Managing Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Latin America and the Caribbean: Institutions, Challenges, and Opportunities

Abstract

Managing climate change and disaster risk reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a work in progress. Diverse institutional efforts have produced different kinds of local and national responses to climate change and disaster impacts over the past three decades. Although several institutional systems were put in place to deal with climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in the region over time, they remain split and embedded in two separate domains: the climate change adaptation (CCA) community and the disaster risk reduction (DRR) community. There are more than 30 climate change and disaster risk national system frameworks within the region, more than a dozen of prevention disaster risk management institutions, several regional cooperation mechanisms, and the military and several NGOs who contribute to the management of CCA and DRR. Even though some recent examples in resilient practices within cities may point to the right direction, the need of integrated and comprehensive approaches to deal with the DRR-CCA nexus is strongly required in the region. The chapter argues that governments of the LAC region have to acknowledge the need to seek an integral vision of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation with a special orientation to climate change management and institutional interplay. Through vulnerability reduction, capacity creation, improved information access, and institutional strengthening among others, together with a better response to preparedness and emergencies, the region can better deal with disasters and climate change impacts.