Jamaica is the third largest island in the Greater Antilles region in the Caribbean Sea and highly vulnerable to the adverse impact of climate change. With a mountainous backdrop alongside a narrow coastline, several biophysical landforms and coastal marine habitats can be found including coral reefs, mangroves, protected bays, rocky shoreline, and sandy beaches. With increasing frequency of hurricanes and tropical storms, the vibrant reef dependent fishery and coastal eco-tourism activities will be affected as well as other major economic sectors including agriculture, forestry and commercial services. Seafood production and coastal tourism provides major livelihoods for coastal communities with the latter amounting to a quarter of the GDP. In fact, loss and damage from extreme events in mid to late 2000 amounted to more than a billion dollars. The importance of the coastal zone have inspired several regional Caribbean activities such as the Special Fishery Conservation Areas (SFCAs), a national development plan Vision 2030, and a proposed National Climate Change Policy and Action Plan. Several national government agencies have been instrumental in dealing with climate change through development planning as well as cross-sectoral integration and stakeholder networks.

The GIVRAPD project focused on a number of thematic clusters, including participatory planning of adaptation interventions by mapping stakeholder values, community empowerment through vulnerability assessment and adaptive capacity, social networks amongst institutions, and governance arrangements that close the gap between multi-scale jurisdictional challenges. Methodological approaches included mapping tools such as community-based vulnerability assessments, Net-Map and social network analysis, field visits, interviews and surveys

Policy highlights:

• Jamaica's coastal-marine systems are highly susceptible to climate change impacts particularly its marine biodiversity and coral reefs, coastal tourism and fisheries sectors, food production, and the social wellbeing of its coastal populations.
• Recognising these concerns, the GIVRAPD project focused on promoting local adaptive capacity through social networks and institutional mechanisms to address cross-scale linkages and livelihood security, and identifying enabling conditions for stewardship and community resilience.
• National level government agencies are key actors in climate change adaptation planning in Jamaica. However, much can be achieved through the collaboration of nonstate actors especially

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