Climate change can lead to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration and timing of weather extremes, which pose disaster risks to exposed and vulnerable communities. Capacity development is a common disaster risk reduction (DRR) action and a climate change adaptation. There is a knowledge gap on what is involved in and what works in practice of bottom-up approaches to develop DRR capacity that incorporates local ownership, local knowledge and learning. The participatory research described in this paper applied Wenger's conceptual framework for social learning systems to establish a community of practice (CoP) for DRR between 2016 and 2017 in Maruleng Local Municipality, South Africa. Planning documents, event and reflection notes, office reports and artefacts were initially coded based on key concepts of the framework and further coded based on emerging sub-themes. The results showed that the framework provided a useful structure for designing capacity development that emphasises learning and organically integrates local knowledge. Structuring capacity development as a social learning system has the potential to make the CoP's learning effort self-sustaining and shift the focus of capacity development from a specific task to a long-term common interest shared by CoP members. The framework, however, did not provide adequate consideration for institutional challenges such as high leadership turnover and limited political power of the CoP, which impacted alignment, mutuality and membership – all of which are important to sustaining the CoP for capacity development.

气候变化可能导致极端天气的频率，强度，空间范围，持续时间和时间发生变化，从而给裸露的脆弱社区带来灾害风险。能力建设是一项常见的减少灾害风险（DRR）行动和适应气候变化。在自下而上的方法发展DRR能力（涉及本地所有权，本地知识和学习）的过程中，所涉及的内容和在实践中有效的方法之间存在知识鸿沟。本文所述的参与性研究运用了温格（Wenger）的社会学习系统概念框架，在南非Maruleng地方自治市于2016年至2017年之间为DRR建立了实践社区（CoP）。计划文件，事件和反思笔记，办公室报告和文物最初是根据框架的关键概念编码的，而后又根据新兴的子主题进行编码。结果表明，该框架为设计能力开发提供了有用的结构，该能力开发强调学习并有机地整合本地知识。将能力建设构建为一种社会学习系统，有可能使CoP的学习努力能够自我维持，并将能力建设的重点从特定任务转变为CoP成员长期的共同利益。但是，该框架未充分考虑体制挑战，例如高领导层离任和CoP的政治权力有限，这些挑战影响了联盟，互助和成员资格，所有这些对于维持CoP进行能力发展都是很重要的。