1. Adaptation to climate Change
The experience of Practical Action
Mohamed M. Fidiel
April 2010

2. Practical Action Vision
Practical Action's Vision is of a sustainable world
free of poverty and injustice in which technology is
used for the benefit of all.
Practical Action Mission
“To use technology to challenge poverty by:
• building the capabilities of poor people,
• improving their access to technical options and
knowledge, and
• working with them to influence social, economic and
institutional systems for innovation and the use of
technology”.

3. Strategic fit
• Practical Action operates under four strategic
objectives:
– Vulnerability reduction :
• Coping with the risk if natural and complex hazards,
including climate change
• Natural Resource Management
• Food security
– Markets and livelihoods
• Actors, access, diversification of products/services,
– Infrastructure services
• WATSAN, energy, shelter, transport - livelihoods
– New Technologies

4. What do we mean by adaptation?
• Adaptation is action taken to cope with a
changing climate.
• It include strategies and practical steps
taken at community level or by individuals
• Practical Action’s adaptation efforts involve:
– Indigenous knowledge and practices
– People’s own coping strategies
– Technologies and skills transferred and adapted

5. A glance at the context in Sudan?
Mekheit – Famine food
– Drought is responsible for the
decrease of land productivity
– Intensive agriculture, mainly
millet cultivation
– Land use methods incompatible
with the given natural conditions
are the major causes of
destruction of agricultural
resources in the Sahel.
Sandstorm in Khartoum 2007

6. A glance at the context in Sudan?
– Overstocking of pastures,
regardless of their actual
carrying capacity
– Permanent grazing in areas
only suitable for seasonal use
hinder the natural
rehabilitation of grasses and
shrubs.
– The extension of rain-fed
farming far beyond the
agronomic dry boundary is one
of the most important causes
of desertification in the
Sahelian zone of Sudan.
– Excessive felling of trees for
buildings and fuel wood.

7. A glance at the context in Sudan?
– During the drought years
1969 – 1973, 60% of the
Zaghawa settlements (475 of
804) were deserted (RIFAI &
AHMED 1974)
– 60% of the people moved to
live in other parts of Darfur
and in urban towns in central
Sudan (Khartoum)
– The line of isohyets 200mm
moved southward between
1950- 1973

8. Practical Action Climate Change Programme
• Run a programme of work that helps poor people to
adapt and which helps us develop models of
excellence in adaptation.
• Use our experience and knowledge to promote best
practice seeking to influence other development
practitioners, donors and decision-makers to ensure
that all development work is „climate proofed‟.
• Persuade decision makers and donors to urgently
adopt more ambitious targets for mitigation and give
more support to help poor women and men to adapt.
• Reduce the carbon footprint of our own organization
and its work.

9. Practical Action Climate Change Programme
1. Enhance our knowledge and understanding of the
actual and likely effects of climate change upon the
people we are working with, the impact upon their
lives and livelihoods
2. Understanding of what our programme will contribute
to enabling people to adapt to climate change
3. What our work will do to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions
4. Identifying which issues Practical Action will engage
on nationally and what will be contributed to the
organisation‟s global policy agenda

10. Some Adaptation interventions

11. Terraces
– To retain as much of the rain that does fall in the
target area or upstream
– Communities are trained to decide on slopes and
construct the terraces
– It generates helps farmers grow crops even if rains
fall away from farm areas but drained by wadis
from upstream
– It continue producing diversified crops for 6 months
after the rainy season

12. Dams
1. It helps spread water in a wide area to be
cultivated recession farming after the rainy
season
2. It enhances sub-surface aquifer for domestic
water supply
3. It enhances the vegetation cover
4. Food from edible crops grown, income from
selling cash crops, subsurface water, jobs as
casual workers; fodder from wild weeds, etc
5. Built 5 dams (approximately 10,000 feddans
flooded

13. Dams
Technically:
1. In addition to spillways,
building sluice gates to
allow for washing the silt
that deposit upstream.
2. Dig a trench below the
earth embankment to
minimize possibilities of
washing the embankment
3. Pitching of the
embankment to protect it
from washing.

14. Enhancing the vegetation cover
• Established 6 community
nurseries with a capacity of 80,000
seedlings
• Rehabilitated El Fashir central
nursery
• Trained communities in managing
the nurseries
• Grown over 800,000 seedlings
with focus on endangered the
Baobab tree