Lived experiences of an integrated adaptation project: lessons for adaptation programming in Tanzania

The implementation of adaptation projects is often confined by project boundaries and limited by time and funding, leading to a focus on technical solutions. However, vulnerability extends beyond these constraints, necessitating new forms of research and learning, such as examining lived experiences of adaptation projects. Embedded in a research-practitioner collaboration, this thesis incorporates elements of reflexive learning to investigate the lived experiences, implications, and lessons learned for adaptation programming from a collaborative integrated project in rural Tanzania. Employing an interdisciplinary mixed-methods approach involving 291 households survey and ethnographic data from 60 narrative interviews, 31 semi-structured interviews and participant observation, the thesis combines traditional objective evaluation approaches with subjective accounts to generate learning for adaptation programming.
Findings are presented in three empirical chapters. The first results chapter assesses vulnerability and resilience in the context of project implementation. Through research-practitioner collaborative learning, an innovative framework and methodology is developed, which deepens monitoring and evaluation processes by revealing how projects influence different dimensions of livelihood resilience. A second analytical chapter explores the lived experiences of the adaptation project in a biodiversity hotspot, highlighting how historical legacies seeping into project design and implementation inhibit learning and reinforce ‘repackaging’ of conservation as adaptation. The final analytical chapter employs public policy theory to show that technologically and politically inappropriate projects cannot be institutionalised in policy unless local knowledge and experience are considered.
The examination of lived experiences of projects redefines adaptation as a reflective learning process within individuals and institutions. The thesis observed a varied understanding of vulnerability, with more compassionate perspectives emerging at the individual level rather than the institutional level. This implies that the root causes contributing to these issues might be situated at higher programmatic levels, such as the donors. Furthermore, the thesis highlights that the design and execution of projects indeed bind them to specific spatial and temporal frames, which, although easier to control, typically do not align with the lived experiences of local communities, leading to maladaptive outcomes.