Climate Adaptation Research & Development

Climate adaptation research and development.

Kubalo Labs is a research & development company investigating the incentives, digital systems, and financial architecture at the centre of large-scale landscape conservation initiatives.

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Working in collaboration with TNCGIZWWFWARMAWURUNZAMGEE

The problem

Landscape degradation is an economic problem.

Declining water flows, soil productivity, and ecosystem function translate into real losses. Nature-based Solutions solve that. Yet development programs often fail to move past short project cycles.

What motivates and sustains adoption?

We assess how international development programs design and implement landscape interventions with a focus on:

  • Cash for Work, Payments for Ecosystem Services, carbon rewards, by-laws, norms, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and community vs individual
  • Incentive mechanisms that embed in multi-level institutions
  • Governance structures that persist into the long term

Current traction

We gather data from on-going landscape restoration programmes as they are being designed and implemented

We analyse case studies to conduct analyses on incentives, digital systems, institutional arrangements, and finance mechanisms.

The Kafue Water Fund

A pioneering payment-for-ecosystem-services mechanism linking upstream land restoration to downstream water security across Zambia's most critical river basin. Its success depends on resolving foundational questions in governance, blended finance, and digital monitoring — making it a high-stakes test of whether NbS can become durable infrastructure. We are examining the NbS implementation approaches to generate evidence that will inform on-going adaptive governance of the Water Fund.

Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration National Scaling Strategy

Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration represents one of the most cost-effective and farmer-driven restoration approaches available. World Vision's national scaling effort offers a rare opportunity to observe how a proven field practice interacts with local institutional mechanisms, financing structures, and policy opportunities at national level. We are analysing this process to extract evidence on adoption drivers, incentive design, monitoring systems, and the institutional conditions that determine how national strategies can deliver more effectively.

Field Notes

Stories from the Field.

Learn with us as we test ideas in the field.

Incentives

Which incentives work, for who, where and for what? p

A note on livelihood dynamics and what actually changes farmers' behaviour.

 Digital systems

The rise and fall and rise of the Dashboard

Why tools fail when they are not embedded in institutions.

 Water Funds around the worlde

Learn more about how Water Funds work

Water funds, tariffs, green finance, and valuing ecosystem services.

Next step

Connect with Us.

Discuss collaboration, stay informed, or follow the fieldwork.

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