Roadmap

Oxfam India & GDS

DRR and Climate Change

An Oxfam Perspective

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Oxfam DRR and Climate Change process

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Relationship between climate change adaptation and

DRR –

• Oxfam is increasingly seeing the effects of climate change on the

communities with which we work. We are beginning to respond

to this in our work with communities and in our campaigns and

advocacy. At the same time, we are building rapidly on our

disaster risk reduction (DRR) programming as a key way of

reducing the loss of lives and livelihoods in disaster-prone areas.

• However, DRR programmes may have nothing to do with climate

change (if the disasters in question are earthquakes and

tsunamis), or the disasters may be recurring even in the absence

of climate change, and so DRR is an appropriate response for

Oxfam whether or not climate change is exacerbating these.

• We simply do not know enough about all the atmospheric and oceanic

processes to get a truly accurate scenario of how climate will react on

a local and regional scale. However in recent years we have

considerable evidence that the earth has begun to warm more quickly

than ever before

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Broad scope for Oxfam intervention

Non climate-related

Disasters

E.g., earthquakes

Climate-related

disasters

E.g., floods, droughts,

hurricanes, cyclones

storm surges

Non-disaster related

climatic impacts

E.g., temperature,

unpredictable

rainfall, sea level rise,

saline intrusion

However, as climate-related disasters are a major cause of poverty

and suffering in almost all of the communities with which Oxfam

works, more and more DRR programmes will integrate adaptation

into their work with communities and in their advocacy.

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• Oxfam is still in the process of analyzing how Climate Change is

affecting the implementation of Oxfam-supported projects in the

India (coastal, flood plain)).

• If so, to reduce the impacts of climate change, Oxfam needs to

incorporate adequate measures into its project design. Design

adaptability, engagement on coping issues in 20 years

Climate date that will affect our programmes

• Temperature increase 0.5 - 2 °C by 2030 and 1 - 7 °C by 2070

• Increase in the frequency and intensity in rainfall (South Asia,

South East Asia)

• Increase in global sea-level rise 3 -16 cm by 2030 and 7-50 cm by

2070

• Increasing reduction in snow and ice in Himalayan and Tibetan

glaciers

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Impact on programmes

• Impact on agriculture – shift in seasons and agro-ecological

zones, water stress (drought and floods) and decline in water-

table, reduced soil fertility and increasing salinity, loss of

agricultural land due to sea water inundation, reduced crop and

grass yields, and loss of livestock (food insecurity)

• Contamination of ground Water;

• Impact on coastal zones - sea water inundation and loss of land

area, storm surge and coastal erosion, impact on aquaculture,

coastal agriculture and reduction in fresh water availability

• Increase conflict due to land use pressure, and resource use and

migration (in direct affect)

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The Project intervention (Design of DRR):

• Project was not pre-designed, it has evolved with

finding solutions and trials with community.

• The project approach has been „community based

disaster risk management‟.

• The focus has been on-

• To enable & capacitate the community;

• To evolve community based coping mechanism;

GDS believes in the principle that “sufferer is the first

responder”

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Situation/Problem Analysis:

The poor and the women are the most

vulnerable- the extent of vulnerability as well

as coping capacity directly proportional to the

socio-economic and gender status of the

people.

Agriculture is the main source of livelihood;

Majority of farmers are small and marginal.

Flood destroys not only the Kharif (monsoon season) crop but also delays the next Rabi

(winter season) crop due to water locking and water logging.

People‟s interest and investment in agriculture declining.

Seasonal male migration is rampant

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Situation/Problem Analysis:

During floods gender discrimination is clearly visible

Women particularly the elderly eat and drink less to avoid

going to toilet

Drinking water sources get submerged;

Conditions highly favourable for outbreak of epidemics;

People have accepted floods as destiny and resigned to their

fate;

Dependency on relief assistance

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The Model Finalization process:

• Initiated with problem identification, analysis and prioritization.

• Micro planning process initiated in villages with community

participation.

• Interventions designed for flood mitigation were based on

specific problems identified during micro planning process.

• Continuous process of participatory reviewing and deriving

learning carried out- leading to timely refinement/fine-tuning in

the implementation design

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Integration of Climate Change with D ExperienceRM – GDS

• Monsoons in the year 2007 broke all norms and trends- heavy

rains in early July caused massive floods almost six weeks

before the „normal‟ time for floods

• While most components of the DRM model stood to the test, the

agriculture safeguarding component (pre-flood paddy) was

knocked completely off the course!

• It forced us to give serious consideration to the phenomenon of

„Climate Change‟ and to look out for ways to make our DRM and

livelihoods interventions effective.

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Integration of Climate Change with DRM• Towards integrating the „climate change‟ dimension, we have

undertaken a study to comprehend the issues and nuances

related to climate change

• The focus has been on the effects of climate change on

livelihoods (especially, agriculture)

DRR & CC in Grameen Development Services

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Study on Climate Change Phenomenon

• The study has looked into the following aspects

• Changes in climatic pattern

• Impact on life and livelihoods

• Coping Strategies

• Demands

• The method comprises of

• FGDs and key informant interviews with community to

understand their perspective on the issue

• Taking inputs from scientists and subject matter experts

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Changes in climate trends

1. Rainfall:

Late arrival and early end

Change in intensity and timing- becoming increasingly

erratic

Decline in winter rains

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Changes in climate trends

2. Seasons

• Change in duration of the seasons

• Summer are very hot and dry

• Winter are concentrated and short

• Fogs lasts throughout the day

• Weak Pachuva and strong Purva

• Absence of “loo”

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Changes in climate trends

4. Floods

• Change in the period of arrival

• Persistent water-logging

• Increase in intensity

• Irregular pattern

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Impact

1. Agriculture:

• Damage to crops

• Disturbance in crop-cycle

• Need for multiple-irrigation, even during kharif

• Rise in insect/pest infestation

• Rise in weeds like khod jawaya, gilli danda and ban mutter

• Fall in size of grains

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Impact on Economy

• Increase in cost of agriculture inputs; decline in production and

productivity

• Decline in livestock based livelihoods

• Large scale migration

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Emerging coping strategies

• Use of high yielding varieties

• Balanced use of fertilizers and pesticides

• Creation co-operatives with the help of NGOs

• Nursery cropping

• Change in cropping pattern and sowing time

• Growing bamboo terraces

• Emphasis on jayad cropping

• Preference to mixed cropping

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Emerging demands

• Better varieties

• short-duration

• heat and water tolerant

• high yielding

• More facilities to undertake jayad cropping

• Knowledge of better practices in cropping

• Micro-insurance for crop damage

• Improved flood control programmes

• Education on climate-change

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Thank you