US-Tanzania Planning Visit: Local Knowledge and Coping Capacity: Toward an Understanding of Resilience of Rural Livelihoods to Climate Change

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Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, researchers have identified hundreds of environmental, agronomic, social, and economic strategies based on local knowledge that enable rural people to practice their livelihoods and, above all, buffer people from extreme events such as droughts and floods. In the study of climate change adaptation, much research has focused on regional and national level adaptation strategies, while micro-scale adaptation, and the local knowledge on which it is based, represent an understudied dimension of climate change adaptation. Research provides evidence that local knowledge is a critical component of communities' coping capacity and resilience to drought and may be an essential component of future climate change adaptation. As many developing countries have adopted programs of decentralized resource management, networks of civil society organizations (CSOs) and institutions of local government throughout the developing world have a greater role in facilitating or altering local knowledge for coping with drought and other shock events. However, the role of local knowledge in household and community capacity to cope with climate changes remains poorly understood. It is proposed that the merging of frameworks concerned with household and community coping strategies with those that have assessed the dynamism of local knowledge within rural livelihood systems will be critical to developing a more comprehensive understanding of patterns of resilience and vulnerability to future climate change. Progress in the development of participatory methodologies offers the opportunity to engage in collaborative research with civil society organizations to develop more robust understanding of the role of local knowledge and institutions in climate change adaptation. The activities envisaged by the research team will draw on a range of participatory methodologies, including an existing preliminary model for for participatory vulnerability assessment and participatory geographic information systems (PGIS). This planning grant will permit a team of U.S. and Tanzanian scientists to meet to collate existing research on adaptation and vulnerability to climate variability and climate change, to develop their research hypotheses and methodology, and to identify research sites.