The CBA represents the community-based component of the GEF Strategic Priority on Adaptation (SPA). The SPA is an ecosystem-based climate change adaptation fund, designed to support ecosystem resilience in the face of climate change, including variability. The CBA is a global project, implmented as a key component of UNDP-GEF's wider adaptation portfolio.

In addition, the CBA uses an innovative system for monitoring and evaluation, termed the Vulnerability Reduction Assessment (VRA). The VRA uses a system of question-based indicators to assess changes in community-level perception of their own capacity to adapt to changing climate, and forms an index. This focuses evaluation on the priorities of local stakeholders, and allows for monitoring and aggregating over a highly diverse range of countries, communities, and ecosystems while retaining locally specific information.