Establishment of Transboundary Partnerships in an International Climate Adaptation Project

Abstract

The transboundary partnership encourages multi-stakeholder efforts to mobilize adaptation funding and services for adaptation governance. However, challenges exist in scope, equality, and transparency when engaging these stakeholders. Few studies have examined the detailed coordination among multi-stakeholders and the performance of their partnerships, creating an opportunity to understand how multi-stakeholders contribute to and manage efforts for future adaptation projects. This study focused on a transboundary action research project on climate adaptation, analyzing the partnership structure, stakeholder arrangements, coordination scenarios, and the role of the partnership within it. It included interviews with project personnel and focus group discussions with community members at the project sites. The results showed that the project emphasized collaboration while maintaining both vertical and horizontal coordination. The donor maintained vertical coordination for monitoring but collaborated on budget adjustments, funding, identifying challenges, and developing strategies to improve the partnership. Partners continued horizontal coordination by sharing responsibilities and taking leadership roles in synthesizing research reports. Additionally, this project facilitated community participation in piloting the adaptation intervention. Although this partnership aimed to establish collaboration, it remains far from effectively liaising with national-level governments to maximize the benefits of adaptation technology. Future research should expand this scope to promote sustainable development.

1. Introduction

Transboundary partnerships focus on transnational administration, demonstrating institutionalized cross-boundary interactions between public and private organizations [1]. In this public–private arrangement, partnerships should include at least one private organization and no fewer than one public or one civil society organization [2,3]. Stakeholders generally maintain a network structure for coordination, rather than a hierarchical one, and they aim to ensure collective goods that address societal problems through partnership capacity [4,5].

The concept of transboundary partnership emerged first at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held 3–14 June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the international treaty Agenda 21 called for transboundary partnerships to meet sustainable development goals, emphasizing the participation of stakeholders, including the public, private, and community sectors, in implementing international development projects [6]. Attention to multi-stakeholder-led transboundary partnerships in international treaties, and several conferences even after the post-2015 Agenda, such as the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), pushed experts to give importance to such approaches and inspired practitioners to establish transboundary partnerships in shaping the leading global environmental governance in the areas of climate change, biodiversity, and natural disasters to meet the Sustainable Development Goals [7,8].

Moreover, academic experts have argued that the transboundary multi-stakeholder partnerships approach is more suitable for enhancing the governance system, particularly in the area of climate adaptation [9,10,11,12]. They presented several reasons: first, multi-stakeholder transboundary partnerships encourage private organizations to mobilize adaptation finance, since adaptation faces a global financial crisis. Additionally, private organizations can deliver adaptation services directly to the community [3,13]. Second, transboundary partnerships provide collaborative opportunities for all types of stakeholders to transcend conventional boundaries, crossing national, social, or cultural limits while sharing expertise from various disciplines and experiences, synergizing ideologies, and facilitating responsiveness to address climate issues [11,14,15,16,17,18]. Since the impacts and effects of climate change are vast, no single stakeholder can address these issues alone [19], which necessitates collaboration and communication across multiple disciplines, scales, and stakeholders [5]. Third, as these partnerships aim to address societal problems by establishing coordination among stakeholders for community-level action, they offer guidance on the sustainability of adaptation services that enable communities to adapt independently, without relying on public or donor funds [7,20].

Since the multi-stakeholder transnational or transboundary partnerships approach has gained importance for adaptation projects, there is an increasing trend to adopt it for improving adaptation governance [4]. However, previous studies have found this approach less effective in practice [21,22,23]. The challenges generally take place in two-fold ways: (a) lack of input legitimacy, focusing on the lack of scope, equality, and transparency in the participation of multi-stakeholder partners in the decision-making process, and (b) lack of output legitimacy, focusing less on building problem-solving capacity that determines solutions and effectiveness or sustainability of those solutions for further development [23]. The reason behind these challenges is the accountability of partners for improving adaptation governance in the long run. Though such partnerships focus on equal collaboration, which is academically sound, in practice, international donors or state organizations play the leading role and restrict private, non-profit organizations or other marginalized groups, which reduces the collaboration of a central governance system [4].

The above challenges imply there are still opportunities to study multi-stakeholder transboundary adaptation partnerships and document the lessons for further improvement. Previous research focused on directly examining the circumstances and activities of adaptation knowledge products [24]; however, very few research activities covered the establishment of transboundary partnerships for adaptation and detailed observation of coordination situations among the partners, donors, and community in the decision-making process for the project design, planning, and implementation [25]. This study fills that gap in the literature by tracing the establishment of transboundary partnerships and the governance system using a case study of the global climate adaptation project titled “Himalayan Adaptation, Water, and Resilience Research on Glacier and Snowpack-Dependent River Basins for Improving Livelihoods (HI-AWARE).”

The research aim was to understand transboundary adaptation governance of the HI-AWARE project. The specific question focused on how the multi-stakeholder partners formed the HI-AWARE transboundary partnership and coordinated among themselves to carry out the partnership activities over the phases of designing, planning, and implementing the HI-AWARE project. It also highlighted what role such partnerships played in reducing climate vulnerability.

This article provides, firstly, the analytical framework for assessing the governance system of transboundary adaptation partnerships, specifically the HI-AWARE partnership. Second, it presents the methodology. Third, it analyzes the case study of the HI-AWARE project. Fourth, it describes the empirical result, following the analytical framework. Finally, it discusses some reflections on understanding transboundary adaptation partnerships and improving the governance system.

2. Analytical Framework

This study reviewed several analytical frameworks for assessing transboundary multi-stakeholder partnership projects. For example, a previous study developed an analytical framework particularly for evaluating climate adaptation projects [26]. Another study focused on the analytical framework that guided the improvement of the performance of transboundary multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainable development and other emerging issues, such as climate change [4]. Both frameworks provided successful conditions for ensuring a participatory process, which included the feasibility of partners’ coalition, leadership roles and responsibilities of partners, suitable discourses, rules, regulations, and monitoring of project activities, as well as funding and other non-monetary incentives. Moreover, both frameworks mentioned above focused on the input legitimacy of transboundary partnerships. However, apart from them, another earlier study developed an analytical framework to observe the multi-stakeholder adaptation partnership at multiple levels [27], which considered both input and output legitimacy of transboundary partnerships.

This research selected the adaptation partnership framework at multiple levels [27] over others in the literature for the following reasons:

First, this research aims to examine both the input legitimacy and the output legitimacy of transboundary partnerships. The adaptation framework [27] offers analytical dimensions for observing both legitimacy. The analytical dimensions for input legitimacy cover partner selection, partnership mechanisms, decision-making processes, power exercises, and other governance structures of the HI-AWARE project. The analytical dimension for output legitimacy covers how well this HI-AWARE partnership performs. Moreover, every dimension under this framework describes an adaptation governance pattern in multiple ways. Other frameworks did not cover both legitimacy to understand a complete adaptation governance [4,26].

Second, this framework [27] mainly emphasizes practice over theory. Each dimension describes the practices or procedures that occur under the adaptation governance in the real world, aside from the theory that highlights the successful conditions required to carry out the partnerships [4,26].

Third, this framework emphasizes stakeholder engagement at different levels. It considers aspects such as partnership setup, multi-stakeholder arrangements, coordination patterns, modes of coordination, and the role of multi-stakeholder partnerships in reducing climate vulnerability. These elements demonstrate how multiple partners at various levels can collaborate to generate adaptation knowledge and implement it at the community level. However, other literature presents adaptation frameworks that specifically focus on local-level adaptation governance, following good governance indicators [28]. Other frameworks emphasize the involvement of affected communities in local-level climate adaptation activities [29]. Since this research examines transboundary adaptation partnerships across multiple levels, the adaptation framework that considers multiple levels [27] is more suitable than frameworks for local-level adaptation governance.

The five analytical dimensions of the multi-stakeholder adaptation partnership framework at multiple levels [27] are described below:

• Partnership setup:
  The first dimension focused on partnership setup, which included the interest of governing actors in establishing the partnership during the initial stage. The partnership may appear either top-down, resulting from an agreement between international donors, national partners, and various levels of government authorities, or it may arise bottom-up from the activities of societal actors or business communities.
• Stakeholder arrangement:
  The second dimension focused on the combination of multiple actors, including international donors, the government, civil society, and businesses, in forming partnerships and playing a role in governance.
• Coordination:
  The third analytical dimension concerned the coordination patterns of partnerships, which included observations of vertical and horizontal coordination. In the case of vertical coordination, the relationship grows between developing countries and developed countries at the international level, among several levels of government (local, regional, national), and it may focus on formal or informal, institutional, financial, or informational relations. Vertical coordination can be bottom-up, top-down, or reciprocal. Horizontal interactions, by contrast, connect different policy areas or development sectors, build relationships between organizations from multinational countries, between government and non-government actors, or merge the roles and responsibilities between regions or local authorities.
• Mode of coordination:
  The fourth dimension emphasizes the modes of coordination that highlight the observation of different forms of hierarchical and network governance that interact and intersect in partnerships.
• Role of partnership:
  The fifth dimension is the role of partnership in solving problems, apart from observing the partnership setup and coordination. It is expected that such a partnership will identify issues, outline design and activities, and execute them at the community level to solve problems in various ways, promoting self-development rather than relying on donors or the government. It can produce knowledge, disseminate knowledge, build capacity, set norms, lobby, or make the knowledge management process more participatory to provide solutions that are flexible, responsive, creative, and innovative in addressing climate distress.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Study Unit

Using the snowball process [30], this study selected the International Development and Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada, which accomplished a hydro program, Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiatives in Africa and Asia (CARIAA), in the climate hot spots with its partner, the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) of the UK [31]. The CARIAA program follows a consortium model. It involved researchers and practitioners from various nationalities sharing their experiences to develop new knowledge on climate change adaptation. The project HI-AWARE emerged from one of the consortia under the CARIAA program, which focused on the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) climate hotspot region. The HI-AWARE project involved four southern organizations to make transboundary partnerships. They were a Bangladeshi organization, an Indian organization, a Nepali organization, and a Pakistani organization [31]. The HI-AWARE technical report 2017 discussed climate risk and predicted vulnerability of the four river basins, including the Indus, Upper Ganges, Gandaki, and Teesta. It had 12 project sites to conduct action research, including pilot programs. For example, considering the Teesta basin, this report provides information regarding extreme events, risks, and vulnerability. Furthermore, this report mentioned little knowledge regarding the vulnerability of more than 1.5 million people in the Teesta River basin. There was also a need for more information about how many people would suffer during extreme events, what adaptation techniques the poor communities adopted, and how they adapted to survive in the face of floods and droughts. This report also highlighted that poor communities used to pick their adaptation techniques, but they needed more. The vulnerable people demanded a planned adaptation that drew from local knowledge and science. Based on this requirement, the HI-AWARE project aimed to implement planned adaptation through action research. The action research activities focused on identifying the critical moments of those project sites, adaptation turning points, and adaptation pathways. Since this research sought to observe the coordination scenario among partners in an international development project on adaptation and the creation of climate adaptation knowledge, the HI-AWARE project was selected as the study unit for conducting case study research.

For the convenience of fieldwork, this research focused solely on the Bangladesh component of the HI-AWARE project to examine the activities and outcomes of the Bangladeshi partners. It included two Bangladeshi partners. One was the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), a civil society organization on environmental and climate change issues. The other was the Centre for Rediscovered and Redefined Natural Resources Research and Education Service Ltd. (C4RE), Dhaka, Bangladesh, a contractual partner of BCAS, which implemented the pilot program in the Teesta River basin area. Both organizations are located in Dhaka city, Bangladesh. This research did not carry out fieldwork for the components of the HI-AWARE project in India, Nepal, and Pakistan. As a result, integrating comparative insights across the four countries was beyond the scope of this research.

The study observed two project sites in Bangladesh, Kaunia and Dimla, located in the Teesta River basin area (see Figure 1). These downstream sites in the Teesta basin include villages in the Rangpur district. Both Kaunia and Dimla face multiple natural hazards such as floods, riverbank erosion, reduced rainfall, and water shortages. Residents are often unemployed because these hazards during dry and rainy seasons disrupt their agricultural and other livelihood activities. The HI-AWARE Technical Report 2017 identified water scarcity during the dry months (March to May) as a major issue in these villages, due to low river flow and farmers relying on groundwater for irrigation. The dry season also reduces household water availability. Families typically use shallow tube wells for domestic use, but these sources often dry up as groundwater levels fall nearly 7–8 m below the surface. Livelihood activities, including livestock rearing, pisciculture, and planting, are also affected by the water shortage. Early monsoon crop damage is common because the soil becomes dry and sandy, losing moisture. To assess flooding, the report found that Kaunia and Dimla villages regularly experience floods during the rainy season. Sudden heavy rains and prolonged periodic floods lead to inundation, severely impacting residents and their livelihoods. The heaviest rainfall occurs between July and September. Bank erosion also affects the area from April to June and again from September to October, during the early monsoon and post-monsoon periods. The HI-AWARE Technical Report 2018 indicated that flood severity in Bangladesh in 2017 was significant, with approximately 6.1 million people vulnerable across 31 of the 64 districts as of 20 August 2017. The floods caused 117 deaths and damaged more than 530,000 houses. The 2018 report also noted that on 4 August 2017, water from upstream areas began flowing into the Brahmaputra and Teesta rivers. Villages near the Teesta basin had already experienced heavy monsoon rainfall, but the influx of transboundary water caused chaos. Floodwaters damaged essential infrastructure such as schools, colleges, roads, dams, hospitals, clinics, bridges, and culverts. Thousands of families, along with their houses, livestock, and poultry, were inundated.

3.2. Methods

This research followed the qualitative case study research approach on a case study inquiry for descriptive research [32]. Interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) were the data collection methods. It followed the perspectives of [33] to create a detailed description of transboundary knowledge management of the HI-AWARE project from the viewpoints of project personnel, participants, and beneficiaries. This study recorded participant observations and opinions during the interviews and FGDs. Prior to commencing the fieldwork, this research received human research ethics approval on 13 February 2019 from the University of Lethbridge Human Subject Research Committee (HSRC). The approval number is 2019-015.

3.3. Selection of Participants

This study conducted six interviews with key HI-AWARE project staff and held two FGDs at two project sites in the Teesta River basin area, Bangladesh. It conducted two interviews with IDRC personnel to better understand the knowledge transfer process of the HI-AWARE project. Once again, this study used the snowball process to recruit interviewees from among the BCAS and C4RE personnel. The C4RE staff helped conduct the FGDs, arranging the local participants at the project sites.

Table 1. A List of Key Informants for Interviews and FGDs.

Bangladesh Component of the HI-AWARE Project	Canada Component of the HI-AWARE Project
BCAS—2 interviewees	IDRC-2 interviewees
C4RE—2 interviewees
FGDs—45 local participants (15 beneficiaries and 30 non-beneficiaries)

shows the total number of participants for this research project.

3.4. Type of Data and Question Checklists

Primary data included interviews through two structured question-based checklists with open-ended responses, separately for Canadian (IDRC) and Bangladeshi organizations (BCAS and C4RE), and FGDs with community members.

Table 2. Subjects Covered by the Question Checklists for Interviews and FGDs.

Question Checklist for Interviews with Bangladeshi Organizations (BCAS and C4RE)	Question Checklist for Canadian Organization (IDRC)	Informal Discussion Topics for FGDs
Participation with partners and donors in decision-making. Adaptations have been made to the original concept, programming, and institutionalization. Climate change knowledge packages get transferred, and why Immediate project benefits and their measurement Legal, political, institutional, and financial barriers to implementing the project Tools for selecting partners. Government-citizen interaction. International fund sanctions process.	Collaboration mechanisms, funding mechanisms, communication protocols, and information dissemination. The technical assistantship to partners. The evaluation process and the external assessment. Knowledge exchange through conferences and workshops. The organizational performance in terms of effectiveness, ease of implementation, timeframe, size of beneficiaries, and institutional capacity.	Inundation scenarios of homesteads during floods and what may change after the project intervention. The participatory process for piloting the climate-resilient houses.

shows question checklists for interviews and informal discussion topics covered by FGDs.

Secondary data included documents shared by IDRC and BCAS, the web portal of the HI-AWARE project, journals, Bangladesh government policy documents, and websites of government organizations. A list of secondary documents collected from the CAS, C4RE, and IDRC during fieldwork is as follows:

• BCAS short pitch on Flood and Climate and Flood Resilient (CFR) housing report published in 2017, supplied by the BCAS
• HI-AWARE Technical Report on Participatory Assessment of Socioeconomic Drivers and Climate Stressors Leading to Vulnerabilities in Dimla, published in 2017, supplied by the BCAS
• HI-AWARE Technical Report on Participatory Assessment of Socioeconomic Drivers and Climate Stressors Leading to Vulnerabilities in Kawnia, published in 2017, supplied by the BCAS
• HI-AWARE Mid-Term Learning Review Report published in 2016, supplied by the IDRC
• HI-AWARE Technical Report published in 2018, supplied by the IDRC
• HI-AWARE Project Completion Report published in 2018, supplied by the IDRC
• C4RE proposal for upscaling CFR housing published in 2017, supplied by the C4RE

3.5. Qualitative Data Analysis

The qualitative data analysis of this research followed the model of qualitative data analysis (QDA): noticing, collecting, and thinking [34]. It used code words that fall between pure objectivist and heuristic coding to minimize the risk of avoiding any information for data analysis. Heuristic coding codes things in the texts that explore things further to provide more information for in-depth analysis; on the other hand, objectivist coding codes data as alternatives for the text. Objectivist code words are uncritical, as such coding words reduce the text and tend to skip information [34], p. 14.

This research followed an iterative phronetic approach [20] to identify the code words from the text. The iterative phronetic analysis demonstrates the research problems, priorities, relevant literature, and theories in the data rather than coding every event, participant activity, and connectivity [20]. For processing the audio clips of six interviews and two FGDs, this study used software to convert the audio clips into transcript notes. Those audio clips could be in English. However, the author, as a native speaker, converted Bangla audio clips into English (for those interviewees who chose the Bangla language). For coding each transcript, this study wrote code words in the text box beside the paragraphs, focusing on collecting, noticing, thinking, and coding words. Furthermore, it prepared a first-level code book of all six interviews and the two FGDs. For preparing the second-level code book, the study combined first-level code words by reviewing all the outlines of first-level code words in the paragraph again, and then chose the most suitable words as secondary-level code words for the results and discussion.

3.6. Data Saturation

Data saturation in this study was reached as participants for interviews and FGDs were thoughtfully selected to ensure the collection of high-quality data and relevant experiences. It also included the process of performing interviews and FGDs, which were carried out carefully to extract sufficient data. Additionally, an analytical codebook was created to develop a deeper understanding of transboundary adaptation partnerships. A process of data saturation checking during several phases of fieldwork is discussed below:

3.6.1. Sampling Interviewees and Participants in FGDs

Using the snowball sampling technique, this study selected the HI-AWARE project. The researchers broadened their communication skills with international organizations via email until they could find a transboundary partnership project that included Canada and Bangladesh as partners. This technique was also applied for selecting interviewees from BCAS, C4RE, IDRC, and FGD participants. Since it was difficult to reach the target population, such as the project staff of the HI-AWARE project, who could provide sufficient information to understand the knowledge management process, this technique helped establish rapport with the initial participant, who then recruited others who were well-informed about specific topics. This approach appears to benefit the selection process of appropriate interviewees; however, bias can occur in choosing potential recruits, as focal participants decide who will be involved further. However, bias in selecting interviewees was monitored. For example, during fieldwork in Bangladesh, the focal BCAS staff was chosen from the BCAS web portal after reviewing all staff responsibilities and project contributions. He recommended several project staff for interviews, but only two officials were selected who likely had sufficient data for the HI-AWARE project and were available for interviews. The first interviewee from the BCAS was the HI-AWARE project program coordinator, who could provide insights into overall project coordination and fund management. The other was directly involved in conducting research activities and piloting the HI-AWARE project, and participated in workshops and meetings as part of that action research. The BCAS focal person also introduced several project staff from C4RE involved in the HI-AWARE pilot program. Similar to choosing two from BCAS, this study selected another two staff members from C4RE, including the director of C4RE and the field-level coordinator at the project site. Also, the C4RE and field-level coordinator gathered local people to conduct FGDs at the project sites. This study found that almost all project beneficiaries were present at the time of FGDs at project sites, and it considered all of them as they had agreed to participate. The C4RE project director insisted on considering some beneficiaries who could speak in favor of the project benefits. This study did not consider such selective persons for observing the project implementation scenario. However, non-beneficiaries were selected randomly for the FGDs, based on their willingness to participate. For online interviews with the Canadian organization IDRC, this study selected the team leader of the HI-AWARE project as an interviewee who further referenced another IDRC staff member based in India, who supervised and monitored project activities and served as liaison between partners and IDRC’s main office in Canada.

This study found that, justifying the above-mentioned snowball technique for determining sampling, data saturation focused on continuing to identify available potential participants who provided a substantial amount of information and their willingness to participate in interviews and FGDs, instead of assuming or counting the sample size of participants before fieldwork.

3.6.2. Extracting Quality Data

Data saturation was checked in extracting quality data through question checklists and multiple interviews of a single participant. These techniques were useful because investing more time with knowledgeable participants could offer new insights into understanding the research area. Before the interview, the study sent the question checklist and the proposal of the research project. It also showed the ethics approval certificate and requested signatures on the participants’ agreement forms and permission to record the interview (one interviewee from BCAS chose the English medium for the interview, and the other three chose the Bangla medium). Using question checklists to conduct the semi-structured interviews, this study kept the questions open-ended to obtain more opinions, experiences, and detailed descriptions for enhancing data adequacy. It followed the sequence of the question checklists while recording and taking notes. The interview technique allowed both the interviewer and interviewees to elaborate on points connected to the question checklist that the interviewer/interviewees found either interesting or needed more clarification.

The interview technique also involved conducting multiple interview sessions of a single interviewee, either face-to-face, online, or over the phone. For example, the interview data was collected over five days of face-to-face meetings, which included introductory meetings and interview meetings. This study conducted three interviews in Dhaka and one in Rangpur during fieldwork in Bangladesh. The interviews required flexible day schedules and hours for face-to-face meetings. The interviewer allocated 90 minutes for conducting interviews while developing the research proposal; however, the face-to-face conversations and discussions with interviewees generally exceeded 90 minutes. For example, an interviewee from BCAS took one day with flexible times to complete the interview with the interviewer. Another BCAS interviewee gave a schedule of two days, but he allowed shorter periods for the face-to-face interview within that time. The interviewer contacted him over the phone three times (one of those conversations lasted around an hour), and she had to continue the discussion over Skype to complete the interview as the COVID-19 pandemic restricted physical meetings. For interviewing C4RE interviewees, one interviewee spent more than two hours completing the interview. Another interviewee allowed only one hour at the project site in Rangpur. The interviewer communicated with the interviewee later over the phone, which took four hours using a two-day meeting schedule. Data saturation was achieved in this process, which allowed the interviewer to gather comprehensive information for in-depth analysis.

Data saturation in focus group discussions (FGDs) involved assessing participants’ engagement and insights about the project. To maintain anonymity, the researcher did not identify participants unless they chose to identify. FGDs were conducted informally to build trust, with the researcher listening to narratives and asking follow-up questions. FGDs considered the beneficiaries first for discussion, and then proceeded to the non-beneficiaries. The non-beneficiaries listened to the conversation between the researcher and the beneficiaries, which helped the researcher to observe the responses of the non-beneficiaries promptly. In this case, data saturation was achieved when the researcher found repeated information from participants. Additionally, a discussion session between participants and C4RE team members helped verify information about the project’s benefits.

3.6.3. Preparing Analytical Codebook

Data saturation was considered achieved when the data analysis method generated a codebook that provided themes aligning with the research objectives. The reliability and validity of the coding process depended on intracoder reliability, which involved a single coder justifying the codes. Several methods were used to check the accuracy of the coding process:

• During coding, the process involved repeatedly reading the transcripts, field notes, and listening to recordings. It also followed an iterative process of collecting, noticing, and thinking during reading line by line and listening.
• A chronological record of changes to the coding sheets/files was maintained for transparency.
• The coding sheets/files were regularly reviewed to refine the code words, justifying them with the code words from the analytical framework and secondary data. Besides the researcher, the research supervisor also participated in cross-checking code words.
• The codebook itself demonstrated the reliability and validity of the coding process. For example, it included a first-level code sheet and a second-level code sheet. Both sheets consisted of a table with four columns. The first column listed first-level or second-level code words. The second column provided the definition or explanation of the code words, referring to questions in the checklist or questions asked during interviews and FGDs. The third column provided examples or additional information related to the questions. The fourth column included discussion notes on code words gathered from transcripts, secondary data, and various journal articles to confirm findings.

4. Analyze the Case Study of the HI-AWARE Project

The case study of the HI-AWARE project (Bangladesh component) informed four major elements of this project: project design and budget preparation, communication protocols and knowledge management strategies, research activities and participation scenarios, and pilot program. It provided a detailed description of each element, showing how development actors establish partnerships from the design phase to the implementation phase, including conducting research together and implementing the research results through a pilot program.

4.1. HI-AWARE Project Design and Budget Preparation

There was an open call for proposals under the CARIAA program, which aimed to build the resilience of vulnerable populations and their livelihoods in climate change hot spots in Africa and Asia. The donors focused on three hot spots within 14 countries across Africa and Asia. The three hot spots were semi-arid regions in Africa and parts of South and Central Asia, deltas in Africa and South Asia, and glacier- and snowpack-dependent river basins in the Himalayas [31].

The interview with the IDRC donors showed that the donors set criteria for preparing the proposals:

First, the partner organizations must focus on one of those identified hot spots.

Second, the partner organizations must follow the consortium model approach when conducting research projects on climate change adaptation.

Third, the consortium team requires four to five partners. There are no restrictions on the types of adaptation research activities and on choosing partners in such consortium research groups.

The Canadian donor, IDRC, also focused on the internal selection process for judging proposals received under the call for proposals. The selection board emphasized three elements: research quality based on the strength of the proposed team, the collaborative activities involved, and the potential for the results of the action research to make a meaningful difference. There were specific evaluative criteria across the board. The eligibility criteria were based not only on geography but also on scientific and development merits. The IDRC had multiple independent reviewers who assessed the proposals against those criteria. Also, the IDRC determined budget evaluation criteria and adjusted the budget before finalizing the project proposal for funding. In this regard, the interviewee (IDRC staff) located in India said,

“…in general, the human resources of the proposed research project do not exceed 25%. Since the HI-AWARE research project involved different organizations with different salary structures, it set a limit of 40% to ensure budget equity. If we do not limit, the high-salary structured partner organizations will take more money for human resources, and we do not want that to happen” (Personal Communication, March 2020).

Based on interviews with IDRC personnel, this study found that the HI-AWARE proposal also focused on hotspot glacier- and snowpack-dependent river basins in the Himalayas, and it had a sound consortium approach for selecting partners and organizing them into a team. The proposed project activities had a positive feature, including the pilot program, the climate-resilient house designed by the project partners. However, the donor had to review the proposed budget after receiving it. The employees of the partner organization in Nepal were primarily European and American, so the salary structure was higher than that of other Asian countries’ organizations, such as BCAS, the Bangladesh organization. There was also a Dutch organization with a high salary structure for consulting. The donor found that the Nepali and Dutch organizations, based on the salary structures of employees, allocated more to human resources. The donor cut that amount to ensure everyone would keep their human resources to no more than 40% of the budget. The partners accepted the adjustments even though partners with high-salary-structured organizations (the Nepali and Dutch organizations) would face a problem adjusting their salary structures. However, the HI-AWARE partners finally legalized the partnership agreement.

4.2. The HI-AWARE Communication Protocol and Knowledge Management Strategies

The IDRC had a knowledge management and communication committee within the CARIAA program that brought together communication experts from different consortia to co-manage the program and maintain a shared internal platform for knowledge management. However, when it came to communication protocols and mechanisms, each partner organization made its own decisions.

The IDRC developed a guidebook on communication and knowledge management strategies for the HI-AWARE project. The guidebook focused on how the partners would communicate among themselves and with the donors. It took over a year to establish effective communication. In this regard, the IDRC Indian staff highlighted,

“…we developed communication and knowledge management strategies for the entire consortium. Of course, some people never responded to emails or broke off this communication. Such communication took more time to establish. However, everybody started looking at it” (Personal Communication, March 2020).

Other coordination strategies included direct discussions, workshops, and focus group discussions with affected communities. All country partners held direct consultations every month, and they organized several workshops and group discussions every three months—one person from each organization was nominated to maintain coordination among the partners.

In addition, the IDRC included the number of productions of policy documents, the number of workshops under the project, the process to conduct those workshops through local-level organizations (such as BCAS and its partners), the number of knowledge transfer workshops, the number of publications under the project, and how each of the organizations would carry out the acknowledgment. For example, according to the interviewee, the Indian staff of the IDRC, there were 20 peer-reviewed publications from 2018 to February 2020, and it conducted 50 workshops for knowledge transfer across the participating countries, with financial support from the IDRC.

4.3. HI-AWARE Research Activities and Participation of Bangladeshi Organizations

The interviews of Bangladeshi organization BCAS personnel showed that in the project planning phase, the BCAS and other consortium team members had the opportunity to participate in several meetings with IDRC expert teams over one week in Nepal to convert the project ideas into research activities. The research activities included target goals, methods, input and output analysis, knowledge products, and the impact. The BCAS and other consortium team members jointly prepared a Table of Contents (ToC) and a detailed Expertise, Measures, and Environment (EME) feature that guided what activities would have what target, impact, and output. Through the planning meetings, the partners from each country preliminarily prepared their strategies and methodologies. Then, the consortium members provided the necessary input to enrich that work.

Later, the experts from the IDRC team provided their support and specific comments. Sometimes, the IDRC team sent the experts, who mainly oversaw whether the activities met the plan or adjusted their ToC. The interviewees from BCAS highlighted that the IDRC team experts, especially, led the broader aspect, but BCAS and its partners led the project-specific activities. The BCAS interviewee from the research section shared his experiences,

“…we (the HI-AWARE consortium members) got valuable support from the IDRC team experts, especially in the area of adaptation and gender, which we led from the Bangladesh side. It was not from one side. The work was very interactive for editing and polishing those activities” (Personal Communication, August 2019).

With the support of the IDRC, the BCAS had ample opportunity to work with its partners in conducting research activities. For example, there were different levels of workshops under five research components for conducting HI-AWARE research on climate adaptation, which provided in-depth knowledge of the subject matter to the consortium team members. The HI-AWARE project had three work programs with five research components. There were workshops, seminars, and meetings under those work programs and research components at the community, regional, and international levels. The outlines of work programs are below:

• The first research component was the physical aspect of climate change. Of concern were the biophysical changes due to temperature rise, the melting of ice, expected changes in hydrological patterns, the occurrence of floods, and how that would likely affect agriculture, water use, food and health, and sanitation at the household level. BCAS and its partners from the four southern countries had to conduct their research to find the impacts in the four river basins in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.
• In the case of the Teesta River basin, BCAS observed the activities regarding the change in hydrological patterns at the sub-district levels and worked out what to do in the future. BCAS conducted participatory research at the community level by involving people within the community. There were several meetings and workshops with relevant government officials, like the Bangladesh Water Development Board, the Bangladesh Department of Agriculture Extension, and the Bangladesh Water Supply and Sewerage Authority.
• The second component was social and gender vulnerability analysis in the areas of river basins. For this, there were many local meetings, consultations, and FGDs. For example, the BCAS organizational research team considered the lower part of the Teesta river basin on the Bangladesh side for community consultations, FGDs, inter-group meetings, meetings with farmers, women, local government officials (such as those working in water, health, and women empowerment), and other non-government officials (such as those who have working experiences around women empowerment).
• The third component was adaptation options and effectiveness. BCAS and its partners investigated adaptation options, particularly in agriculture, water, and livelihoods, in the river basin areas of four countries at both community and sectoral levels. For example, in Bangladesh, the BCAS organizational research team conducted separate meetings with different officials at the sectoral level (such as the Bangladesh Water Development Board and Bangladesh Department of Agriculture Extension) to identify adaptation options related to those issues and discuss whether the adaptation options were suitable, effective, or functional. Completing the sub-district consultations from three different places in the Teesta River basin, the BCAS research team focused on regional/divisional-level consultation meetings with relevant organizations (such as the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture). After investigating all options, the research team followed a multi-criteria strategy to prioritize them.

The interview with the BCAS staff showed that every partner needs to complete this type of work in their country. For example, the Nepal research team conducted their research in the Gandaki river basin, and the Indian counterpart carried out their research in the upper area (or region) of the Ganges, as it is a long river that flows into Bangladesh. The Indian team selected a few districts in the upper Ganges River basin. The Pakistani team did that in the Indus River basin. Multiple stakeholder consultations were held at the community, sub-district, and regional levels.

Based on interviews with BCAS and IDRC personnel, this study found regional-level workshops in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. The BCAS and its partners had a predetermined leadership role in regional workshops for conducting the research. Through the predetermined leadership role, some members would act as leaders for a specific research component, others would listen, synthesize, and conduct exercises in their own country. To do justice to the predetermined leadership role, each organization had to send the country report to the leading members, who observed and provided an informed, polished, or expert opinion; the Pakistani organization, for example, led the adaptation and mitigation research component, while BCAS and other partners synthesized and investigated those in their countries. Similarly, the BCAS led social and gender vulnerability analyses while other partners synthesized and investigated those vulnerabilities in their countries.

At the national level, BCAS and partners from other southern countries participated in several science-policy advocacy workshops on adaptation and climate change, particularly those about water and livelihood, under the HI-AWARE project. The central theme was disseminating the research output based on field data and reviewing policy documents. For example, in the case of Bangladesh, workshops for various government agencies and the community emphasized the use of a particular adaptation technique, such as the early warning system, during the event of a flood, and how the flood warning will reach local people, particularly women. Most men in flood-affected areas go to other cities to find jobs, while women remain home to care for children and elderly family members. Women at home face hardships during floods. Flood warning information rarely reaches them in time, in some cases, because of inadequate communication from the local government. The IDRC team members and those in BCAS communicated with local government personnel through workshops. They discussed how the local government could reach local people, especially women, to provide flood warning information. Similarly, at the national level, BCAS shared the experiences of pilot programs regarding the construction and use of flood-resilient houses. Workshops also focused on environmental issues, such as river channelization. With the help of IDRC, BCAS, including partner organizations, organized workshops on knowledge transfer in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.

The IDRC interviewee in India described the training arrangement on adaptation practice from the donor side. There were various hands-on training programs on adaptation practices for local people and researchers in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. For example, the Dutch consultant digitized the map of the entire Himalayan region, indicating the inundation situation. People in this area can also obtain information about their adaptation practices. There were seven training sessions on digitization in Nepal (covering at least two districts), the Rangpur district in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Himalayan district in India. This training helped people understand what is best for carrying out adaptation practices.

While participating in international events, the IDRC also provided financial support to all partners for attending international workshops and conferences, in addition to those at the national level, such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nepal and Sri Lanka.

4.4. The Pilot Program in Bangladesh Under the HI-AWARE Project

4.4.1. Location Selection of the Pilot Program

Reviewing the C4RE proposal for upscaling CFR housing (2017) document, this study found that Bangladeshi project partners conducted various consultations to select the villages for the pilot program and demonstrate climate and flood-resilient houses. Dilma, Kaunia, and Patgram upazilas (sub-districts) were pre-selected from Nilphamari, Rangpur, and Lalmonirhat districts, respectively, for the HI-AWARE piloting in the Teesta floodplains.

The Bangladeshi partner organization, BCAS, selected Patgram in Kurigram for research, an upstream region of the Teesta floodplains where the Dohogram union was the most vulnerable to regular flash flooding. The organization chose Dimla as a controlled and mid-stream site, where an embankment protected most of the area. Furthermore, it chose Kaunia as a downstream floodplain with vulnerable char lands that face regular seasonal floods, bank erosion, and drought. Dilma, Kaunia, and Patgram were the sub-districts with different geophysical, socioeconomic, and environmental characteristics that helped the Bangladeshi partner to analyze the flooding situation comparatively among those areas.

For a demonstration of climate-resilient houses, the BCAS selected the Kaunia sub-district as the study site because of its regular severe flood vulnerability. It selected the Char Dhushmara village on the left bank of the Teesta River and the Char Haibatkha village on the right bank in the Kaunia sub-district for the provision of climate-resilient houses.

The secondary documents supplied by the C4RE implementing agency in Bangladesh showed that the intervention included a complete package of working activities—plinth raising, traditional house reconstruction, removable wooden houses imported from other places, homestead gardens, poultry, and livestock, hedgerow and tree plantations, solar panels, improved cooking stoves, sanitary toilets, tube-wells, and, lastly, the provision of skill development training program(s).

The C4RE developed flood-resilient houses in two phases. The first phase included reconstructing the traditional house after raising the plinth. The organization used corrugated tin sheets and covered a certain height with coal tar from the bottom of each tin sheet to protect its durability if it becomes flooded. However, the organization noticed heat waves inside the houses during the monsoon and summer. The corrugated iron sheets on the rooftop and the surrounding corrugated iron sheet walls of the flood-resilient houses absorb heat during the day, and they cannot release that heat at night, making the houses hot.

In the second phase, the organization removed those houses and replaced them with wooden ones imported from Dhaka. Such houses have storage parts on the rooftop that segregate the house from receiving direct heat from the sun. The wooden flood-resilient houses kept the houses cool, along with protecting them from floods. However, the technical challenge to building houses was that the sandy soil washed away in each flood. The strategy focused on putting silt topsoil from nearby places on the slope or toe of the homestead cluster premise and protecting the slope with natural hedgerows and tree plantations.

4.4.2. Participation of Local People in Selecting the Beneficiaries

Interviews with the C4RE personnel and FGDs revealed that the local government member and chairman helped introduce the project to the villagers. The C4RE personnel selected beneficiaries through a door-to-door survey and focus group discussion techniques. They utilized three significant criteria for selecting beneficiaries:

• Very needy—those who had poor housing conditions during the flood;
• Divorced, widowed, or deserted women;
• Land ownership (those who had less than 1 acre of land).

Land ownership is essential to receiving climate-resilient houses, as the houses need legal land to avoid being possessed by someone else. The organization avoided male-owned land because it assumed women were more trustworthy in their promise not to sell.

In the case of selecting beneficiaries, C4RE conducted several meetings through FGDs, ensuring a participatory approach. In the preliminary phase, local newspapers broadcast the news about building the project house. Some villagers learned about climate-resilient housing from other people. The organization listed the disadvantaged villagers and documented their situations in the initial meeting. Around 100 villagers were present at the initial meetings, with many incorrectly assuming that everyone would receive a house. During the second meeting, the organization asked villagers to select ten disadvantaged people out of 100. Villagers understood the impossibility of providing houses for all and helped select needy households who would receive houses first. C4RE also consulted openly with village leaders and local government members. However, the C4RE avoided the arbitrary selection process requested by the local government members.

4.4.3. Training Local People on Building Climate-Resilient Houses

The BCAS, in collaboration with the local partner C4RE, organized community-level training workshops at the climate-resilient house, Haibatkha of Kaunia, in Rangpur, Bangladesh. This training focused on enhancing awareness and the construction skills of carpenters, sawmill operators, local leaders, and building material enterprises in the Teesta basin area and increasing interest in the housing project.

FGDs with beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries found that the people in the selected areas welcomed the design of the house, especially after seeing how it performed during floods. The demand for climate-resilient housing increased in the communities, especially among masons, carpenters, businesspeople, and others from surrounding sub-districts. A total of 30 local masons, including women, received training on building the demonstration houses and slope protection activities under the pilot initiatives. Carpenters received training on wood and bamboo preservation, focusing on protection from termite attacks and other pests. Experts from the Bangladesh Forest Research Institute (BFRI) on wood seasoning and preservation served as trainers and considered this housing model for further development.

However, interviews with the BCAS and C4RE personnel also showed that the organizations needed to enhance local knowledge and provide training for practical experience in processing wood and cutting wood to fit the shape of climate—and flood-resilient houses. Notably, the batten size of the sawmills did not match the flood-resilient house construction requirements. Hence, the BCAS and C4RE teams worked with sawmill operators to oversee the timber for climate-resilient houses.

5. Results

Based on the analysis of the case study of the HI-AWARE project, the results traced the establishment of the HI-AWARE project’s transboundary partnership on adaptation work. It followed five dimensions of adaptation partnership [27] (see Section 2) to understand its origin, coordination scenarios, and the role of such cooperation in adaptation interventions.

5.1. Partnership Setup

The case study analysis of the HI-AWARE project found that the project’s partners followed a bottom-up approach in which they selected partners to form a consortium, designed the proposal, arranged institutions, and prepared an initial budget. Though the coalition emerged from the project call of the donor, IDRC, based on some specifications for building a partnership and signed the agreement papers for financial support, the donor IDRC had no interference in setting the agenda, determining project activities, selecting the methods, prioritizing the project theme, and determining project activities and stakeholder arrangements. For example, BCAS personnel revealed that the donor IDRC did not influence the setup of the partnership and its mechanism; instead, local partners had the opportunity to select other southern partners who were primarily well-known to each other through previous projects for the coalition. Later, all local partners decided on the thematic areas and determined the institutional arrangement, focusing on which partners would lead particular thematic areas for research, and who would play the leadership role in synthesizing the research findings from all thematic areas. These initial activities for forming a partnership showed that the donor was flexible and shared the decision-making power with the partners. To focus on the partnership mechanism and project ideas in designing the HI-AWARE project, the interviewee from IDRC Canada mentioned,

“… it was the reverse; we selected the HI-AWARE project; more specifically, the southern partners of the HI-AWARE project selected us to put forward their ideas in project design and stakeholder coordination. It turned out that we got a proposal amongst the most vital ideas” (Personal Communication, March 2020).

The above statement from the donor showed a liberal attitude toward partners. This situation differs from the top-down approach in which donors lead the partnership and control the selection of project partners, project design, institutions, and even the action under the pilot program.

5.2. Stakeholder Arrangement

The HI-AWARE project positioned itself as a multi-stakeholder partnership project, which included international research organizations (e.g., the Nepali organization), government research organizations (e.g., the Pakistani organization), and civil society organizations (e.g., the ones from Bangladesh and India). The IDRC project call criteria encouraged partners from different nationalities to become core partners and engaged them in designing and implementing the project activities. The various stakeholders, including researchers and practitioners, were not only responsible for planning the project but also for participating in several conversation sessions to make decisions and respond to the implementation activities jointly. It found that the HI-AWARE project tried to establish a well-adjusted partnership between public and private organizations.

5.3. Coordination Patterns

The HI-AWARE partnership facilitated both vertical and horizontal coordination. The vertical coordination between donors and partners was maintained through financing the project. Project monitoring activities, such as reporting and communication, showed a hierarchy from the consortia to the core partners to the strategy. While the project monitoring activities emphasized the top-down pattern, there was some flexibility in understanding partners and their activities in many cases during implementation. It included project budget adjustments among partners and other initiatives from the donor side, such as providing technical assistance, field testing support, and conducting a mid-term learning review for consolidating the partnership and building trust among partners. Mutual understanding among southern partners implied that the project established horizontal coordination, which created not only a consortium for this project but also helped consortium members to play their predetermined leadership roles to complete the research components and synthesize the research reports under the project.

5.4. Mode of Coordination

The coordination mode among partners focused on collaborative governance, which included collaborative spaces, research, and management.

5.4.1. Collaborative Spaces

The IDRC created collaborative spaces regarding opportunity projects and responsive funds. These spaces brought multiple organizations together and created dual linkages along the way. One of those was sitting together in their own country. For example, all Bangladeshi organizations focused on river deltas and a glacier-dependent basin in the HI-AWARE project, which created learning opportunities collectively across different parts of Bangladesh. Another was the interest in understanding environmental climate change adaptation across South Asia, a common concern across the consortium under the HI-AWARE project. Furthermore, bringing the consortium members together and engaging researchers from outside the consortium, such as Ph.D. and Master’s students under the HI-AWARE research project, in conversation tables also created collaborative spaces.

5.4.2. Collaborative Research

As core members, the Bangladeshi partners, BCAS, and the other southern partners collaboratively worked to generate climate adaptation knowledge, surpassing their institutional mandates and country boundaries. For example, in the initial phase, the consortium partners focused on collaborative research when they sat together to plan targets, methods, impacts, and outputs. Then the thematic leaders enjoyed supervising the research on particular themes outside their organizational capacity and country territory. The pilot programs involving local people were another collaborative opportunity. The exchange knowledge program and dissemination of the research outputs and pilot programs through workshops, seminars, and conferences showed that the HI-AWARE project created a platform for collaborative action research. The southern partners not only shared the research outputs among themselves, but they also shared the research activities and findings with national experts and international audiences to enhance sharing capacity.

However, since multiple organizations had to cross organizational and country boundaries for building collaboration, they faced several internal challenges and externalities. However, the southern partners’ commitment to move together and the IDRC’s initiative to reduce controversy, developing communication protocols, preparing knowledge management strategies, and conducting mid-term learning reviews proved beneficial to the partner organizations in carrying out the research activities jointly.

5.4.3. Collaborative Management

Interviews with BCAS personnel and IDRC personnel showed that HI-AWARE maintained collaborative management. In the initial stage, the project faced several problems such as the budget equity issue, strict reporting schedules and paperwork, overloaded communication, meeting fatigue, questions regarding quality time for research activities, unclear roles of donor and team members, issues with building trust and professionalism, tensions regarding expectations and traditions like problems with authorship and training, delays in delivering technical assistance of thematic leader to other partners, and challenges associated with internal permissions to travel and money transfer.

However, several initiatives from the donors aimed to improve collaborative governance among consortium members. For example, the monitoring activities, incentive strategies for enhancing trust and professionalism, mid-term external learning review report to enhance collaborative management, reviewing the HI-AWARE risk register and follow-up, synthesizing the HI-AWARE outcomes and learning opportunity, budget adjustment, fund availability, and improved communication strategies reduced not only the initial problems, but also minimized hierarchical interference in collaborating that helped the partner organizations meet the deadlines for completing project activities.

5.5. Role of Partnership

5.5.1. Facilitate Climate Action

The study of the HI-AWARE project showed that it was not just about retaining some elements, not just being a product of research or having the capacity to do research, but also being able to engage with user groups and be clear about what it means to underpin climate action.

Based on the interview from IDRC Canada, this study found that when the HI-AWARE project started in 2014, the IPCC had identified knowledge gaps. In 2014, the HI-AWARE project activities still focused on the importance of hotspots, and research concentrated on findings about what was going on there. However, over the project period, HI-AWARE had the opportunity to enhance its scope to work on climate adaptation under several international policies, such as the SDGs and the global stocktake of the Paris Agreement, which focused on taking stock of the implementation process not only in the sector of mitigation but also adaptation through the world’s collective progress rather than individual countries. Such international policies led the HI-AWARE project to move embedded research into implementation actions. When implemented, the HI-AWARE project did not limit the research activities; instead, the collaborative partnership and coordination contributed to the actual adaptation activities. For example, the actual adaptation activities included building capacities to work with user groups, exercising adaptation knowledge through a pilot program, following up on the benefits of the project before ending it, and lobbying with government organizations to disseminate that pilot intervention—the flood-resilient house in Bangladesh, for example. Such activities supported the national adaptation plan through the implementation of the project and emphasized adaptation intervention in the national program, such as Bangladesh’s Delta Plan 2100.

5.5.2. Learning

The study found that both donors and partners were the key learners.

The donor, IDRC, had a positive outcome from the HI-AWARE project, which focused on the value of the collaborative model. In response, an interview with IDRC staff in Canada highlighted,

“…after the HI-AWARE project, we would focus on the application of the collaborative model. In the future, we would like to join other sister programs outside the CARIAA, and we see how cross-program learning can happen, for example, the cross-consortium programming we were doing within CARIAA, but with some remedies to move forward. Observing cross-consortium programs rather than just looking back at how we may want to do things differently would be substantial and comprehensive.” (Personal Communication, February 2020).

The above statement indicated that the HI-AWARE project would examine not only what could be replicated but also what additional actions could be taken (“what else?”) and what the subsequent steps would be (“what next?”).

In another response, the IDRC personnel’s interview showed that this project’s evaluation process helped evaluate the project’s strengths and weaknesses. However, there was a concern regarding the HI-AWARE evaluation process, which considered one country under the cross-country consortium as a sample for external assessment. In this regard, the IDRC staff in India stressed,

“…the external evaluation should include all countries under the consortium, as different countries have different adaptation knowledge products.”(Personal Communication, February 2020).

There was also a realization regarding the need for better human resource collaborative management. For example, the IDRC Canada interviewee identified the workload of a coordinator, who was based in the cabinet but had only one person in a junior post. The coordinator had to convene the steering committee and management group to oversee the consortium. In this regard, the learning of the IDRC staff focused on the need for more robust funding and the need to ensure multiple coordinators with a lot of time and skillset.

The southern partners learned also from the HI-AWARE project. Based on interviews with IDRC and BCAS officials, this study found that four organizations completed the collaborative research by exchanging information, experiences, and ideas that enhanced the individual partners’ skills. The relationship among them went well beyond the partnership scheme towards learning. In this case, the interviews of BCAS personnel also indicate,

“…we, as one of the project partners, not only developed our knowledge on climate adaptation from each other but also our learning and contributions to research project activities, which also helped build organizational capacity.” (Personal Communication, August 2019).

Another interview with the BCAS staff indicated,

“…we had already used the consortium model technique to develop their other projects after the HI-AWARE project.” (Personal Communication, August 2019).

Apart from donor and southern partners, this project contributed to both the public and private domains through the dissemination of research activities and outputs.

5.5.3. Adaptation Knowledge and Sustainability

The study found that the HI-AWARE collaborative partnership enhanced the knowledge base for climate adaptation. It analyzed the climate change vulnerability and policy support for the Hindu Kush Himalaya region. For example, in the case of the Teesta River basin in Bangladesh, this project identified the need to construct climate-resilient houses to allow for adaptation during floods. The construction of climate-resilient houses created a considerable demand for more such houses within the project sites and the surrounding areas. When the implementing agency, C4RE, provided training for scaling up the climate-resilient houses, the neighbors attended and demanded more houses from the C4RE organization. Based on the interviews of IDRC and BCAS personnel, this study found that the evaluation of the HI-AWARE project led the IDRC to focus on promising results for continued investment before closing the project in 2019. The IDRC provided funds for another eighteen months to take those results to the next level.

Moreover, this follow-up initiative from the IDRC donor side was more than scaling up or focusing on achievements from the results generated between 2018 and 2020, extending them into 2021. The IDRC staff in Canada identified that the entire logic of the transitional grant was that the IDRC could not walk away from the demanding work. Additionally, it provided an opportunity to work on small-scale projects over eighteen months, allowing them to continue producing high-quality tasks from these results.

However, there was a question regarding the future development of climate-resilient houses at project sites in Bangladesh. In this regard, the IDRC Indian staff mentioned,

“… there was no debate about the effectiveness of such dwellings, as community members found them helpful. The challenge was scaling up these houses in the future.” (Personal Communication, March 2020).

Based on the above statement, this study found that securing capital is an issue in ensuring further scale-up. Likewise, the findings of the focus group discussion indicated that the impact of climate-resilient housing conditions was significant. The local community observed that climate-resilient houses improved the daily lives of beneficiaries during the rainy season, as floods could not affect those houses. These houses created a demand for expansion. The problem was long-term sustainability because the construction costs were high, and there was a lack of market entrepreneurship for further development in local areas. In this case, the donor, IDRC, explained that the HI-AWARE project aimed to demonstrate the value of such experimental houses in providing shelter to flood victims and introducing the benefit of design features, such as the impact of the temperature inside a house with wooden roofing. The development of houses with such benefits was able to generate economic demand that changed the preferences of local people in housing. Moreover, when grants for development work in the adaptation areas are limited or arranging construction costs for those houses is challenged by the community, seven houses were sufficient to demonstrate the value of the intervention or pilot program.

6. Discussion

Observing the establishment of transboundary partnership and governance systems of the HI-AWARE project, this study found that the HI-AWARE project emphasized collaborative activities in maintaining multi-stakeholder transboundary partnerships for climate adaptation. It provided an understanding that collaboration efforts for exchanging information not only facilitate shared understanding and awareness among participants but also eventually provide benefits in shaping research, guiding decisions, and determining performance. Previous studies also supported the collaboration efforts of participants for better performance [12,25,35,36,37].

In addition, this study detects other valuable insights into multi-stakeholder transboundary partnerships for adaptation work, which are discussed below.

6.1. Understanding Climate Adaptation Projects and the Importance of Participation

The case study showed that the HI-AWARE consortium members, as project partners, had a clear perception of what an adaptation project is. However, a previous study showed that development partners sometimes have distinct perceptions of climate change adaptation projects [38]. It found that some development organizations used climate change adaptation projects to secure funding, even though these projects were unrelated to adaptation. On the other hand, some of them utilized climate change adaptation projects as a mechanism for a broader change in the development sector, focusing on identifying the need for adaptation development and facilitating the participation of all development stakeholders under the project; moreover, this group explored climate change adaptation projects performing things differently, such as helping people participate in addressing underlying drivers of vulnerability for adapting to climate change. The difference between the two groups shows that projects that use adaptation themes to secure funds might lose sight of the importance of involving vulnerable people in the needs assessment. Conversely, projects that promote collaboration aim to produce practical information focused on delivering timely and effective responses by working with development partners and other stakeholders, such as local communities [38]. The HI-AWARE project partners fell into the second group, which chose the climate adaptation project as a project for social development through equitable participation of project partners and other stakeholders at all levels.

Therefore, based on the findings of the HI-AWARE project, this study suggests that development partners, including donors and recipients, should understand what they will implement collaboratively in the name of climate adaptation projects and the importance of board participation for implementing such projects. Otherwise, participation in such projects could become a donor-push or donor-dominance practice that not only restricts participation as a regular phenomenon for implementing adaptation projects but also hampers change for the most vulnerable [39,40,41,42,43,44].

6.2. Transboundary Climate Adaptation Partnership: Stakeholder-Led or Donor-Led(?)

This HI-AWARE case study contributes to a deeper understanding that advanced funding models for adaptation projects emphasize stakeholder-led partnerships to facilitate adaptation actions. Previous studies have already highlighted the importance of stakeholder-led partnerships for adaptation activities [7,12]. However, another empirical study contended that both stakeholder-led partnerships and donor-led partnerships facilitate adaptation actions, but both face internal and external limitations in delivering adaptation solutions [8]. Both partnerships focus on coordination. Donor-led partnerships maintain a strong hierarchy with several conditionalities in distributing funds among partners, designing proposals and activities, and determining the roles and responsibilities of project partners [27], which implies centralization and power dominance over project partners who are recipients [45,46,47]. Moreover, donors’ interference in project planning and implementation with several conditionalities makes local partners compromise-minded, which undermines their innovation, autonomy, and legitimacy as local partners and restricts them from contributing to the long-term project impact on the community [48,49].

On the other hand, stakeholder-led partnerships select partners from the public and private domains by their own choice for sharing ideas, experiences, and knowledge. However, during the phase of planning and research, stakeholder-led partnerships sometimes appear with dichotomies and binaries that create complexity in receiving an equal agreement since stakeholders from the private and public domains have different opinions in terms of organizational positions, organizational culture, expertise, nationalities, class, gender, age, languages, political influences, or even past conflicts [27,50,51,52]. Moreover, individual partners sometimes create a new form of inequality by manipulating others for their gains [12,53].

In this case, this study suggests that multi-stakeholder partnerships towards collaboration, whether donor-led or stakeholder-led, require an assessment of participation scenarios, focusing on the detailed work of how different partners organize, facilitate, and interact to maintain transboundary research collaborations, following the previous studies [10,12,54,55]. During pilot programs under these projects, stakeholder partnerships involve local people and group them homogeneously, avoiding socioeconomic differences and other power relationships among them [34,55,56,57,58,59] that sometimes hamper the participatory process. In addition, local people rarely contribute to climate change knowledge that addresses climate change risks [38]. In this circumstance, it is challenging to establish a shared goal for development and adaptation. Therefore, this study advocates that more consultations with the local community are necessary, following the previous study [60].

6.3. Adaptation Project Implementation Guidelines: Participatory Approaches and Management Strategies

This study develops another insight from the case study of the HI-AWARE project, which showed that a successful project needs a clear guideline for implementing the project activities according to the project plan. For example, the HI-AWARE project implemented collaborative activities effectively because the project partners and donors paid attention to participatory approaches and management that would be the most appropriate to establish interaction among participants for sharing information to generate widespread adaptation knowledge.

Previous studies also gave attention to specific instructions for the execution of the project. Moreover, they argued that a project’s success and failure depend on the understanding of the development approaches and the application of those approaches by the development organizations [40,43,44]. However, many adaptation projects failed to become adaptation actions because of a lack of detailed instructions on who would be involved, how to conduct the participatory activities, and what the adaptation strategies would be [3,61,62,63,64]. For example, the project of the Swedish forest sector produced climate adaptation knowledge through joint knowledge management. This project prioritized partners’ interests, needs, and opinions in the project planning phase, implying that the forest sector tried to establish collaborative exchanges among partners. For reporting to donors, partners had flexible schedules within the project periods. Although the Swedish forestry sector’s knowledge management facilitated collaboration among partners, there was a need to support conducting co-designed participatory exercises involving implementing agencies and community people instead of solely by researchers [37].

Compared with the Swedish forestry project, the HI-AWARE project attempted to emphasize boundary work by allowing researchers, practitioners, and community people to conduct co-designed participatory exercises. For example, the HI-AWARE project exercised two types of co-designed participatory exercises to establish collaboration among multiple stakeholders.

The first participatory exercise brought together researchers and practitioners from different nationalities for the HI-AWARE project. The project enabled researchers and practitioners to contribute to the development of ideas, design, and plan research and project management activities, and implement these activities collaboratively. Such collaboration among different stakeholders aimed to bridge the differences in particular organizational identities and nationalities, and enhance research capabilities by facilitating the sharing of ideologies and learning opportunities, thereby increasing research capacity. The HI-AWARE collaboration scenarios involving researchers and practitioners seem relevant to the cooperative inquiry action research approach [65,66], which supports collaboration between researchers and practitioners for adaptation partnerships.

The second participatory exercise involved the local people in selecting beneficiaries for adaptation interventions under the pilot program. It focused on a collaboration opportunity between local people and organizational personnel. For instance, regarding the Bangladesh component of the HI-AWARE project, this study found that it enabled the local population to perceive themselves as acting with dignity and honor while selecting the most vulnerable families in their village to receive flood-resistant houses. Then, the suffering people shared their living experiences. This approach is relevant to the participatory action research approach [17,67], which strengthens the role of adaptation partnerships by enhancing the position of local people affected by climate change distress.

This study suggests that partner organizations must carefully consider which participatory approaches and management strategies are suitable for sharing information to generate common knowledge for adaptation. A previous study also focused on the consideration of adopting suitable participatory approaches [37].

6.4. Multi-Stakeholders in the Adaptation Project and Building Coordination

There was a realization that building communication and coordination is time-consuming. For example, the HI-AWARE project took a comparatively long time to engage stakeholders and build coordination, which reduced the time for the research reports within the timeframes. Some adaptation projects in Sweden had the same difficulties [25]. These scenarios demonstrate that building effective communication and coordination among project partners and other stakeholders remains a challenge, necessitating the development of appropriate strategies. Moreover, there is a need to document what strategies are working well in reducing controversy and what approaches are needed to improve communication for coordination among donors, partners, and affected communities involved in the adaptation projects. Previous studies also emphasized documenting successful communication and coordination strategies from current partnership projects so that they can be applied to improve future multi-stakeholder partnerships [4,19].

6.5. Institutional Development and Transboundary Adaptation Partnerships Towards Sustainability

Tracing the establishment of collaborative partnerships by the HI-AWARE adaptation partnership project, this study found that the HI-AWARE project used the power of experiments to enhance the capacity of global climate action research by knotting the North–South relationship. The HI-AWARE collaborative action research was a form of science diplomacy regarding how the Canadian government works. The cooperation among Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan within the HI-AWARE project is, in a sense, a form of science diplomacy that truly demonstrates collaboration between countries based on better equity in participatory activities.

Although science diplomacy focuses on addressing global issues through building international partnerships, such initiatives often lack ongoing engagement with the community after completing the projects. The trend of such international development practices is that they are intended to expand the projects for further development, allowing the community to reap benefits as best practices for all. However, community members often encounter limitations. For example, in the Bangladesh case under the HI-AWARE, people living in basin areas are severely vulnerable to floods and require more resources; self-help community development strategies rarely prove effective. In this case, riverine areas need help from individuals, non-government organizations, or the private sector on a large scale, either by collaborating with the national governments or international donors. The case study of the HI-AWARE project demonstrated that Bangladeshi project partners attempted to lobby with local government bodies for project expansion after completing the project. The study found that it could not attract attention because the central government rarely focuses on peripheral development. Moreover, governments do not welcome nonprofit organizations involved in multi-stakeholder partnerships, as the operation of such partnerships is different from that of public institutions and processes. More explicitly, multi-stakeholder partnerships move independently, which are broader than the governments’ formal contractual agreements [10]. This situation restricts the non-government organizations from playing a significant role in further development after completing the project. On the other hand, non-governmental organizations cannot afford to extend the project on their own, as they are largely dependent on donor funds [10]. In this case, transboundary multi-stakeholder partnerships should reassess the role, responsibility, and commitment of partner organizations within their own country, even after completing the project.

7. Future Research

This study did not assess further how financial constraints and technical obstacles can be minimized in building flood-resilient houses as output of the HI-AWARE project on a large scale in local areas, and what alternative ecological houses, which are economically viable and locally produced, can be offered to victims. It also did not consider the role of partner organizations, particularly non-profit organizations in Bangladesh, in creating cooperation with national bodies to secure the finance and technology for flood-resilient houses in riverine areas. Future research should focus on this gap; moreover, researchers should be motivated to explore further the institutional development of transboundary partnerships for adaptation projects, creating a connection between international bodies, government bodies, non-government bodies, and affected communities so that all stakeholders not only can ensure equitable participation to produce adaptation strategies, but also focus on adaptation technology with financial availability, and acceptance for best practices towards meeting the sustainable development goals.

8. Conclusions

This study focused on transboundary adaptation partnerships using the case study of the HI-AWARE. It observed partnership form, stakeholder arrangement, coordination pattern, mode of coordination, and the role of partnerships. The results showed that the HI-AWARE transboundary partnership focused on multiple stakeholder partnerships, in which initial stakeholder identification and partnership arrangements were followed by project partners who formed a consortium to meet their interests in the type of adaptation work they wanted to conduct. The institutions then determined the specific leadership role of each partner. The coordination pattern emphasized both vertical and horizontal coordination. In the case of vertical coordination, the donor maintained a top-down pattern in management and monitoring; however, it ensured flexibility in understanding partners and their activities, providing budget adjustment support, technical assistance, field testing support, and conducting surveys to identify challenges and develop strategies for implementing the partnership. On the other hand, consortium partners showed horizontal coordination indicated mutuality among themselves for sharing knowledge and playing leadership roles in synthesizing research reports. These coordination scenarios between donors and partners demonstrated that the mode of coordination largely depended on collaborative initiatives by both donors and partners, resulting in collaborative spaces, research, and management. The results also determined the role of such partnerships, which found that this project facilitated climate action through implementing a pilot program, generating adaptation knowledge on building flood and climate-resilient houses, and offering a learning opportunity to donors and partners on what could be performed further based on this project’s experiences.

Based on the results, this study revealed the importance of understanding the climate adaptation project and the necessity of participation at all levels of stakeholders. Moreover, this study emphasized the application of relevant participatory approaches to ensure participation. It also revealed that international adaptation partnerships lag in collaborating with national governments to enhance the long-term benefits of adaptation technology in local areas.

Nevertheless, this study will contribute to improving the governance of multi-stakeholder transboundary partnerships focused on adaptation. A future transboundary partnership project on adaptation might need to consider key elements of transboundary adaptation governance that the HI-AWARE project applied for carrying out the partnership successfully, which included making coalitions of expert actors, renovating governance arrangements regarding communication and knowledge management strategies for building coordination, monitoring continuously for running the partnership efficiently, generating participatory spaces and an open environment for joint research activities and pilot programs, and finally, creating a broaden collaboration space with national-level government to the extension of the adaptation technology on a large-scale for maximizing the benefits.