Household surveys
Structured data collection sampled to support statements about a population rather than anecdotes about a site, covering service levels, expenditure and coping behaviour.
Climate Change and Adaptation
Advancing Africa's Climate Response
Research on what a changing climate is already doing to livelihoods, which adaptation measures hold up under scrutiny, and how climate finance and policy can be made to reach the people carrying the most risk.
Why this matters
Climate change is not a future scenario for the communities we work with. It is a present change in the conditions their livelihoods were built around.
The 2026 UN SDG 6 Synthesis Report confirms that climate variability is driving worsening water stress worldwide, with global water stress averaging 18% and acute stress hotspots across Northern Africa and Western Asia. In addition, around 50% of reporting countries suffer from freshwater ecosystem degradation, while negative river flow trends have increased across all regions.
Those numbers mean little to nothing among pastoralists, fisherfolk and small-scale farmer groups who are already experiencing rapid societal and livelihood changes driven by climate variability alongside other confounding factors. The lived signal arrives as a failed season, a moved grazing route or a source that no longer holds through the dry months.
This is why our climate research is grounded in specific systems — water, energy, food — rather than treated as a separate sector. Adaptation is rarely a climate project; it is a water supply that tolerates variability, a crop calendar that matches shifted rainfall, or an energy system that keeps working through a flood.
Finance is the persistent bottleneck. Adaptation is chronically underfunded relative to mitigation, and locally led adaptation more so again. Understanding how climate finance is structured, appraised and disbursed is inseparable from understanding whether adaptation actually happens.
18%
Global average water stress level driven by climate (SDG 6.4)
50%
Countries with degraded freshwater ecosystems (SDG 6.6)
59%
Transboundary basin areas with operational water cooperation (SDG 6.5)
What we work on
Three competencies within this thematic area.
01
Climate Adaptation, Resilience & Risk Management
Exposure and vulnerability assessment, and adaptation measures that hold up against real operating constraints.
02
Mitigation, Decarbonization & Net-Zero Pathways
Emissions pathways and the sectoral measures that make decarbonisation commitments achievable rather than aspirational.
03
Climate Finance, Carbon Markets & Results-Based Payments
Where climate capital originates, how carbon markets are governed, and how results-based instruments perform in practice.
How we work
Our climate research pairs empirical field evidence with policy and financial analysis.
Mixed-methods evaluation
Quantitative measurement paired with interviews and focus groups, so a result arrives with an explanation of the mechanism behind it.
Policy and regulatory analysis
Reading strategies, standards and regulations against one another to locate the contradictions, gaps and unfunded mandates that stall implementation.
Climate risk and vulnerability analysis
Assessment of exposure and sensitivity for specific livelihoods and systems, kept at a resolution that can inform an actual planning decision.
Climate finance tracking
Tracing flows and instruments to establish what has been committed, what has been disbursed and what reached local level — three quantities that routinely differ.
Geospatial and scenario analysis
Spatial and scenario methods used to examine how projected change intersects with settlement, water availability and land use.
Work with us on climate
We collaborate with governments, research institutions and funders on adaptation, climate finance and policy alignment.