Strengthening Climate Resilience in Zambia: Supporting National Institutional Framework and Participatory Adaptation Processes and Sub-Projects in the Barotse Sub-Basin

This case study examines the experience of the Strengthening Climate Resilience in the Barotse Sub-basin Project from its approval in September 2013 to finalization of preparatory studies in October 2014 to its near-completion in 2018. This project aims to strengthen Zambia’s institutional framework for climate resilience and improve the adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities in the Barotse sub-basin of the Zambezi floodplain. The project receives support from the Climate Investment Funds’ Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) and is implemented by the World Bank and executed by the Government of Zambia’s Ministry of National Development Planning. The project is a second phase, building on a previous Phase I technical assistance project that supported Zambia in formulating a Strategic Program for Climate Resilience (SPCR) under PPCR and beginning the process to mainstream climate change into development plans and budgets and strengthen the national institutional framework for climate resilience. The project has two main focuses. The first is strategic national-level program support designed to strengthen the national institutional and financial framework for climate resilience in Zambia. It does this by providing institutional support to the national climate change programs and by strengthening climate information. The second focus is geographic in nature, centered on the Barotse sub-basin in western Zambia. The project seeks to improve the adaptive capacity of vulnerable rural communities in this area, through facilitation and technical support for mainstreaming climate change into local-level development plans and community decision-making and through direct subproject grants to communities, wards, and districts, including women-headed and highly vulnerable households. The project also seeks to increase the flow velocity of water in targeted canals in the Barotse sub-basin through clearing and dredging of the historic canals. This case study focuses on how the Strengthening Climate Resilience in the Barotse Sub-basin Project (hereafter referred to as the Zambia PPCR project) has been implemented and how it has confronted various delivery challenges—that is, various nontechnical barriers to implementation—during the implementation process. It draws on project documents as well as interviews with relevant stakeholders.