Climate Risk Management in Finnish Development Cooperation - Gaia

As there is a need to ensure that all relevant development cooperation activities are climate proofed,
it is also important to highlight that many of the on-going cooperation efforts covering e.g the
management of water resources, land use management, institutional strengthening, are already
contributing to strengthened climate adaptive capacity, as they improve local livelihoods and make
them less vulnerable current climate variability. In many cases successful adaptation does not
necessarily require totally new strategies and technologies developed specifically for adaptation.
However, climate mainstreaming will require policy leadership and a climate sensitive planning
approach & framework, which explicitly takes into account rising risks of climate variability and
change and their implications for development projects and investment decisions. 47 The climate
sensitive planning approach also provides the basis to identify synergies between key development
policy areas, including poverty reduction, food security, disaster prevention and management,
climate adaptation and mitigation etc.
47 As noted in footnote 6, climatic shocks can pose a direct threat to investments from effects on infrastructure, indirect
effects through diminished performance, and outright inappropriateness of investments in the face of climatic trends.
Burton, I. and M. van Aalst (2004).
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