Innovation for Building Climate Resilience in Asia

South Asia and South East Asia are among the most vulnerable regions to climate shocks. The region is living through a “new climate normal” in which intensifying heat waves, cyclones, droughts, and floods are testing the adaptation limits of government, businesses, and citizens. The changing climate could sharply diminish living conditions for up to 800 million people in a region that already has some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations1. According to Germanwatch, countries like Myanmar, Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, and Nepal are among the top 10 most affected countries from 1999 to 2019 and have very high Climate Risk Index (CRI) of 10.00, 13.67, 18.71, 28.33, 29.00, 29.83, and 31.33 respectively2. Despite huge investments and efforts from national, regional, and international organizations, there persists a huge uncertainty on the resilience outcomes. Studies suggest that innovation initiatives at the grassroots level bring about a higher impact in building climate resilience3. But such innovation initiatives need regular funding, capacity development, technical backstopping, and monitoring. Furthermore, it is also evident that there are a lot of innovative initiatives at the local level, but most of the innovations are never scaled up and effectively utilized by the national or local government.

The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) has been at the forefront of facilitating and fostering local-level climate innovations in the region. With financial support from the World Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Kingdom – Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (UK FCDO), and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, ADPC has successfully organized, facilitated, and implemented six ground-level innovation initiatives fostering about 56 innovations. The following six innovation initiatives covered 11 countries namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Maldives, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam over different periods and have directly or indirectly benefitted over a million citizens:

1. SERVIR Small Grants Program (2017)
2. TechEmerge Resilience India Challenge (2020-2022)
3. APP Social Innovation Challenge (2021-2023)
4. Climate Innovation Challenge (2021-2023)
5. SARTHI Initiative (2022)
6. iCARE Innovation Fund (2023-2025)

Innovation initiatives were initiated to foster climate resilience and adaptation solutions by facilitating transformative, affordable, and accessible climate solutions. Some of the major anticipated outcomes from such initiatives were to:

• Build partnerships among and across stakeholders united by a common vision focusing on resolving climate challenges.
• Create complementarity among different streams to find innovative solutions that are apt, low-cost, sustainable, and scalable.
• Build a network platform to leverage resources and sustainably engage with the community.
• Interactive knowledge sharing and information dissemination through knowledge exchange platforms like the South Asia Region Climate Knowledge Hub (SAR-Climate)

Currently, as a part of the World Bank funded Climate Adaptation and Resilience for South Asia (CARE) project, ADPC is facilitating and implementing the iCARE Innovation Fund. iCARE innovation fund aims at achieving the above-mentioned outcome by focusing on six thematic areas, namely, Climate Information and Analytics, Early Warning Systems for All, Climate Smart Agriculture, Integrated Water Resources Management, Resilient Infrastructure, and Effective Investment in Climate Adaptation. Through a rigorous selection process of about 150 applications, the following 16 innovations were selected and are under implementation. As of October 2024, these innovations are benefiting more than 65,000 citizens and 20 governments in the region. Details on the current and past innovations can be accessed here at https://www.adpc.net/icare/.

• World Bank Group. (2023). Climate and Development in South Asia. In World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/sar/brief/integrating-climate-and-development-in-south-asia/integrating-climate-and-development-in-south-asia-region#:~:text=South%20Asia%20is%20one%20of,businesses%2C%20and%20citizens%20to%20adapt
• (n.d.). Global Climate Risk Index 2021. In Germanwatch. https://www.germanwatch.org/sites/default/files/Global%20Climate%20Risk%20Index%202021_2.pdf
• Mfalila, K., Firmian, I., & International Fund for Agricultural Development. (2021). Building climate resilience in Asia and the Pacific region. In Building Climate Resilience in Asia and the Pacific Region [Technical paper].