Presentation
Adaptation must be considered as the result of choices that need to be made explicit, and thus be the subject of a societal debate based on knowledge and science about current and future risks. Governance, i.e. the way in which public decision-making is organized to make these choices and implement the related changes, must also be made explicit. In this context, and based on a review of the existing literature on the subject, this Issue Brief proposes an analytical framework for categorizing the different dimensions and questions in order to make the governance of adaptation explicit.
Key Messages
- Planning adaptation requires incorporating adaptation measures into coherent pathways, dependent on choices that must be made about the future (of a territory or sector, for example) and the transformations agreed upon to meet various objectives (such as risk reduction and preventing maladaptation, social and spatial justice, as well as justice across time periods,, and the legitimacy and acceptability of adaptation pathways and choices).
- This Issue Brief provides a framework for objectively assessing the organization of public decision-making and its effects in three dimensions: 1) the framing of adaptation issues through the definition of the challenge and relevant knowledge, the scope of governance and the objectives; 2) the actors involved in adaptation governance; and 3) the tools and instruments used.
- SIts application to real-life cases could also shed light on the trade-offs made in practice in order to understand their effects, and pave the way for identifying the conditions for success, levers and also obstacles to adaptation strategies that lie within the governance framework associated to these adaptation strategies.
