doi: 10.3850/S1793924012100067

Climate Resilience in Rural Cambodia: Adaptation Mainstreaming, Water Resource Management and Agricultural Practice

Lay Khim^a and Hing Phearanich^{b 1}Environment and Energy Unit, UNDP Cambodia, No. 53, Pasteur Street, Boeung Keng Kang 1, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. ^akhim.lay@undp.org ^bphearanich.hing@undp.org

ABSTRACT

Cambodia is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change in South-East Asia. To prepare the country to adapt to, and combat, climate change, in 2006 Cambodia developed a National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA). Within it, a project was designed promoting adaptation mainstreaming and planning for climate-resilient water resource management and agriculture practices in rural Cambodia. It takes into consideration all the different dimensions of climate vulnerability, as well as Cambodia’s NAPA top priority of adapting agriculture and water resource management to climate change. This paper provides a case study of a NAPA follow-up project in two rural provinces, Preah Vihear and Kratie, which were selected for their high vulnerability to climate impacts and their differences in agro-ecological and socio-economic circumstances. The project, funded by GEF and UNDP, selected the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) as a main partner to replicate and scale up the successes in IFAD-funded agriculture investment programmes. Successes include the recognition that building ownership through participatory planning and broad stakeholder engagement at local levels are critical aspects of the project implementation. Through development planning processes at provincial, district and commune levels, the project worked with local councils in both provinces to mainstream climate risk information into local development plans. A no-regrets approach is emphasized to generate net social benefits under all future scenarios of climate change and impacts.

Keywords: NAPA, No-regrets measures, Integrated and combined approaches.

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