LLA practitioners and beneficiaries of local adaptation efforts featured in the 2023 edition of Stories of Resilience: Lessons from Local Adaptation Practice presented their work on inclusive and transformative adaptation at the local level and reflected on lessons and challenges.
Opening the event, Anju Sharma, GCA’s Global Lead on LLA, emphasized the need for more inclusive global and national systems to address local adaptation needs, stressing: “the global and national systems are just not changing fast enough to respond to [local actors’] needs.” Rather than conforming local actors into existing systems, Sharma advocated for systemic change to better align with local needs.
Mairi Dupar, Senior Technical Advisor of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), followed with a presentation on trends from the 2023 stories, highlighting the resourcefulness of local actors, the emergence of local circular economies, intergenerational collaboration, defense of local and human rights, and integration of indigenous knowledge.
Local practitioners discussed lessons and challenges in implementing adaptation, particularly noting difficulties in accessing sufficient financial support and scaling efforts due to slow responses from global national funding systems.
Contance Okollet, Chairman of the Osukuru United Women's Network, Uganda, and Allan Taman, Chairman of the Santo Sunset Environment Network, Vanuatu, emphasized the significance of savings and loans groups in their communities, given their inability to access formal financial services.
In addition to challenges in accessing funding, discussions centered on climate change awareness at the local level. Nelson Chege, Vice Chair of the Central Imenti Environmental Rehabilitation Programme, Kenya, emphasized the importance of climate change awareness, particularly among young people, for effective climate action. “People will do something if they understand something,” said Taman, echoing Chege.
The session concluded with Dr. Shehnaaz Moosa, CEO of the Climate and Deveopment Network, which partnered with GCA on the 2023 publication, underscoring the significance of these narratives. “The stories are so important because if we look at them and try to draw out the patterns within them, it is very clear that we are dealing with complex systems,” she said.
The Stories of Resilience series documents the triumphs and challenges of local adaptation practitioners. The series relays best practices and learning from locally led efforts, to advance learning and to inspire and inform LLA efforts elsewhere. Targeted at local and global adaptation practitioners, national and sub-national governments, and funders of adaptation action, the series also aims to draw out lessons from local implementation of adaptation for national and global policymaking; and to point to ways of making adaptation more effective on the ground.