For universities to effectively deliver education and research for climate change adaptation, they must be responsive to the perceptions, knowledges, needs and priorities of local communities. This requires working with the most vulnerable communities to foster collaborative learning. The capacity to offer and engage in relevant education and research is, however, currently lacking. 

The aim of this project is therefore to build capacity of universities in the Global South for education and research around knowledge for locally-led adaptation. This is achieved through initiatives to:

• Revise existing courses and develop new courses and programmes;
• Recruit and educate students at the bachelor and masters level;
• Recruit and train PhD candidates;
• Support research on locally led adaptation principles and practices.

The project is designed to contribute to the goals of the Least Developed Countries Universities Consortium on Climate Change (LUCCC), including south-south collaboration working with the most vulnerable to foster collaborative learning and capacity-building.

This is a project under the Norad-funded NORHED II programme.

For universities in the world's least developed countries to have improved capacity to work towards climate change adaptation through education and research. 

Activities include research that focuses on vulnerable communities facing diverse climate risks and uncertainties. Bottom-up approaches to knowledge co-creation

Such research-based knowledge will feed into educational curricula development and capacity-building activities.

Capacity-building will be engaged at multiple levels through inter- and intra-country learning, involving students, researchers and educators, community groups, local governments, and policy makers.

NMBU participants

PhD Fellows

Fatuma Mutesi

Makere University, Uganda

Research topic: Collaborative learning for local adaptation to agricultural drought in Uganda.

Maria da Graca Benedito Jonas

Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique

Research topic: Lived experiences and indigenous knowledge driving climate change adaptation in Chokwe district, Mozambique.

Susan Wasswa Nanfuka

Makere University, Uganda

Research topic: Knowledge co-creation for adaptation to drought among agropastoral farming communities of Uganda's cattle corridor.

External partners

• University of Makerere, Uganda. David Mfitumukiza
• Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique. Luis Artur & Ernesto Uetimane Junior
• School of Environmental Science and Management, Pokhara University, Nepal. Ajay Mathema
• International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), in association with the Independent University of Bangladesh. Mizan khan & Fahad Hossain

• Adapting to climate change among transitioning Maasai pastoralists in southern Kenya: an intersectional analysis of differentiated abilities to benefit from diversification processes
  Marty, E., R. Bullock, M. Cashmore, T. Crane & S. Eriksen
  
  Article in Journal of Peasant Studies (2023)
• Locally led adaptation: Promise, pitfalls, and possibilities
  Rahman, M. F., D. Falzon, S. Robinson, L. Kuhl, R. Westob, J. Omukuti, E. Schipper, K. McNamara, B. Resurrección, D. Mfitumukiza, D. & M. Nadiruzzaman (2023)
  
  Article in Ambio (2023)
• Interplays between changing biophysical and social dynamics under climate change: Implications for limits to sustainable adaptation in food systems
  Bezner Kerr, R., L. O. Næss, B. Allen-O'Neil, E. Totin, H. Nyantakyi-Frimpong, C. Risvoll, M. G. Rivera Ferre, F. Lopez-i-Gelatz & S. Eriksen
  
  Article in Global Change Biology (2022)
• Is my vulnerability so different from yours? A call for compassionate climate change research.
  Eriksen, S. (2022)
  
  Article in Progress in Human Geography (2022)
• Transforming environmental governance: critical action intellectuals and their praxis in the field. Sustainability Science
  Ojha, H., A. Nightingale, N. Gonda, B. O. Muok, S. Eriksen, D. Khatri & D. Paudel
  
  Article in Sustainability Science (2022)

• Global Commission on Adaptation's principles for locally led adaptation

• IIED three part podcast series on locally led adaptation