Climate Change

Reduced and erratic rainfall, intensified drought periods, sea level rise, landslides due to heavy rainfall and more extreme tropical storms are alarming signs that climate change is a severe threat to development. People in the tropics and subtropics, farming mostly on small plots of marginal land, with little access to sound infrastructure and services, have to deal with these consequences of climate change which will only increase over time. In many areas, climate change is threatening their livelihoods and drives violent conflicts and migration.

Adapting to climate change has thus become a major issue of the international development cooperation. FAKT specialises in participatory climate risk analysis to strengthen and develop local responses combined with scientific and technical expertise to better equip local communities to deal with climate-related shocks and stresses. With its long-standing expertise on sustainable agriculture and agroecology, FAKT also puts a specific focus on climate resilient agriculture in its work with local communities and at policy level. Ecosystem-based approaches reflect the close interconnection between local livelihoods and biodiversity.

FAKT also supports local communities in developing and managing decentralised renewable energy solutions by merging traditional knowledge with modern technology and management approaches to empower the users and contribute to their energy security and livelihoods.

We provide consulting services in the following areas:

• Climate Change Adaptation
• Climate Resilient Agriculture
• Biodiversity Conservation
• Renewable Energies

The intensity of impacts of climate change and the incurring risks for local communities are highly dependent on the local context. Climate risk assessments (CRA) are a key element for the planning, implementation and monitoring of development projects in the context of climate change. They are the first step within the climate risk management (CRM) approach and also provide the basis for mainstreaming of climate change adaptation in development projects. Local communities’ vulnerability depend on different factors such as the location of the community and exposure to climate hazards as well as their adaptive capacities defined by their livelihood strategies, existing knowledge, access to services, infrastructure and political decision making. Risk assessments therefore need to be developed together with the community, combining scientific research and local knowledge and experience. Participatory approaches give women and men voice and ensure that the analysis accurately capture local situation and the needs and adaptation potential of communities.

Adaptation strategies developed on the basis of climate risk assessments (CRA) provide a basis for adapting production strategies, improving organisational capacities, networking and scaling up disaster risk management methods. In many cases traditional farming strategies and knowledge provide a sound basis for further developing sustainable, soil-recovering and soil-conserving practices. These need to be combined with scientific knowledge on the expected climate change and technical expertise on additional adaptation techniques. Organisational structures and traditions have to be strengthened in order to react effectively and flexibly to new hazards. Risk management capacities at local, regional or national level have to be revised and reformed and the cooperation between the different levels needs to be strengthened. Comprehensive approaches such as climate and disaster risk management or resilience building support more holistic sets of measures and look at the interconnections with power and marginalisation issues. They are thus better able to reflect the complexity of local contexts and enable communities to develop sustainable solutions.

Further information on FAKT tools on climate risk assessments is available at https://www.fakt-consult.de/publications/fakt-tools-climate-risk-assessments.

FAKT provides services in the following areas:

• Participatory vulnerability and risk assessments for rural communities and development projects, e.g., the tool Participatory Assessment of Climate and Disaster Risks (PACDR)
• Quantitative and qualitative methods for assessing risks within local communities
• Conceptual development of risk assessment tools and linkages to project monitoring and indicators
• Capacity building and training on climate change bringing together different stakeholders from local communities, NGOs and governments
• Facilitation of (online) learning on risk assessments and building up of communities of practice

Biodiversity is critical for human health and wellbeing. It plays an especially crucial role in supporting livelihoods of those directly dependent on access to natural resources such as soils, water, animals and plants for living. In particular, local communities and marginalised groups in the Global South are disproportionately affected by ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss caused by the effects of climate change and human activity (e.g. large-scale agriculture, harmful agricultural practices, extractive industries).

Biodiversity conservation needs to be based on a sustainable use and management of natural resource within and outside of protected areas. In this sense, successful efforts to preserve biodiversity need to take into account not only biophysical aspects of affected ecosystems, but also social and economic systems connected to them and therefore social innovations and human capacity to restore and maintain ecosystems’ health. Assessing vulnerabilities and monitoring of climate and non-climate risks is another dimension to integrate into planning and implementation of conservation measures.

FAKT incorporates biodiversity conservation into its work at the intersection of sustainable agriculture and climate change adaptation. It focuses on such approaches as agroecology and Ecosystem-based Adaptation. Its projects including biodiversity-related components contribute to impacts at the international, national and local level and range from policy advice and project evaluations to case studies, community mapping of access to land and capacity building for participatory vulnerability and risk assessments.

In this area of work, FAKT services include:

• Monitoring and evaluations with a specific focus on agriculture and climate change adaptation
• Conceptual development of project monitoring tools and indicators
• Studies and publications, including case studies
• Capacity building and training
• Community mapping

The need for energy to raise people out of poverty and to break fossil fuel dependency is well acknowledged. The demand for energy will grow massively over the next decades. How can renewable energy sources provide solutions for this growing demand? How can energy efficiency contribute?

FAKT has experience with developing holistic solutions together with the users for energy supply of communities in countries of Africa, based on initiating and managing renewable energy citizen plants in Germany. This includes innovative solutions merging traditional knowledge with modern technology and management approaches for decentralised systems. Doing so, FAKT is combing its core methodological expertise with specific and long-term considerations. Services we provide include:

• Capacity Development (CD) in challenging formats (face-to-face learning, blended learning and e-learning, workshops, study visits and others)
• Monitoring and (impact) evaluation of renewable energy projects (M&E)
• Design and development of sustainable decentralised energy projects, based on micro-hydro and solar power (Decentral)
• Energy audits for water and waste water systems (Audit)