Health Facility Level Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA)

Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments (VCA) are the cornerstone of Disaster Risk Reduction activities. They allow the identification of risks for which mitigation actions can be undertaken, thus contributing to improving system resilience.

This document describes a methodological approach developed by Climate Action Accelerator for climate vulnerability and capacity assessment at the level of a single hospital or primary care network in low/medium resource and fragile settings. This Climate VCA developed by Climate Action Accelerator is a rapid, mixed methods, multi-stakeholder assessment process consisting of 5 stages. It is designed to be used by health managers and senior health facility staff to generate an ‘adaptation plan’ to enable that facility to become a Climate Resilient and Environmentally Sustainable Health Care Facility (CRESH).

The output of the Climate VCA is a comprehensive matrix showing a list of prioritised climate risks and corresponding solutions of mitigation and preparedness. Once costed and mapped over time, the solutions can be incorporated into a comprehensive health service adaptation plan.

Our Climate VCA has been developed in partnership with Alima, Alerte Santé and Chad Ministry of Health as part of a CRESH pilot project in the Ngouri hospital. Our health programme team is now implementing this approach in other settings. Please reach out if you are interested to partner with us and benefit from our support in applying the Climate VCA in your activities.

Cover photo: Mathurin Napoly/Unsplash