Good Practices for Designing Effective, Inclusive, and Sustainable Nature-Based Solutions for Adaptation

The twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss negatively impact communities and ecosystems worldwide. As the role of nature and healthy ecosystems in providing critical adaptation benefits is increasingly recognized, a subset of nature-based solutions (NbS) projects that focus on climate change adaptation have started to gain traction among communities, environmental organizations, and national and subnational governments across the globe. With increased recognition and financing for NbS for adaptation, it is essential to understand how to design effective, inclusive, and sustainable projects for target communities and ecosystems.

This checklist for practitioners synthesizes multiple internationally recognized principles, criteria, and standards for NbS for adaptation and provides an easy-to-use assessment framework to help determine the extent to which projects meet those benchmarks. It also helps practitioners and policy-makers design, evaluate, and implement adaptive management of NbS for adaptation projects and assists them in assessing whether their project follows good practices for gender-responsive, socially inclusive, and conflict-sensitive approaches to NbS for adaptation interventions.

This technical brief is a knowledge product of the Climate Adaptation and Protected Areas (CAPA) Initiative.