interview
IOB research on...
Climate Change Adaptation:
A Key Challenge for Development
Climate change and development are closely intertwined. It hurts the poorest hardest and threatens development achievements of the past. The World Bank estimates that over 100 million people could be pushed back into poverty by 2030 due to climate change. Africa is the content hit hardest. Climate change costs the continent every year an estimated 40 billion USD until 2030, as water availability decreases, yields deteriorate and extreme weather events become more frequent. But not all hope is lost; climate change also presents opportunities for sustainable, low-carbon development and there is at least some room for adaptation: for living with a changed climate. Research has a critical role to play in adaptation to climate change. Among other things research is needed to identify climate risks, to understand peoples’ responses to these risks, as well as to evaluate the long-term effects of different responses. Several people within the IOB community research climate change, adaptation and development. We spoke to three IOB members about their climate research: With postdoctoral researcher Els Lecoutere, who examines household decisionmaking among coffee farmers in East Africa; with IOB alumnus Zerihun Berhane Weldegebriel, who focuses on livelihood diversification in Northern Ethiopia; and with current MA student Nguyen Thi Phuong Chi, who analyses farmers’ responses to climate change in Northern Vietnam.
Els Lecoutere | The impact of intra household decision making on the sustainability, efficiency and equitability of household farming in sub-Saharan Africa
How would you describe your research in one sentence?
Els: My research project investigates to what extent collective action problems within farming households prevent them from investing in climate-smart and sustainably intensified agriculture, and from sharing the benefits from farming equitably among household members.
How do you answer this research question?
Els: With collaborating partners, we are randomly introducing a programme that
6 Exchange to change September 2016 coaches couples in farming households in participatory intra-household decisionmaking. We will evaluate the effectiveness of this programme by comparing couples that attended this coaching programme with couples that did not. On the one hand, I measure spouses’ investment and consumption behaviour and on the other hand their actual investment in climate-smart and sustainably intensified farming and actual cost and benefit sharing.
Specifically, I use a behavioural game played with spouses in farming households in East Africa. The game mimics spouses’ decisions on investments and consumption. Participant spouses receive real money and they have then to decide – without communicating with their partner – how much of that money they put aside for their own purposes; how much they invest in their farming activities in their household farm; as well as what share of the returns to that investment they use individually.
Furthermore, I conduct focus group discussions and interview each spouse individually to understand prevailing gender roles and practices with regard to climate smart agriculture, as well as practices of investment, allocation of resources and control over income and other benefits from farming.
If you had the power to implement one concrete climate change action— what measure would you take?
Els: Based on my research, I would increase coaching of couples— men and women— on how to cooperate on sustainably intensifying food and cash crop production in their household farm in a climate-smart way, as well as how to equitably share workloads, investments, income and other benefits from the farm.
Nguyen Thi Phuong Chi | Community-based Adaptation to Climate Change in Rural Northern Viet Nam
Can you describe your research project in one sentence?
Chi: My project is part of a larger, long-term project that has run 7 years until now, where we want to find out what barriers prevent effective climate change adaptation in rural communities in Northern Vietnam, and how community-based adaptation could overcome these barriers.
What is the most difficult part of your research project?
Chi: We went into the rural communities to collect data. We conducted focus group discussions, in-depth interviews with a few community members, as well as questionnaire-based survey of all community members. It was not easy to communicate