Participatory Social Return on Investment (PSROI): Greater Mekong Basin Climate Change Adaptation Planning and Costing Project

Adaptation challenge

• Using participatory methods to assess community adaptation priorities incorporates site-specific and locally relevant criteria—in addition to stakeholder ownership—into adaptation planning processes.

• Incorporating local perceptions of inputs, outcomes and associated costs and benefits of adaptation actions is helpful in establishing cost effectiveness and impact with regard to local contexts and improving uptake of interventions.

• Community input on costs and benefits is most useful when the intervention a) builds directly on local experience or expertise, b) is uncommon at the national or regional level or confined to a limited geographic area, and/or c) is poorly studied or documented, limiting national access to local-level data.

Expected outputs

The Participatory Social Return on Investment (PSROI) framework assists in the identification of priorities and the analysis of the value of adaptation actions that build community resilience from stakeholders’ perspectives. It uses participatory techniques and builds on existing local capacity to pinpoint appropriate adaptation options given the unique context of the community, and then analyzes the costs and benefits of actions from economic, social, and environmental perspectives. PSROI can be an effective method for incorporating community-based information into adaptation planning at regional and national levels.

Timescale of project

2012-2013

Scope

Vietnam

Focal point

Ms. Caitlin Corner-Dolloff
Researcher
International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) 
Email: [email protected]

Partners

Caitlin Corner-Dolloff

International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)