Climate Change as Better Tradeoffs?

AGWA is part of a new FCDO-funded project called the Water Tracker for National Climate Planning, in partnership with the Adaptation Action Coalition.

The Water Tracker is designed to enable credible, effective national climate policies and plans Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). Over the past few months, we’ve been writing (and rewriting) our theory of change for the Water Tracker, which contrasts sharply with what we perceive to be the implicit assessment of many other NDC and NAP support systems.

For many middle and lower income countries, national climate planning is based on the proposition that climate-aligned projects will lead to more investment, especially from international sources. More climate = more money.

Diego Rodriguez, World Bank economist and AGWA co-founder, said many years ago, that he views the heart of adaptation as “better tradeoffs” — if we can see the water commitments and limits in our projects (and especially our programs), if we understand how to manage these investments with robustness and flexibility — then our choices will be more transparent and better informed. The Water Tracker begins with the assumption that water is often the rate-limiting step for ensuring resilience in our mitigation and adaptation programs, so that our tradeoffs are harder to see.

Our theory of change says that if you enable key actors to see the tensions and opportunities around water resilience, they will be motivated to make better tradeoffs. Better tradeoffs mean realistic, relevant NDCs and NAPs. And funders and donors will support those projects and will reference these higher level planning instruments.

Maybe we don’t need a lot of additional targeted climate finance if we can convert all finance into climate finance. Better planning leads to better programs, which can consistently produce more aligned projects, and which should lead to more investment along each of these steps.

Join us and reach out!