Introduction: Mainstreaming community-based adaptation into national and local planning

Community-based adaptation (CBA) to climate change can be defined as ‘a community-led process, based on communities’ priorities, needs, knowledge, and capacities, which should empower people to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change’ (Reid, Cannon, Berger, Alam, & Milligan, 2009). Early CBA initiatives were generally implemented by non-government organizations, and operated primarily at the local level. Emphasis was placed on applying ‘bottom-up’ participatory processes to identify the climate change problem and appropriate local responses to this problem (Ayers & Forsyth, 2009).