Aiding adaptation: Reducing the risk of maladaptive Swedish climate aid through integrated approaches

In light of the continued failure to limit climate change, the need for multi-sectoral and inclusive climate adaptation is underlined in both research and practice. Environment- and climate-related aid can be a significant tool for realizing this ambition.

To do this, it is pertinent that aid programs are designed and implemented in a way that ensures an integrated approach to overlappning challenges related to gender, and conflict in the partner country.

Integration is, however, fraught with difficulties, including diverging framings of the integrative ambition as well as implementation challenges. Research is needed to examine how, when, why, and with what effects these issues are addressed.

To fill this gap, this project examines how aid can contribute to coherently achieving environment and climate, gender, and conflict objectives and the challenges and opportunities that arise when transforming policy into practice.

It studies how the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) integrates these perspectives in climate adaptation-related initiatives in Eastern Africa in the context of regional development cooperation and public sector cooperation.

Using insights from environmental policy integration literature, the project analyzes how the integrative ambition is framed, how it materializes in organizational and implementation processes, and how the effects of the initiatives are understood by aid staff, implementing partners, and intended beneficiaries.