Enhancing Community-Based Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in the Greater Mekong Subregion

This consultation draft report by the Stockholm Environment Institute examines the state of Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) and Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction (CBDRR) in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). It identifies a gap between national-level policy frameworks and local-level implementation, noting that siloed institutional approaches and a lack of standardized tools hinder effective risk reduction. The document advocates for the institutionalization of bottom-up approaches, decentralized climate finance, and the integration of DRR and CCA to better support vulnerable populations, including women, ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities.

• The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) possesses foundational laws and policies for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA), but these are often siloed and fail to translate to the local level. While national development plans and DRM policies exist in each country, there is a lack of clear evidence connecting this progress to improved community outcomes.
• A primary challenge for CBA and CBDRR in the GMS is the absence of consistent standards, guidelines, and tools, which leads to confusion and reduced effectiveness when different providers use varying approaches.
• Climate and disaster finance in the GMS is inadequate and often inaccessible to local actors. Funding is frequently characterized by a bias toward emergency response over risk reduction, and multilateral funds often require onerous accreditation that excludes small community organizations.
• Vulnerable groups, including women, children, people with disabilities, and ethnic minorities, bear a disproportionate share of climate and disaster impacts. Ethnic minorities are particularly at risk as they often live in fragile ecosystems threatened by cyclones, flash floods, and sea-level rise.
• There is significant potential to scale up effective risk reduction by institutionalizing successful national programs, such as China's "National Demonstration Communities on DRR Project" and Vietnam's "Program for community awareness raising and community based natural disaster risk reduction".
• Information accessibility is a major barrier; critical climate data and risk assessments are often communicated in formats that are difficult for community members to interpret, hindering their participation in policy-shaping forums.
• The report suggests implementing budget management mechanisms like Climate Change Expenditure Tagging (CCET) to track climate-related spending and ensure a dedicated percentage of annual development budgets is allocated to CBA and CBDRR.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (n.d.). Enhancing Community-Based Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in the Greater Mekong Subregion. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/attachment-2-3-ccesp-policy-study-enhancing-community-based-adaptation-and-drr-in-the-gms.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Enhancing Community-Based Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in the Greater Mekong Subregion. n.d. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/attachment-2-3-ccesp-policy-study-enhancing-community-based-adaptation-and-drr-in-the-gms.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Enhancing Community-Based Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in the Greater Mekong Subregion |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/attachment-2-3-ccesp-policy-study-enhancing-community-based-adaptation-and-drr-in-the-gms.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitutendenhancing, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Enhancing Community-Based Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in the Greater Mekong Subregion}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/attachment-2-3-ccesp-policy-study-enhancing-community-based-adaptation-and-drr-in-the-gms.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }