Risk financing for climate resilience (2013-2015)
Rural households and communities in the GMS employ a wide range of strategies to minimize the impact of climatic shocks. These include crop and labor diversification, personal savings, investments in semi-liquid assets such as livestock, and informal risk pooling arrangements among peers.
While helping communities cope with events with low and moderate impacts, these strategies may be insufficient as weather-related shocks become more extreme and frequent with climate change. A lack of effective climate risk financing mechanisms creates a cycle of vulnerability and compromises long-term development. To deal with extreme shocks, many poor households are forced to incur additional debts, distress-sell productive assets, reduce food expenses, and cut education spending. These strategies deplete productive assets, drive poorer households into chronic poverty, and undermine their capacity to adapt to climate change long-term.
CEP investigated the role of risk financing in climate change adaptation strategies for rural communities in the GMS. Initial work is a scoping assessment to identify viable local-level financial instruments and strategies that could provide households with financial protection. Community Development Funds will be looked at as a potential mechanism for risk financing initiatives such as savings, micro-insurance, and 'risk pooling.' The study looked at 28 communities involved in the Biodiversity Conservation Corridor project in Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Viet Nam.
The findings of the study were summarized in a publication: Risk Financing for Rural Climate Reslience in the Greater Mekong Subregion
Resources
| File Name | Size | Modified |
|---|---|---|
| Concept Note-CEP Phase II Climate Change Adaptation.pdf | 236 KB | 18-12-2013 |
| Concept Note-CEP Phase II Risk Financing for Climate Resilience.pdf | 228 KB | 18-12-2013 |
| CC Risk Financing Report-Key Findings.pdf | 3 MB | 15-06-2015 |
| CC Risk Financing Report.pdf | 7 MB | 15-06-2015 |
| Household survey data.zip | 5 MB | 11-05-2016 |
| Census data in Lao and Cambodia 2008 - 2009_1.zip | 1 MB | 11-05-2016 |
Publish Date: 16th September 2013
Last Updated: 18th May 2017
See also
Watershed Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment Guidelines
These guidelines aim to help GMS climate change practitioners and planners to embrace more robust, participatory, and integrated watershed planning processes that anticipate climate change vulnerabilities and identify opportunities to minimize them. The guidelines introduce the basic concepts of watershed vulnerability and adaptation assessments (W-VAAs), key principles and steps to conduct them, and overviews the tools that can be used.
Lao PDR: Improving Lives and Saving Forests
In the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, a community is creating products without damaging the environment, and empowering women in the process.