Based on fieldwork carried out in Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania and Ghana, this book shows how local governance institutions change the way that they work as they engage with climate change adaptation initiatives, and how the tendency of power and finance to be centralized at national level reduces the effectiveness and efficiency of real change on the ground.

The evidence of these studies is that central government and international projects are neither cost effective nor institutionally sustainable; what is needed is devolution of power and resources to the local level. It's time to...