Climate Change Resilient Development: A Framework for Understanding and Addressing Climate Change

This report describes the Climate-resilient Development Framework, a “development-first” approach to climate change adaptation. The framework recommends practitioners use climate analyses to complement those normally undertaken in the course of development planning; this helps ensure that current and future climate variability does not hinder progress on existing development goals. The intended audience for this report includes development and adaptation practitioners; city planners; resource managers; and other decision-makers in national, regional, and local governments. Users can apply the climate-resilient development framework’s systematic, five-stage process to explicitly consider climate stressors as part of their development planning and decision-making processes. The framework complements and supplements the conventional development process, by assisting development practitioners in identifying, evaluating, selecting, implementing, and adjusting actions to reduce climate vulnerabilities and improve development outcomes.