Small wins through adaptation governance: Vulnerability, producer organizations, and climate-smart interventions

Abstract

A proactive approach to adaptation has emerged as a key interface between policy and community in tackling localized climate change challenges in the Global South. The framework addresses the shortcomings of the reactive approach of limited action and underpins the agency's role in adapting to place-based climate-hazard-induced vulnerability. However, the role of agencies and their governance capabilities in generating adaptation outcomes, influenced by actor power dynamics, remains unclear and underexplored in climate action literature. To bridge the gap, we ask two research questions: (1) how can agency-led adaptation governance demonstrate small-scale yet impactful outcomes in climate-vulnerable settings? (2) How can adaptation outcomes be accumulated to bring about systemic change in climate (action) policy? We draw on Termeer and Metze's (2019) Small Wins Governance framework to develop a contingency framework for agency-led adaptation governance. We employ a mixed-methods approach to operationalize the framework. The findings show that farmer-producer organizations, acting as agents for their members, collectively implement climate-smart interventions to achieve small wins in India's Himalayan region, namely increased farmer incomes and crop productivity, and farming system resilience. The propelling mechanisms signal the capacity of small wins to drive systemic change in farm-level adaptation. However, we have yet to observe this at the landscape level due to political tensions, a lack of adaptation funds, and limited climate risk mitigation and infrastructure. The study offers actionable insights into climate (action) policy by explicating climate hazards-induced vulnerability, and the role of agencies and their governance capabilities in locally led adaptation.