Promoting social adaptation to climate change and variability through knowledge, experiential and co-learning networks in Bolivia

This paper summarises different aspects of country development that might be critical in the context of developing a strategy for climate change adaptation. Productive ecosystems will quickly be impacted by climate change and variability, not only due to the direct impacts related with temperature increase and precipitation pattern changes, but also because current productive practices will have to adapt to new environmental conditions within a very small period of time.This paper examines how countries must go about determining a strategy for adaptability. It examines the case of Bolivia, particularly, because 12 years ago, Bolivia began a process of decentralisation "Participación Popular", which will ideally enhance the capacity of the country to respond to climate change.The paper is divided into 3 sections, plus introduction, exploring:the strategic challenges for the Bolivian developmentis "Popular Participation" a virtual strength for climate adaptation and development in Bolivia?knowledge, experiential and co-learning networks, towards a strategy for climate change adaptation.The authors conclude that, in the case of Bolivia, institutional reforms in the context of a local empowerment have to be connected with innovative mechanisms to enhance market accessibility and competitiveness and improve financial and insurance mechanisms at local level. Communities need to take advantage of the ongoing transition towards a "knowledge society", in order to share information and knowledge to to accelerate the needed transformation for social adaptation and resilience to global environmental and socioeconomic changes.