Driving, connecting and communicating: The many roles of national government in climate adaptation planning

The document argues that while community-level action is important, national governments are essential for providing strategic oversight, accessing finance, and creating the enabling environment for large-scale climate adaptation in the Caribbean. It highlights the need to integrate climate considerations into sectoral policies and plans, as evidenced by a case study in Belize where a lack of sectoral integration hindered tourism resilience. The brief promotes the use of the CCORAL tool for policy screening and the ARIA toolkit for assessing institutional adaptive capacity, noting that assessments in Trinidad and Tobago and Saint Lucia revealed gaps in vulnerability assessments and cross-sectoral coordination. Furthermore, it emphasizes the role of government as a 'bridge' to translate national priorities into local action through networked governance and public-private partnerships, citing the Sandals Whitehouse Special Fishery Conservation Area in Jamaica as a successful example of co-management.

• National governments are essential for driving climate adaptation because they stimulate and direct finance, provide strategic oversight, fund ambitious regional research projects, create regulatory certainty for investors, ensure fair governance, and possess the authority to coordinate diverse stakeholders.
• Effective climate resilience requires integrating climate considerations directly into sectoral policies and legal documents; framework documents at the national level are insufficient if sectoral plans (such as tourism plans) do not include climate change, as this reduces incentives for stakeholders to act.
• The CCORAL web-based tool and its associated water sector sourcebook help Caribbean decision-makers screen policies, budgets, and projects to identify climate risks and implement a four-stage process: understanding the problem, appraising options, delivering solutions, and monitoring processes.
• Institutional assessments using the ARIA toolkit in Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago identified critical gaps in adaptation readiness, specifically regarding inadequate vulnerability assessments, insufficient funding, poor data management, limited cross-sectoral coordination, and a lack of civil society engagement in decision-making.
• Successful adaptive governance, as seen in the Soufriere Marine Management Area in Saint Lucia, relies on collaborative decision-making with diverse stakeholders, institutional variety, and the use of 'bridging organisations' (often government bodies) to mediate between different sectors and scales.
• National governments can translate policy into local action by acting as information bridges, empowering community-based organisations, and fostering networked governance. In Jamaica, this has included using participatory approaches and public-private partnerships, such as the co-management arrangement between the Division of Fisheries and the Sandals Foundation for the Sandals Whitehouse Special Fishery Conservation Area.

APA

Bugler, W., & Palin, O. (2017). Driving, connecting and communicating: The many roles of national government in climate adaptation planning. Climate and Development Knowledge Network. https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/Caribbean_PB_updated_03-05-17_WEB.pdf

Chicago

Bugler, Will, and Olivia Palin. Driving, connecting and communicating: The many roles of national government in climate adaptation planning. Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2017. https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/Caribbean_PB_updated_03-05-17_WEB.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Bugler |first1=Will |last2=Palin |first2=Olivia |title=Driving, connecting and communicating: The many roles of national government in climate adaptation planning |publisher=Climate and Development Knowledge Network |date=February 2017 |url=https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/Caribbean_PB_updated_03-05-17_WEB.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{bugler2017driving, author = {Bugler, Will and Palin, Olivia}, title = {{Driving, connecting and communicating: The many roles of national government in climate adaptation planning}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, year = {2017}, month = feb, url = {https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/Caribbean_PB_updated_03-05-17_WEB.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }