This ACCRA brief summarises research conducted by the Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance (ACCRA) in three sites in Ethiopia in 2010-11. This brief highlights how existing development interventions in disaster risk management, social protection and sustainable livelihoods already contribute to local adaptive capacity and how their contribution could be improved. Based on these research findings, the brief highlights priority recommendations for action, including:

• Local government’s role in supporting the protection of key assets and strengthening livelihoods is critical and needs strengthening.
• Government and NGOs should tackle the institutional barriers that prevent women and marginalised people from accessing resources.
• Government, development partners and communities need to make better decisions by using lessons learned, weather, early warning and climate change information more effectively.
• Government and development partners must commit to real participation, and encourage communities to experiment and make their own informed decisions.
• Government and donors should invest in supporting local governments to take a forward-looking and holistic approach to planning and monitoring local development action, avoiding potentially maladaptive decisions
• Government, donors and NGOs should use early warning information to flexibly respond to shocks, rather than primarily focusing on its collection.
• NGOs should forge longer-term relationships with local government and move beyond short-term training as the major approach to capacity building