Abstract
The interconnectedness between climate change and development has generated an increasing interest amongst development organisations to integrate adaptation into government rural development plans in a way that effectively increases resilience at a local level. However, the nature of climate change resilience is widely debated in the literature, and there is a knowledge gap regarding the best way to address adaptation at the interface with development objectives as part of mainstreaming. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap via a case study of a community-based, Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) project in Vietnam. A case study approach was applied with fieldwork at one project site, complemented by semi-structured interviews with government stakeholders, key experts, and project leaders of related projects. The analysis identifies five key factors that enhance rural resilience in a smallholder agricultural context: (i) engaging local governments as partners, (ii) considering broader landscape issues such as markets, (iii) providing farmers with support to facilitate adoption of CSA practices, (iv) fostering community capacity building, and (v) promoting adaptive management and scenario planning to deal with uncertainty. The paper concludes that resilience is multidimensional and not solely in line with any one of the approaches dominant in the literature.
Highlights
Climate change will significantly impact rural communities in developing countries by threatening food security and agricultural incomes [1,2,3]
The aim of this paper is to determine key factors of adaptation mainstreaming that effectively lead to resilience building in rural communities
This paper evaluated four approaches to resilience prominent in the literature and assessed to what extent they are standalone or whether they complement each other
Summary
Climate change will significantly impact rural communities in developing countries by threatening food security and agricultural incomes [1,2,3]. Making up nearly half the world’s population and living in predominantly developing countries, low-income rural land users are widely considered to be disproportionately vulnerable to climate change and in need of strategies for adaptation [1,2,4,5]. In addition to their reliance on climate sensitive agriculture and natural resource-based livelihoods, rural communities are subject to multiple non-climate stressors related to underdevelopment, such as limited access to information and resources, reduced capacity and support for decision making, limited access to services and investment, and social and political marginalisation [1,2,6]. In theory, mainstreaming should generate rural development policies and implementation plans in which the consequences of climate change are anticipated, and adjustments to existing plans that do not explicitly consider climate risks can be made [11]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
