Governance challenges in addressing climatic concerns in coastal Asia and Africa

Coastal people, especially those living within deltaic areas, encounter major climaticconcerns which affect their livelihoods. To cope with this problem, different types of plannedadaptation strategies have been implemented guided by laws, policies and programs. However, theseguiding documents sometimes fall short of addressing the needs of climate-affected people, especiallyin natural resource-dependent societies in Asia and Africa. Based on this premise, this paper soughtto evaluate the effectiveness of existing policy documents which affect the lives of people living in onelarge delta (Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna in Bangladesh), two medium-sized deltas (Indian Bengaldelta—part of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Mahanadi in India), and a small-sized delta(Volta in Ghana). The study followed a mixed methods research design, which included desktopanalyses of policies, laws and programs, a questionnaire survey conducted among individuals whoplayed various roles in the policy and legal development processes at national and local levels andfocus group discussions at the community level in the three countries. National laws, policies andprograms were assessed in the context of climate change adaptation through three lenses: humanrights, natural resource management and disaster response. Findings of this paper reveal that theexisting documents have some strengths to promote adaptation, although they have some majorlimitations that cause concerns among the delta communities