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Toolbox home References 6 short descriptions

These are closely connected to stakeholder engagement and analysis tools.

Adaptation activities are often focused at the local level where impacts will be experienced and supported by an ‘enabling environment’ made up of institutions, access to information, funding and peer networks. Over the last few years there has been a very welcome focus on community based adaptation processes and a wealth of material has become available giving examples from practice and useful learning for others wanting to initiate similar activities. Participatory, community based tools are used to assess of existing livelihood patterns, including an understanding of vulnerable systems and groups. They tend to be multi-sectoral and sustainable and, if done effectively the outputs of the assessment will be owned and understood by the households and individuals affected. There is a usually a focus on identifying and implementing action aimed at improving capacity to resist and recover from the impacts of climate change.

The toolkits and approaches provided here offer some examples of the kind of tools commonly used to do these assessments. The tools tend to be visual and require little input in terms of materials. Tools tend to be grouped when undertaking an assessment e.g. in one location you light to a Venn diagram to understand the different groups that make up a given location and how they relate, you might then undertake a timeline of how weather events have impacted the area in the past. Other tools you might use depend on the kind of information that is needed for the adaptation plan but might include matrix ranking of different options, spectrums of confidence in their capacity to respond, seasonal calendars illustrating important moments for the are in the year etc.

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Exemplary methods and tools

Name	Description	References
Participatory Approaches: A facilitator’s guide	This book provides a set of guidelines for people who will be involved in participatory processes to answers questions such as: what level of participation is appropriate, what problems exist, tips for facilitation participatory approaches. It provides a framework (divided in to: Principles, Methods and Tools) for common understanding, advice on good facilitation, and a set of tools and activities that may help to facilitate dialogue, identify blocks and reveal appropriate development initiatives	http://community.eldis.org/.59c6ec19/VSO_Facilitator_Guide_to_Participatory_Approaches_Principles.pdf
Reflect Action tool box	Guidance on how to use a set of participatory tools (calendars, matrices, rivers, trees, theatre, roleplay, song, dance, video, television).	http://www.reflect-action.org/how
Embracing participation in development	Worldwide experience from CARE’s Reproductive Health Programs with a step-by-step field guide to participatory tools and techniques. A thorough introduction to the philosophy behind participatory approaches and the caution with which they should be used. Also includes a useful overview of tools and techniques and examples from various countries.	http://www.care.org/careswork/whatwedo/health/downloads/embracing_participitation/embracing_participitation_en.pdf
Participatory Tools to aid adaptation	A summary table on the weADAPT site by Kathleen Dietrich of Penn State University of some of the many different tools used by practitioners in their work on adaptation. Many of these tools started life in the Development or Disaster Risk reduction fields, but have been being applied to support adaptation also.	http://weadapt.org/knowledgebase/adaptation-decision-making/participatory-tools-to-aid-adaptation
Participatory Action Research	"Essentially Participatory Action Research (PAR) is research which involves all relevant parties in actively examining together current action (which they experience as problematic) in order to change and improve it. They do this by critically reflecting on the historical, political, cultural, economic, geographic and other contexts which make sense of it. ... Participatory action research is not just research which is hoped that will be followed by action. It is action which is researched, changed and re-researched, within the research process by participants. Nor is it simply an exotic variant of consultation. Instead, it aims to be active co-research, by and for those to be helped. Nor can it be used by one group of people to get another group of people to do what is thought best for them - whether that is to implement a central policy or an organisational or service change. Instead it tries to be a genuinely democratic or non-coercive process whereby those to be helped, determine the purposes and outcomes of their own inquiry." - Wadsworth, Yolanda. 1998. What is Participatory Action Research? Action Research International, Paper 2.	Lessons learned from a PAR approach for community Forestry in the Philippines. http://web.idrc.ca/en/ev-103666-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html
Indigenous Peoples Biocultural Climate Change Assessment Annex for Methodological Toolkit for Local Assessments	This toolkit describes a practical methodology for developing and facilitating indigenous local assessments under the framework of the Indigenous Peoples Biocultural Climate Change Assessment (IPCCA), providing tools, methods and practical examples to support their local implementation. Since the context in which local assessments are  undertaken across different regions of the world, vary considerably, this guide aims to provide a general methodological framework that is applicable to all local assessments without generalising differences, enabling reults to be synthesised and appropriate strategic responses made within each given context.	http://ipcca.info/blog/2011/12/23/firstedition-of-the-ipcca-methodologicaltoolkit/