The role of institutions is critical to both climate change adaptation and development.
Institutions bring in external resources, utilize location specific knowledge, and provide
informational, technical and leadership support. Identifying who has access to
institutions, what types of institutions are most frequently accessed, and how
institutions can increase adaptive capacity are the key questions addressed in this
report. The report is intended to inform the World Bank’s efforts to build and
strengthen institutions to facilitate adaptation to climate change in developing
countries. Data from household surveys conducted in Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal, the
Dominican Republic and Mexico provided information on factors contributing to overall
vulnerability, defined as a factor of exposure, adaptive capacity and sensitivity. Our
analysis created groups of households clustered around these factors of vulnerability,
and identified common relationships between groups. We found that groups with high
exposure to climate hazards have invariably better access to institutions. Groups with
better access also employ a greater number of adaptation strategies more frequently,
and access government and civic organizations more than other types. Based on these
relationships we suggest that to increase adaptive capacity in highly exposed areas, it is
not necessary to create new institutions. We suggest that a more effective approach
would be to strengthen existing institutions, especially government departments of
natural resources, veterinary, health and agriculture, and civic organizations such as
village committees, youth and women organizations. We also identified a relationship
between market income and higher adaptive capacity, suggesting that institutions
should encourage a diversity of assets, including a market income source. Finally, we
identified the groups of households characterized as highly sensitive in order to identify
their interaction with institutions. These groups currently have little to no institutional
access, and considering the variability of climate change, are at risk of experiencing
severe effects of climate hazards. Therefore we suggest that addressing the vulnerability
of these groups preemptively is critical. Our findings suggest that as countries and
development organizations are facing resource limitations, and environmental and
demographic pressures, they should increase their efforts to build resilience in the
communities through general adaptive capacity. Pre‐emptive activity instead of a risk
management, re‐active approach will likely be more effective in addressing future
climate change impacts.