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Adaptation has become an unavoidable priority. Failures of historically dominant top-down approaches have prompted a shift towards bottom-up approaches such as community-based adaptation, despite the scholarly lacuna around its effectiveness. This paper has endeavoured to respond to this gap through evaluating how an adaptation project on Aniwa, Vanuatu reduces people's vulnerability. Drawing from interviews and focus groups conducted across three communities on Aniwa, this study explored local perspectives around the appropriateness, effectiveness, equity and sustainability of the project, as well as impacts on livelihoods assets. Specific nuances and differences in perspectives between women and men were also explored. This study found that there were negative outlooks on sustainability, a lack of improvement in natural assets, as well as issues with exclusion based on religion and timings of activities with the daily schedules of women. Factors that support vulnerability reduction, however, included equal participation and benefit among those of Christian faith, appropriateness of the activities to aspects of the socio-cultural context, as well as improvements in several social and human assets. Two overarching recommendations emerged: (1) ensuring in-depth understandings of underlying contexts, and (2) mainstreaming gender considerations. This paper concludes by encouraging further studies that evaluate adaptation in the longer-term.