Adaptation finance is primarily allocated to multilateral entities and national governments, rather than local organizations. This means that the social, political and economic processes that create and sustain inequalities within a country will be the same processes that determine how adaptation finance is used. Using an urban lens, we consider the obstacles currently faced by local governments and local civil society groups in accessing adaptation finance, and show that these are a function of systemic power imbalances between levels of government, and between government and vulnerable communities. We argue that even relatively small amounts of adaptation finance could have a catalytic effect on the capacities and impacts of local organizations, contributing to greater levels of both distributive and procedural justice. We analyse different financial intermediaries and planning systems that could be used to make disbursements from multilateral climate funds fairer and more effective. This could potentially create political opportunities both to respond to direct climate threats and to address underlying drivers of vulnerability, such as marginalization and exclusion. In this way, channelling adaptation finance to the local level could deliver more just processes and outcomes.
Key policy insights
More multilateral climate funds should establish direct access modalities, and introduce ‘fit-for-purpose’ accreditation procedures and approval processes. Those that have already established such enabling frameworks should prioritize providing readiness support to local organizations, and incentivize state and citizen collaboration in adaptation projects.
National governments should consider clearly enshrining the rights and responsibilities of local authorities in National Adaptation Plans, and help them to collect the information, build the capacities and acquire the resources needed to plan and implement adaptation measures. National governments should further encourage local authorities to adopt participatory planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation procedures to encourage citizen participation.
Local civil society groups should identify or establish collective entities that can seek accreditation with multilateral funds and then disburse money to their members. Collaboration between groups can facilitate up-scaling through replication (particularly where peer-to-peer learning is embedded in the network) and reduce the transaction costs associated with myriad small projects.
Abstract A growing number of educators worldwide have become convinced that geotechnologies – including geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS), and remote sensing – are key technologies to prepare students to be tomorrow's decision makers. Grappling with local, regional, and global issues of the 21st century requires people who think spatially and who can use geotechnologies. Some educators teach geotechnologies as a discipline, emphasising skills. Other educators use geotechnologies as a tool to teach content, such as geography, history, environmental studies, Earth Science, biology, mathematics, economics and other disciplines. Issues such as traffic, population growth, urban sprawl, energy, water, crime, human health, biodiversity and sustainable agriculture are growing in complexity, exist at every scale and increasingly affect people's everyday lives. Each of these issues has a spatial component. Drivers for geotechnology education include educational content standards, constructivism, the school-to-career movement, active learning, citizenship education, authentic practice and assessment, interdisciplinary education, community connections and a sustained, increasing demand for GIS professionals. Digital Earth is an ideal framework for contextualising domains of inquiry. The Digital Earth community can have a significant impact on the growth of geotechnologies in education, and conversely, the growth of geotechnologies in education and society can foster the forward movement of Earth systems concepts. 相似文献
Two fundamental pillars of what it is to be a contemporary NGO and ‘do’ development work are being a part of and promoting civil society, and extending ‘good governance’. This article will provide insights into how supposedly universally applicable concepts and models for NGOs to ‘improve’ post-conflict ‘developing countries’ are incorporated into different social and cultural landscapes. Ethnographic fieldwork highlights some of the particularities of governance, as well as everyday challenges of doing NGO work in a remote province of north-eastern Cambodia. In the context of an authoritarian government, where kinship relations cross-cut all aspects of society, NGOs can be understood as embedded in neo-patrimonial networks rather than as a separate and autonomous realm of society as classic liberal theory understands ‘civil society’. Fear also plays a significant role in configuring peoples’ attitude towards authority and is rarely acknowledged in the project of ‘good governance’ which simplistically tends to see post-colonial governments situated on a linear trajectory which will eventually, with significant NGO interventions, reach advanced liberal democracy status. 相似文献
Geographers in the United States frequently express concern that their discipline's potential contributions to the understanding of contemporary society (including society–nature interrelations) and resolution of some of its major problems are underrecognized and undervalued. Understanding the Changing Planet (National Research Council 2010) is the latest in a series of reports addressed at policymakers, the scientific community, and its funders seeking to rectify that situation. It covers the geographical sciences more generally rather than geography specifically and pays particular attention to society–nature interrelations but does those disciplines something of a disservice with its greater emphasis on the infrastructure for data collection, visualization, and analysis at the expense of explanation and theory. It successfully promotes some aspects of the disciplines but largely ignores other vibrant and important parts. Its long-term impact is uncertain. 相似文献
Food security civil society organizations (FSCSOs) are key institutional players in the Global South, yet researchers have not adequately examined their size, scope, or location within urban areas. To fill this gap, this article analyzes Johannesburg's FSCSOs using quantitative survey data and spatial analysis. Data findings suggest that FSCSOs’ resources are unevenly distributed across Johannesburg, with larger, privately resourced FSCSOs located in white suburbs and smaller, unstable, turnover-prone FSCSOs located in black townships and informal settlements. Overall, these data suggest that the city's network of FSCSOs is spatially polarized and weakest in areas where food insecurity is the greatest. 相似文献
Book Reviewed in this article: Latin America: Case Studies. Richard G. Boehm and Sent Visser Locality and Rurality: Economy and Society in Rural Regions. Tony Bradley And Philip Lowe The City and the Grassroots. Manuel Castells Geopolitics and Conflict in South America. Quarrels among Neighbors. Jack Child Post-Industrial America: A Geographical Perspective. David Clark Coastal Research: UK Perspectives. Malcolm W. Clark A Rural Policy for the EEC? Hugh Clout Peasant Agriculture in Assam: A Structural Analysis. M. M. Das. Environmental Change and Tropical Geomorphology. I. Douglas and T. Spencer Advances in Abandoned Settlement Analysis: Application to Prehistoric Anthrosols in Colombia, South America. Robert C. Eidt Measuring Culture. Jonathan L. Gross and Steve Rayner North America: A Human Geography. Paul Guinness and Michael Bradshaw A Geographical Bibliography for American Libraries. Chauncy D. Harris et al. Geography and the Urban Environment: Progress in Research and Applications, Vol. VI. D. T. Herbert and R. J. Johnston Changes in Global Climate: A Study of the Effect of Radiation and Other Factors During the Present Century. K. Ya. Kondrat'ev. Rural Development and the State: Contradictions and Dilemmas in Developing Countries. David A. M. Lea and D. P. Chaudhri The Martial Metropolis: U.S. Cities in War and Peace. Roger W. Lotchin The Climate of the Earth. Paul E. Lydolph. Weather and Climate. Paul E. Lydolph. Spatial Divisions of Labor: Social Structures and the Geography of Production. Doreen Massey. Panorama of the Soviet Union. N. Mikhailov. Soviet Armenia. K. S. Demirchian. USSR: Geography of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period. K. Spidchenko. Planung und Verwirklichung der Wiener Ringstrassenzone (Planning and Materialization of the Ringstrasse-Zone of Vienna). Kurt Mollik, Hermann Reining, Rudolf Wurzer. The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War Gerald D. Nash. An Overview of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Dawn Nelson, David McMillen, and Daniel Kasprzyk. Phenomenology, Science and Geography: Spatiality and the Human Sciences. John Pickles. Biological Diversification in the Tropics. Ghillean T. Prance Die Wanderviehwirtschaft im gebirgigen Westen der U.S.A. und ihre Auswirkungen im Naturraum. Gisbert Rinschede. Social and Economic Aspects of Radioactive Waste Disposal: Considerations for Institutional ManagementWorld-Wide Weather. K. Takahashi Coastal Geomorphology in Australia. B. G. Thom Settlement System in Rural India: A Case Study of the Lower Ganga-Yamuna Doab. Ram Chandra Tiwari. Computer Programming for Geographers. David J. Unwin and John A. Dawson. Late Quaternary Environments of the Soviet Union. A. A. Velichko, ed. H. E. Wright, Jr. and C. W. Barnosky Ethics in Planning. Martin Wachs 相似文献