Optimal design for participatory, donor-supported climate adaptation: Experimental evidence from Kenya

• In Event: Clean Energy Transitions in Developing and Rural Contexts

Abstract

Governments and donors often prioritize the participation of local people in the design and implementation of sustainable development projects. In practice, however, participation is often disproportionately skewed toward relatively wealthy community members, members of historically dominant groups, and men. This inequality is a threat to the effectiveness of sustainable development projects because it can make local developmental and environmental priorities less responsive to the needs of marginalized community members. We examine this problem in the arid regions of rural Kenya, where two leading international NGOs have piloted a community-based initiative to promote local climate change adaptation. To identify reforms to the initiative that could deepen and broaden participation, we fielded a survey experiment with rural residents in the intervention target area (N = 1,900), presenting respondents with hypothetical future versions of the initiative. We randomly assigned key design features of the initiative, including: community capacity-building elements, adjustments to the temporal demands of participation, gender-informed scheduling, separate discussions among historically excluded groups, targeted recruitment, local leader involvement, diverse facilitators, and compensation. This study was the result of a transdisciplinary collaboration between the two international NGOs, their in-country partner organizations, and university researchers. Data collection is complete, though analysis and interpretation are ongoing.By estimating the effects of the design features on respondents’ willingness to participate, this analysis compares the effectiveness of different engagement strategies while also exploring potential trade-offs across four competing visions of what ‘optimal’ participation looks like—(1) maximizing the total number of participants, (2) fostering the inclusion of key groups like women and youth, and (3) prioritizing participation among local people with previous leadership experience. The results provide fine-grained, actionable evidence related to local stakeholders’ preferences for different participatory designs. At the same time, stated-preference experiments cannot fully capture real-world constraints on participation, highlighting the limits of survey data. The work suggests that donor-supported collective action can be improved through research efforts that collect credible data on local participant preferences.

Author

• Nathan J Cook, Indiana University
  Presenting Author