Community-based adaptation (CBA) is a fairly new approach where communities are empowered to find their own adaptation solutions, without relying excessively on government interventions that may be too slow to address their quickly changing needs. However, successful CBA is difficult to accomplish; attempts frequently fail to integrate action across public, private and civil society sectors. Though still at an early stage, the Adapta Sertão programme seems to be succeeding in identifying and overcoming key barriers through partnership building and diversified interventions to address the multiple needs of farmers in Brazil’s semi-arid region.

Through Adapta Sertão, small farmers in one of Brazil’s semi-arid regions were helped to increase their yields, find markets to sell their crops and access micro-credit to buy productive technology – making them more resilient in the face of a fast-changing climate. This policy brief, An integrated approach to family farmer adaptation in Brazil’s semi-arid region: the case of Adapta Sertão, presents the following key messages from Adapta Sertão:

• Adapta Sertão shows how adaptive capacity in the semi-arid region can be strengthened by changing farming methods and disseminating efficient and low-cost technologies starting from those which improve both water supply and use.
• Public policies promoting access to technology and finance, commercialisation and technical assistance are fragmented. By using partnerships and establishing links between these policies through local actions, a systemic approach to climate change adaptation can be achieved

This publication forms part of a series from the CDKN-funded project, Promoting climate change adaptation policies – a pilot approach from semi-arid northeast Brazil, which has been consistently testing and monitoring 16 different arrangements implemented together with small farmers over the past two years to understand their true adaptive and food security potential.

The project has been assigned the award “Celso Furtado” for Regional Development, sponsored by the Brazilian Ministry of Integration. The project won in the category of Innovative Projects to be Implemented in the Territory, thanks to its proposed best practices and their translation into policy-making. The same project has also been acknowledged with a Grant of the Brazilian Climate Fund of the Ministry of the Environment for its innovation in terms of bridging adaptation to climate change and development in one of the most challenging regions of Brazil, which faces serious and long-lasting problems of drought and hunger.

Further reading:
Project homepage: Promoting climate change adaptation policies – a pilot approach from semi-arid northeast Brazil
Briefing paper: Climate change adaptation strategies for smallholder farmers in the Brazilian Sertão

Image credit: CIAT