UNESCO method of analysing climate risk gets ‘flagship initiative’ status

The Decision and its benefits

In 2018,UNESCO developed a way of analysing how future climate change would affect water security and the wider environment at a given location, depending on which scenario for climate change ultimately played out. UNESCO called its methodology the Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA). CRIDA has since been implemented in more than 20 countries. On 7 June, the 36 member states of UNESCO's Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme endorsed a draft resolution proposing that CRIDA be elevated to the status of Flagship Initiative, at the 26^th meeting of the programme's Intergovernmental Council at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

As a Flagship Initiative, CRIDA will receive increased visibility, resources and support, enabling it to expand its reach and deepen its impact. This will allow more countries to benefit from its methodology, leading to improved water security and environmental sustainability in the face of climate change.

The resolution was submitted by the United States of America and supported by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Sudan and Uganda. Other member states endorsed the resolution, considering that CRIDA would enable countries to design a climate adaptation strategy based on scientific evidence, at a time when climate change poses a growing threat to their water resources.

Member States observed that CRIDA had already been recognized by a range of 'international frameworks', including the World Bank's Resilience Rating System: a Methodology for Building and Tracking Resilience to Climate Change(2021), the Green Climate Fund, Water Project Design Guidelines(2023) and the alignment between CRIDA and the Action on Water Adaptation and Resilience (AWARe) initiative, which aims to enhance interlinkages between water and climate action.

CRIDA: a five step process

Through a five-step process, CRIDA adopts a participatory, bottom-up approach to identify climate risks and develop long-term climate adaptation pathways in water resource management. Since it is a bottom-up approach, local communities, such as indigenous populations, NGOs and so on, were involved from the outset in this risk analysis.

This approach has provided a more informed starting point for evaluating different options and designing more robust pathways for adaptation that are in tune with local needs, such as drainage ditches to channel excess water and check dams to slow water flow. The risk analysis has then been combined with the information provided by scientific modelling to identify where to adjust the analysis.

For instance, in Zimbabwe, UNESCO employed CRIDAto address climate and water-related risks and vulnerabilities in local communities and their livelihoods in the Chimanimani and Chipinge Districts. Water and environmental vulnerability were assessed through CRIDA in the medium-to-long term.

Stakeholders were actively involved in the assessment, notably through workshops in which they defined key issues and concerns.

A climate stress test was conducted to evaluate the expected impact of climate change on water resources. This helped to identify priority areas for adaptation, resulting in the development of an Adaptation Pathway for the district.

The key advantage of CRIDA is that it gives communities insights into what the future holds for them. This enables them to design strategies for adaptation to climate change that not only reduce their exposure to climate risk but also integrate sustainable pathways for their future socio-economic development.

CRIDA case study countries

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