CBA is a very recent development but a number of early lessons have already been learned from the limited set of CBA activities done around the world so far. They include:

1. To do any good, outsiders must first gain the trust of the communities they want to help. Normally this would mean spending a long time with the community. But if trusted local intermediaries (e.g. NGOs, community groups or government bodies) are available, it is best to start dialogue with them before moving to the communities themselves.
2. Climate change is an esoteric and initially confusing concept to many. Communication about it must use a community’s own language and terms they can understand. This means not only translating scientific texts into local languages but also giving up on the written word altogether and using traditional means of communication such as art and theatre, or modern methods such as video.
3. When the cooperation of the local intermediary and the community has been obtained, the process of identifying what adaptations are appropriate can start. This requires initial learning about the community’s indigenous capacities, knowledge and practices of how to cope with climate hazards in the past. New activities, technologies or practices can then be introduced.
4. Once set up, an adaptation project looks much like any standard development project (e.g. for water harvesting in drought conditions) rather than a stand-alone response to climate change. The difference lies not in what the intervention is but in the inputs to the intervention. It is not what the community is doing but why and with what knowledge. The adaptation element introduces the community to the notion of climate risk and then factors that into their activities. This makes them more resilient both to immediate climate variability and long-term climate change. It should be noted though that the few existing CBA projects are so new that they have hardly been tested for resilience to climate variability let alone to climate change.
5. One important feature of the lessons from CBA so far is that learning itself requires practice. It is not possible to learn the theory of CBA in a university or training workshop and then apply it in the field – the learning comes from the practice itself. Adaptation is a classic case of learning-by-doing or ‘action-research’.
6. The theory and practice of CBA are in their infancy but both are likely to grow very rapidly. It is important now to allow as many pilot activities to be carried out as possible and to share the experience and knowledge gained from them. This is a major challenge of networking in real time between practitioners, policymakers, researchers and funders – and the communities at risk.

(Source: Saleemul Huq and Hannah Reid, IIED, 2007)

LEAD is currently running a CBA project is Western and Southern Africa. You can find more information here: http://ccca.lead.org/