p.1 Understanding adaptive capacity, therefore, entails recognising the importance of various intangible processes: decision-making and governance; the fostering of innovation, experimentation and opportunity exploitation; and the structure of institutions and entitlements, for example. Doing this requires moving away from simply looking at what a system has that enables it to adapt, to recognising what a system does to enable it to adapt (WRI, 2009).

p.2 There is still much debate around the definition and practical applications of the term adaptive capacity. Broadly speaking, adaptive capacity denotes the ability of a system to adjust, modify or change its characteristics or actions to moderate potential damage, take advantage of opportunities or cope with the consequences of shock or stress (Brooks, 2003)*... Although the immediate application of this framework within ACCRA has been to look at adaptive capacity to climate change, the framework is designed to look at change generally, and may be applicable in other contexts of changing shocks and trends. With this in mind, the characteristics of a system with a high capacity to adapt to a changing climate may largely overlap with those of a system that is resilient to wider external shocks and trends.

*Brooks, N. and Adger, N. (2004) Assessing and Enhancing Adaptive Capacity: Technical Paper 7. New York: UNDP.

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