Save the Children: Climate resilience through adaptation, risk reduction and social protection

Mozambique faces severe climate change risks, including floods, droughts and cyclones. According to German Watch’s Global Climate Risk Index, the country was the world’s most affected by extreme weather events in 2019, and the fifth-most affected by climate change from 2000 to 2019.

As most Mozambicans rely on subsistence agriculture, climate shocks have a devastating social impact on their communities. People living in the provinces of Mozambique are especially prone to food insecurity due to droughts.

In international comparisons, Mozambique ranks low in readiness to manage climate impacts. The effectiveness of local adaptation plans and social protection schemes is hindered by insufficient integration into local planning, institutional coordination and resources, and access to drought-resilient technologies, climate information and credit for small-scale farmers is severely limited.

Gender and social barriers also keep women and young people – groups especially likely to suffer the consequences of climate risk – from participating in decision-making.

In this project funded by the Green Climate Fund and complemented by an associated grant from the Swiss Re Foundation, Save the Children takes a holistic approach to scaling up climate adaptation efforts in Mozambique that combines climate adaptation policies, social protection schemes, disaster risk reduction, improved early warning systems and climate-resilient livelihood opportunities.

The project – known as LINK – will empower vulnerable rural communities to develop resilient actions and access adaptive social protection services by, for example, strengthening the technical, institutional and organisational capacities of local organisations and community members, including women’s and children’s groups; mainstreaming drought-focused climate adaptation actions into district development planning and budgeting; and fostering policy dialogue as well as the dissemination of information and learnings.

By strengthening the capacity for locally led adaptation measures and integrating these measures into existing social protection schemes, the project will make local communities more resilient to climate shocks and prevent further poverty among marginalised families, reducing their dependence on protection schemes and addressing the root causes of their vulnerabilities.

The LINK project will support local governments in enhancing climate resilience for vulnerable groups in nine districts of Gaza, Manica and Tete provinces, integrating local adaptation policies and protection programmes to improve food and water security, health and well-being. According to five-year projections by Save the Children, LINK will directly benefit 414 857 individuals and indirectly benefit another 559 863.

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