Climate Policy Processes, Local Institutions, and Adaptation Actions: Mechanisms of Translation and Influence

By Arun Agrawal, Nicolas Perrin, Ashwini Chhatre, Catherine Benson, Minna Kononen
WIREs Climate Change | January 2013

DOI

doi.org/10.1002/wcc.203

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Citation

Agrawal, Arun., Perrin, Nicolas., Chhatre, Ashwini., Benson, Catherine., Kononen, Minna. Climate Policy Processes, Local Institutions, and Adaptation Actions: Mechanisms of Translation and Influence WIREs Climate Change doi.org/10.1002/wcc.203.

WIREs Climate Change, 2013

Abstract

This paper reviews and synthesizes the published literature on decentralization of renewable resources and development interventions to identify four key lessons for future adaptation planning at the national level. After presenting an analysis of why studies of decentralization reforms are relevant to adaptation planning, the paper examines priority adaptation projects identified by 47 Least Developed Countries in their National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs). Our research analyzes the range of institutional instruments and relationships visible in contemporary decentralization reforms. The four major lessons for adaptation planning concern the need for national adaptation planners to: (1) attend systematically to local institutions relevant to adaptation and increase local capacity through transfers of information, financial, and technical resources; (2) empower communities and local governments by increasing local autonomy so as to decentralize adaptation planning and implementation; (3) create mechanisms for information sharing among decision makers across sectors and levels of decision making; and (4) improve accountability of local decision makers to their constituents.

Ashwini Chhatre is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Bharti Institute of Public Policy (BIPP) at the Indian School of Business (ISB). Professor Chhatre is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research interests broadly centre on the dynamic cross-scale interactions between governance, economic development, and environmental protection. He relocated to India from the US in 2014 to join the faculty at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. He spent 13 years in the US, including five in graduate school at Duke University, where he was awarded a PhD in Political Science. In 2006-07, Professor Chhatre became the first Giorgio Ruffolo Post-doctoral Fellow in Sustainability Science at Harvard University, before joining the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Between completing his BA in Economics from the University of Delhi in 1990 and starting his PhD at Duke University, he spent 11 years working in different parts of India, primarily as a community organiser and social activist on issues related to natural resources such as land, forests, and water. A background in Economics, graduate training in Political Science, and a long-standing engagement with scholarship in Geography, Anthropology, Landscape Ecology, and Environmental History ensure that his research is never confined to a single discipline.

Professor Chhatre’s main research interests lie in exploring the intersection of democracy, environment, and development, with a focus on decentralised forest governance, climate change vulnerability and adaptation, and multifunctional agriculture. Over the past 20 years, the scope of his research projects has ranged from household-level to global analysis, consistently bridging research, policy, and practice.

He was the founding Editor-in-Chief of World Development Perspectives (2016-19), served as Senior Editor of Conservation Letters (2009-2014), and has published one book and several articles in leading journals including Science, and PNAS.

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