The paper assesses local adaptive capacity of rural households in three drought-prone districts of rural Sidama using Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance’s (ACCRA) Local Adaptive Capacity Framework (LACF). Randomly selected401 households were approached to collect relevant data on the state of local adaptive capacity. Additional qualitative data were gathered from key informant interviews and focus group discussions so as to substantiate the findings from HHs data. Gridded satellite rainfall data (1983–2014) was also used to examine the trend of growing season rainfall and drought incidents over the years under consideration. The collected data was analysed vis-à-vis the five parameters (livelihood resources, institutions and entitlements, knowledge and information, innovation and technology, and flexible forward looking decision making and governance) of the framework. The findings indicated that growing season rainfall had declined and seven droughts of different magnitude happened over the three decades under consideration. Further, despite government’s endeavor to build adaptive capacity of rural households through different programs, the state of local adaptive capacity to climate change is in its infantile stage entailing further selective intervention to strengthen adaptive capacity in sustainable manner.

本文使用非洲气候变化抗灾力联盟（ACCRA）的地方适应能力框架（LACF）评估了Sidama农村三个易干旱地区的农村家庭的地方适应能力。随机抽取401户家庭，收集有关当地适应能力状态的相关数据。从主要的信息提供者访谈和焦点小组讨论中收集了其他定性数据，以证实HHs数据的发现。栅格化的卫星降雨数据（1983-2014年）也用于检查所考虑年份中生长季节降雨和干旱事件的趋势。根据五个参数（民生资源，机构和权利，知识和信息，创新与技术，以及灵活的前瞻性决策和治理框架）。调查结果表明，在所考虑的三个十年中，生长季节的降雨有所减少，发生了七次不同程度的干旱。此外，尽管政府努力通过不同的计划来建立农村家庭的适应能力，但是当地对气候变化的适应能力处于婴儿期，需要进一步的选择性干预，以可持续的方式增强适应能力。