processes. This includes engagement of trans-disciplinary stakeholders such as practitioners, researchers, government officials of different line departments etc.

2. Development of Knowledge, Tools and Systems for Climate Change: Once the knowledge and capacity building needs of local level stakeholders is identified, the next step is to develop decision support systems for mainstreaming climate change concerns in planning processes. At this stage, the following questions are answered:

3. Set up Mechanisms for Effective Uptake: This is a stage where prioritised adaptation strategies are phased out and identified on the basis of available funds, human resources, institutional capacities and available schemes. Based on the availability and capacities in a given planning cycle, decision makers at the national, state, district and panchayat level can select adaptation strategies for integration into development plans. It helps to identify potential entry points such as:

4. Uptake into Planning and Implementation: Once the responsible departments, potential schemes and budget resources are identified to incorporate climate change adaptation solutions in the development planning process, co-benefits of climate change can be integrated in the development processes. It is then crucial to remember that once the plan is developed, it is important to monitor its implementation through mapping of milestones and their delivery.

In the medium and long term, standalone projects are unlikely to meet all adaptation requirements in a cost-effective, scalable manner and therefore mainstreaming adaptation into development planning is an effective way to respond to climate change. The expected benefits include avoided policy conflicts, reduced risks and vulnerability, greater efficiency compared with managing adaptation separately and leveraging the much larger financial flows in sectors affected by climate risks than the amounts available for financing adaptation separately. While mainstreaming of climate change adaptation in policy happens at the institutional level, mainstreaming at the programme/ scheme level needs to be preceded by plans that help communities better adapt to those climate change related vulnerabilities and challenges. This involves identifying sector-specific vulnerabilities of the communities and the region, capacity building of communities, capacity development of institutions facilitating the planning/implementation process, integration of those concerns in the plans for the scheme/ sector and a mechanism that ensures that activities are undertaken as per the prepared plans during implementation.

Another larger question that needs debate is also the overall planning process in the country within which adaptive planning needs to be embedded. With issues like lack of local participation in the planning process, lack of convergence among stakeholders, scheme-based responses to village needs, multiplicity of plans (village/district plans, plans for flagships, departmental plans) which do not necessarily dovetail into one another, ‘transmission losses’ of local priorities at each step towards aggregation of plans and the limited capacities of mentoring institutions and functionaries at the local level, any step towards adaptive planning needs to factor in these limitations of the current planning process. q