Participatory learning to boost community resilience and increase adaptive capacity of small rural villages

Introduction

The historic drought of 2022 and other climate impacts like the change in rainfall patterns and extreme temperatures in Hungary and Europe, together with the recent economic crisis with rising food and energy prices, dramatically highlight the vulnerability of small rural settlements.

Vulnerability Factors

Their vulnerability is further exacerbated by:

• Greater dependence on agriculture and natural resources
• Lack of sufficient resources
• Neglect by policy-makers

While their climate adaptation efforts are clearly induced by climate change, the need for better adaptation also derives from their loss of resilience factors, such as the so-called traditional knowledge and networks of mutual support, making the population more vulnerable to climate change impacts.

Demographic Changes

Parallelly, the ageing local population having traditional knowledge is often being complemented by newcomer settlers, who are open to ecological ways of living, yet have less knowledge about natural resources.

Project Goals

LIFE Co-Clima partners, having understood these factors, decided to demonstrate a sustainable and resource-effective model to increase the adaptive capacity of small rural villages to climate change by boosting community resilience in a just and fair way. This will be achieved through:

1. Improving the population’s knowledge
2. Incentivising more autonomous livelihood strategies
3. Enhancing networks of mutual support
4. Reframing indigenous knowledge to reduce vulnerability and strengthen self-sustainability, especially in the field of food security

Expected Outcomes

The model developed to help small rural settlements in their climate adaptation efforts will:

• Promote community resilience
• Raise climate awareness
• Improve the self-sufficiency of residents in food security
• Strengthen their livelihood strategies and long-term health

By developing a widely adoptable model, LIFE Co-Clima also aims to raise awareness of the need to take into account the aspects of small rural settlements in the shaping of climate adaptation policies and the development of adaptation tools.