Report / Case study

Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP)

author(s) Harvey, Blane - Ensor, Jonathan - Garside, Ben - Woodend, John - Naess, Lars Otto - Carlile, Liz
from CGIAR - Research Programs and Platforms
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themes
regions
  • Western Africa
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Africa
  • World
  • Eastern Africa
citation

Harvey B, Ensor J, Garside B, Woodend J, Naess LO, Carlile L. 2013. Social learning in practice: A review of lessons, impacts and tools for climate change. CCAFS Working Paper No. 38. Copenhagen, Denmark: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

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Abstract

CARE International launched the five-year Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP) for Africa in 2010, implemented in Ghana, Niger, Mozambique and Kenya, in partnership with local civil society and government institutions. The programme seeks to identify successful approaches to Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) for vulnerable communities through working directly with 40 communities as well as learning with other organisations practising CBA, and support incorporation of these approaches into development policies and programmes in the four countries and their regions in Africa.

ALP ran a number of participatory scenario planning (PSP) meetings between meteorologists and local actors with the purpose of building mutual understanding of data needed by local users and in planning responses to weather scenarios collectively. Key here is an element of linking timelines - the immediacy of weather scenarios for the upcoming season and farmer priorities/responses on one hand, whilst at the same time building longer term understanding and capacity to plan/respond to climate change. Part of the process considered important was facilitation with a “light-touch” allowing the overall guided process to create sufficient space for reflection and a sense of ownership.

This approach encourages participatory planning and recognises the importance of different knowledge systems by encouraging local communities and government to take ownership of the process. What has become evident is that new knowledge has been created through social learning, and there are encouraging signs that social learning processes are evolving, reflecting on their own purpose and effectiveness, to become more systemic. For example, in Kenya a task force has been created by communities and local government to continue to evolve PSP processes beyond the ALP programme and take implementation of agreed activities forward. Other organisations such as CCAFS have also adapted scenarios processes with respect to socioeconomic uncertainties and interaction with climate change at regional scales.

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