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Climate change increases livelihood vulnerability and exposure to risks around the globe, but these impacts are not equally distributed among different people and places.Among the disadvantaged are persons with disabilities but their inclusion in projects and planning for climate change adaptation is low.Nepal is a challenging but typical context in the global South, where persons with disabilities have limited capacities to demand their basic rights, from secure livelihoods to sanitation, to be respected.Concurrently, (localised) institutions might not have the capacity to protect their constitutional rights.Consequently, while Nepalese policy encourages disability inclusion in adaptation planning, doing so in practice faces manifold political, cultural and social barriers.This chapter examines the conditions for inclusive adaptation based on ethnographic data from development projects run by seven Nepalese NGOs.The results show that democratic governance needs to be enhanced, and that the accountability of state institutions must co-evolve with the resilient livelihood opportunities for persons with disabilities.Inclusive adaptation hinges on creating trade-offs and positive feedback loops by generating opportunities for communal participation, refining evidence for circulation, and enabling scalar linkages between stakeholders and duty-bearers.

DOI: 10.52779/9781991201812/01 openalex: W4280497831