A community member from El Fundo managing cocoa harvest. (Photo by IDDI, AF national implementing entity in the Dominican Republic)

Project Story: Adaptation Fund in the Dominican Republic

Vulnerable communities in the rural Province of San Cristóbal of the Dominican Republic have been facing intense climate impacts and rainfall variability in recent years that risk water and food resources, while also potentially disrupting people’s lives, health and livelihoods.

A climate change adaptation project implemented by the Dominican Institute of Integral Development (IDDI) and funded by the Adaptation Fund is empowering communities to change course. With direct community participation, the localized project is implementing transformative actions while building capacity and knowledge to foster resilience in the face of these climate challenges.

Given that the Dominican Republic is a vulnerable small island developing state(SIDS), the project aims to increase resilience capacity to flooding and drought impacts to the various river and water basins in the area by directly empowering local beneficiaries through their own participation in targeted adaptation measures. Through integrated water management approaches, the project is improving water supply and access, water storage and infrastructure, sanitation services and reforestation activities aligned with sustainable land use, as well as diversifying livelihoods of vulnerable communities while enhancing gender equality. It is also building institutional and local adaptation capacity along the way.

“With the support of the IDDI/Adaptation Fund project, I have managed to harvest a higher quality of cocoa and I sold it at a better price, which generated a good income for my family,” said a community member from the rural village of El Fundo in the San Cristóbal province of the Dominican Republic.

Read the full story here.