Exercise 6: Community adaptation goals
In this exercise, participants identify short- and long-term adaptation goals for the community. As in previous modules, facilitators conduct the exercise in separate groups of men and women, and if minorities are involved another separate session is also a good idea. After each group has defined their goals, the facilitators bring together the men and women (and minorities if they have a separate session) into a single discussion of their respective results.
Facilitation Facilitators provide pencils or markers in multiple colours and smaller paper cards of various colours. Facilitators prepare large sheets of papers on which participants will develop adaptation paths during this and the next exercise. Based on the hazard-response-action table in the Module 4 summary, facilitators prepare one sheet for each hazard and its related impacts where the table indicates a high need for action (e.g., flood and drought). For each group (men, women, minorities) a set of sheets need to be prepared.
When forming the small groups, bear in mind that each group should have at least one member who can read and write. Otherwise, symbols should be used.
Add-on: Annex V includes the Gender Action and Learning System, a tool with a particular focus on the role of gender relations in improving community development.
36 Adaptation strategies
The facilitators explain that a goal is a situation we want to see in the future, and that the task here is to develop goals that take into account the observed and projected changes due to climatic impacts in the community, village and region. Participants form groups of 2–3 people, and each group identifies goals related to the impacts of the priority hazards on one of the sheets prepared by the facilitators. The groups should distinguish between short-term (1-3 years) and long-term (10 years) goals, and work for 20 to 30 minutes writing down the goals they consider important. Then the groups present their goals, and the facilitator arranges the goals according to hazards and impacts, clustering those goals that are similar and suggesting ways to merge similar goals (see example of adaptation path sheet below). The objective is to have no more than five long-term goals in order to keep the number of goals manageable for planning. If more than five long-term goals remain after the clustering, do a ranking in order to agree on the five most important long-term goals. For ranking methods see Exercise 3 and Annex IV.
Module
5
