Adaptation Aid
Fragile states present one of the greatest challenges for security and development agencies alike, and effective international responses require substantial coordination between these agencies. CCAPS research seeks to address this challenge by developing a uniform coding system to track the climate-relevant components of all development projects in a country. The work aims to facilitate better evaluation, tracking, and coordination of international aid for adaptation in Africa"and ultimately to assess if adaptation aid is targeting areas of greatest climate security risks.
CCAPS research builds on extensive prior work by program partner AidData, which applied uniform activity coding standards to development projects from bilateral and multilateral donors worldwide in its AidData.org database.
CCAPS researchers applied their new "climate coding" methodology to all official development aid projects in Malawi, assessing each project activity for its relevance to climate change adaptation. Through a collaboration between CCAPS, AidData, and the Government of Malawi, the data were also geocoded, allowing analysts to assess aid allocation visually as well. With access to this new data, CCAPS is examining the effectiveness of foreign aid to help governmental and societal actors adapt to climate change.