This report is an exploratory study on scaling up and scaling out the GEF SGP community-based adaptation (CBA) project, implemented by UNDP. Using Namibia in sub-Saharan Africa as a case study, this report identifies which processes used and results obtained are effective, and therefore hold the most potential for going-so-scale both in terms of scaling up (influencing higher level policy and in-country decision-making by mainstreaming community level planning and adaptation practice to climate change into national planning and programming systems) and scaling out (thehorizontal expansion and replication of successful CBA within countries and between communities from local to national scale, as well as across national boundaries). A comprehensive roadmap for scaling up and out successful CBA project practices is included.

Fieldwork results show that the UNDP/GEF SGP CBA project, implemented by local SGP grantee partner Creative Entrepreneurs Solutions (CES) in north-central Namibia, is effective – both through the processes used and the results obtained. It has strategically sown the seeds that focus on building “transformed resilience” at localised level across three key spectrums of scale to which scaling up and out are integral:

geographic scale: resilience is achieved beyond isolated CBA projects. CBA is mainstreamed into long-term institutional structures, and activities are replicated beyond immediate project boundaries
time scale: resilience is sustainable, with climate vulnerable poor communities continuing to maintain and build resilience after project activities have finished
beyond business as usual approaches: resilience-building challenges existing development and disaster risk reduction (DRR) approaches, and re-targets efforts towards building the adaptive capacity of the climate vulnerable poor to long-term uncertain climate and other risks, not just current risks