WHERE THE RAIN FALLS PHASE III (2017 – 2019) FINAL EVALUATION REPORT Prepared by: Samantha Boardley, Independent Evaluator and Climate Change Advisor Prepared for: CARE France 29th January 2020 WHERE THE RAIN FALLS PHASE III FINAL EVALUATION REPORT TABLE OF CONTENTS Acronyms............................................................................................................................................... 0 1 Project Background and Context .................................................................................................... 1 2 Evaluation Background ................................................................................................................... 3 2.1 Evaluation Objectives .............................................................................................................. 3 2.2 Target Audience ...................................................................................................................... 3 2.3 Scope ...................................................................................................................................... 3 3 Approach and Methodology ............................................................................................................ 3 3.1 Key Evaluation Questions, Matrix and Outcomes of Interest .................................................... 4 3.2 Sampling Framework ............................................................................................................... 5 3.3 Challenges and Limitations ...................................................................................................... 7 4 Findings from India ......................................................................................................................... 8 4.1 Agricultural Methods and Productivity .................................................................................... 10 4.2 Household Income and Expenditures .................................................................................... 11 4.3 Water Availability and Reliability ............................................................................................ 12 4.4 Women’s Mobility, Voice and Agency .................................................................................... 13 4.5 Climate Informed Agricultural and Development Planning .................................................... 13 4.6 Summary and Recommendations .......................................................................................... 17 5 Findings from Thailand ................................................................................................................. 20 5.1 Agricultural Methods and Productivity .................................................................................... 22 5.2 Household Income and Expenditures .................................................................................... 25 5.3 Water Availability and Reliability ............................................................................................ 26 5.4 Women’s Mobility, Voice and Agency .................................................................................... 28 5.5 Climate Informed Agricultural and Development Planning ..................................................... 29 5.6 Land Security and Forest Rights ............................................................................................ 31 1 Box 3. Raks thai Foundations’ Approach to community-based land use management for securing land rights and entitlements .......................................................................................................... 31 5.7 Summary and Recommendations .......................................................................................... 33 6 Multi-country Analysis and Discussion .......................................................................................... 36 6.1 Capacities and Assets ........................................................................................................... 36 6.2 Drivers of Risk ....................................................................................................................... 39 6.3 Enabling Environment ............................................................................................................ 39 7 Recommendations ........................................................................................................................ 40 References .......................................................................................................................................... 42 Annexes .............................................................................................................................................. 43 2 ACRONYMS CAP Community Adaptation (or Action) Plan CBA Community-based Adaptation CBAF Community-based Adaptation Facilitator CBAWG Community-based Adaptation Working Group CCRP Climate Change and Resilience Platform (an initiative of CARE International) CG Chattisgarh State, India IGA(s) Income generating activity(ies) KEQ key evaluation question MH Maharashtra State, India PGIS Participatory Geographic Information System PSP Participatory Scenario Planning RTF Raks Thai Foundation SAO Sub-district Administrative Organization SHG Self-Help Group SuPER sustainable, productive, equitable and resilient (agriculture) VDC Village Development Committee WEE Women’s economic empowerment WtRF Where the Rain Falls 1 PROJECT BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT In 2009, the Where the Rain Falls (WtRF) initiative started as a three-year research project investigating the impact of rainfall variability on food and livelihood security, and migration. Led by CARE France together with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, the central focus of the original research was to “explore the circumstances under which households in eight case study sites…use migration as a risk management strategy when faced with rainfall variability and food and livelihood insecurity.”1 This research culminated in a global policy report (2012) and the development of more action-oriented community-based adaptation WtRF Phase III Global Objective: (CBA) pilot projects in each India, Thailand and To enhance the resilience of marginalized populations from Northern 2 Bangladesh . The first phase Thailand and Central India to climate risks and climate change and build of CBA pilot projects (2012- their adaptive capacities. 2014) focused on sustainable agricultural practices and efficient water management Specific Objectives: with the ultimate objective of “increasing the resilience to 1. To support people and communities to move towards more climate- climate change of vulnerable resilient livelihoods and forward looking development planning. 2. To contribute to the integration of climate risks & climate change in and marginalized community policies & practices of the authorities and CSOs. groups, especially women and girls from ethnic minorities.”3 A second phase (2014 – 2016), and later a third phase (2017 – 2019), aimed to scale results, impacts and lessons learned to date for broader support for, and uptake of, CBA methods and approaches. Two separate, country-level evaluations were conducted for Phase II activities in 2017.4,5 1 Warner, K., Afifi, T., Henry, K., Rawe, T., Smith, C. and A. De Sherbinin. 2012. Where the Rain Falls: Climate Change, Food and Livelihood Security, and Migration: An 8-Country Study to Understand Rainfall, Food Security and Human Mobility. Global Policy Report. November 2012. 2 Funded independently from Thailand and India by a different donor. As such an 3 CARE. Where the Rain Falls 2014 – 2016 Results and Outcomes. 4 For Thailand, see: CCREST, 2017. Where the Rain Falls Thailand: Phase 3 Project Evaluation Report. Report prepared for CARE France, August 2017. 5 For India, see: Kantar Public, 2017. End-line Study of Where the Rain Falls (WtRF) Project of CARE India in Jashpur District of Chattisgarh. Draft Final Report prepared for CARE India, February 2017. 1 At the time the WtRF initiative was originally conceived, CARE was in the early stages of developing what have now become some of their showcase tools and frameworks around climate vulnerability, adaptive capacity, CBA and resilience. For example, CARE’s Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis (CVCA) Handbook was first published in 2009 6 . Included in this Handbook was the organizations’ first iterations of the CBA Framework – depicted first in table format as compared to the diagram it is recognized by today (Figure 1). Both tools were further refined FIGURE 1. CARE’S COMMUNITY-BASED ADAPTATION (CBA) and elaborated under CARE’s Adaptation FRAMEWORK Learning Program for Africa (ALP, 2010 – 2017), informing the development of new and supporting tools including participatory scenario planning (PSP) 7 and community adaptation action planning (CAAP)8. In part from the learnings afforded through ALP, CARE initiated its Climate Change and Resilience Platform (CCRP) in 2016 to coordinate the integration of climate change and resilience concepts across all of CARE’s cross-disciplinary work, an effort which has since produced further refined frameworks and tools including CARE’s theoretical framework for increasing resilience (Figure 2) and CARE’s internal self-assessment tool, the Resilience Marker. It is against this backdrop of internal innovation and progress that the WtRF initiative was simultaneously rolling FIGURE 2.