Category Archives: Decentralisation
Scaling up adaptation 5: Microfinance sparked by “social energy”
Microfinance is perhaps “the” success story for scaling up development interventions. While it should continue to be a critical tool in providing climate finance to the poor and reducing their vulnerability to climate impacts, its early history also has lessons to offer for scaling up adaptation. Continue reading
Scaling up adaptation 4: Empowering women is a process, not a project
Kudumbashree demonstrates, once again, the importance of community-drivenness, fiscal freedom, and a strong capacity development drive. Continue reading
Scaling up adaptation 3: Lessons from Indonesia
My second case study of a successfully scaled-up development intervention that could provide lessons for adaptation is from Indonesia: the Kecamatan (sub-district) Development Programme (KDP). KDP had what has been described as an “explosive” scaling up, from initial pilots in … Continue reading
Consolidation for devolution: Balancing top-down and bottom-up elements of climate finance governance in India
Consolidating national and international climate finance in a national fund in India could help ensure common principles; coherence with national strategies; distributive justice; prioritisation of the needs of the most vulnerable; and flexibility through a continuous review process. However, such consolidation must come with a strong commitment to devolution. Continue reading
Climate change and the post-2015 goals: Passing ships or all in the same boat?
With 2015 potentially signaling a new chapter for the “global partnership” for poverty eradication and sustainable development, developing country leaders have to consider one question very carefully: do they really want to perpetuate the aid and charity paradigm that reduced them to unequal partners in this partnership for the last half century? This blog considers options, mainly in the context of the new report by the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts Sustainable Development Financing (ICESDF). Continue reading
Vulnerable India 6: Decentralisation and its discontents
One of the most critical elements for successful adaptation by poor and vulnerable communities – if not the most critical element – will be their ability to identify local climate-related threats and respond quickly where response is possible, with locally … Continue reading
Vulnerable India 3: The politics of vulnerability
What is the nature of India’s vulnerability to climate change? This is a very important question. How we choose to answer it will determine whether we see and respond to the whole picture; or whether we choose to see only … Continue reading
Vulnerable India 1: Climate change in the world’s largest democracy
Real Swaraj (self-rule) will come, not by the acquisition of authority by a few, but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused. In other words, Swaraj is to be attained by educating … Continue reading
It must be said! 