A recent report by the Centre for Development Finance (CDF) in India utilized CCAPS’ climate aid coding methodology to help develop aid strategies that would assist the Indian central and state governments in implementing State Action Plans on Climate Change. Indian states are currently developing state-level plans aligned with the 2008 National Action Plan on Climate Change to plan for low-carbon and climate-resilient development in their individual states.

The report, Climate Finance at the Local Level ““ The Case of Odisha, assesses adaptation planning in one locality and seeks to develop a broader framework that could be applied to all Indian states as they attempt to successfully analyze their proposed climate change activities and budgets.

Throughout their extensive project, CDF researchers Koyel Mandal, Shivaranjani. V, Sunanda Rathi, Vivek Venkataramani, and Haripriya Gundimeda used the CCAPS database of Pre-Assigned Scores to assess the estimated impact of climate aid on Indian states.

This CCAPS methodology was created by CCAPS researchers Catherine Weaver, Justin Baker, and Christian Peratsakis. In CCAPS Research Brief Number 5“”published in September 2012″”Weaver, Baker, and Peratsakis discuss their development of a method to determine how much climate change adaptation is being integrated into traditional development assistance programs. Their methodology identifies and measures how much of a particular development aid project contributes to adaptation and can thus, in turn, be labeled “climate aid.”

An important part of their methodology is the development of “pre-assigned scores” that automatically place each development project activity at a certain place on the spectrum of potential relevance to climate change adaptation. These pre-assigned scores can be adjusted before the coding begins to reflect local adaptation priorites and expert knowledge. Having pre-assigned scores in place during the coding process, however, thus reduces subjectivity in coding.

While the CCAPS methodology was originally applied to current and future aid projects in Africa, the Centre for Development Finance’s most recent report on climate finance in India shows how the methodology can be applied to other parts of the world, in this case countries in Asia. The CDF case study of climate change financing in Odisha is just one example of how the innovative CCAPS methodology can potentially be used to efficiently plan for future climate change adaptation in many parts of the world.