The inclusion of climate change dimensions in Communal Development Plans

This case study describes how climate change was taken into account in the Commune Development Plan (PDC) of the commune of Hamdallaye in Niger. This is a BRACED-PRESENCES initiative (Projet de Renforcement de la Résilience contre les Chocs Environnementaux et Sociaux au Niger). The approach was to make a commune adaptation diagnosis, identify coping strategies, develop Commune Adaptation Action Plans (CAAP) and share them with local elected officials. This process was driven by the shortcomings of the previous PDC which was not climate-adjusted and did not have community alert mechanisms.

The main lessons learned are:

• Gender analyses with a matrix are required to take into account the gender dimension and concerns of the communities arising from the CVCAs.
• The engagement of local actors (commune authorities) and commune familiarity with participatory budgeting facilitated the process.
• Raise participant awareness of the fact that CC is a global fact and that it must be taken into account across topics considering that it impacts all areas of the ecosystem.
• The challenges faced include the unavailability of communities during the period of the harvest and storage of agricultural production, the small number of agents from technical services at commune level, the high rate of illiteracy in the communities makes the process slow especially at community diagnosis level and the inaccessibility/isolation of some communities because the commune has less road infrastructure.

This case study makes the following recommendations:

• Strengthen the technical capacities of the central committee involved in the IDCC process (including the climate change dimension) in the PDCs.
• More specifically monitor the critical analysis capabilities of the central committee during the new PDC analysis and formulation phase.
• Allow communes sufficient financial and material resources during the IDCC process so that the process is participatory and with the necessary iterations.