Vanuatu is highly vulnerable to climate change and disaster risks, such sea level rise, storm surges, landslides, flooding, and drought. The Santo Sunset Environment Network (SSEN) is an Indigenous-led network of community champions working for climate-resilient and socially just development on the island. SSEN has supports and empowers individuals, villages, and communities to implement sustainable development strategies in keeping with traditional livelihoods.

Satou Secka, Awa Ndow and their female neighbours in the village of Kataba Omar, are taking the lead in a revolution. Amid the dusty dry lands of their water-starved rural community in The Gambia, the women have transformed the land with a solar irrigation project, producing high-value crops that are boosting nutrition levels for their families, generating a new income for the women and fuelling a new age of budding entrepreneurialism.

In the Rubaga Division of Kampala, where 78% of residents live in slums, climate-related damages fall heavily on women and girls. Originally focused on healthcare support and economic empowerment initiatives, the Lungujja Community Health Caring Organization (LUCOHECO) recognized a need to expand their focus to address sustainable development issues. Today, LUCOHECO engages in livelihood support, care provision to vulnerable families, advocacy and outreach and training of women and Community Health Workers.

Biochar, a form of charcoal used to lock up carbon and fertilize soils, offers a promising solutions to air pollution and health issues caused by slash-and-burn agriculture. The Older People’s Clubs (OPCs) in Chiang Mai, Thailand, is producing biochar as a way of addressing these environmental and health-related issues. For OPCs, biochar is a way to manage green waste, transfer knowledge to younger farmers, and tackle air pollution in Chiang Mai, while creating opportunities for additional income.

Mikoko Pamoja, a community-based organization from Gazi Bay, Kenya, was founded in response to growing deforestation of essential mangrove forests by the timber industry. The community in Gazi Bay, Kenya, is leading the way in showing the world how to reap the immense benefits of mangroves without their destruction. In response to the deforestation of essential mangrove forests, the Mikoko Pamoja organization, has pioneered the world’s first conservation project to link mangrove forests to the global carbon market and won the 2017 Equator Prize for their efforts.

Due to recurring floods that have devastated fields and ruined crops, men in Osukuru, Uganda, often leave the community to seek jobs in the cities. Without secure opportunities for income, many women and girls are forced to turn to the sex trade and are subject to violence and illness. The Osukuru United Women's Network (OWN) was founded to empower women economically, socially, and psychologically, and to mitigate flood and drought risks. A force of more than 2,000 women helping each other, OWN has initiated savings and loan associations, and supported women to develop productive, climate-resilient kitchen gardens.

Sylvia Kuria, an organic farmer from Kiambu County in Kenya, is catalyzing a local movement for farmers to embrace agroecological methods, with minimal chemicals and more efficient water management, to tackle erratic rainfall patterns and water scarcity in the region.

2023 Local Adaptation Champions Award Winner

In Oaxaca, Mexico, Espacio de Encuentro de las Culturas Originarias, A.C. focuses on adaptation to climate change at the local level in highly vulnerable communities. Communities are benefiting from affordable, relevant, and innovative ecotechnologies that make them better able to adapt to extreme weather events.

2023 Local Adaptation Champions Award Winner

In Bangladesh, the Local Government Initiative on Climate Change (LoGIC) is enhancing communities’ ability to plan and finance local adaptation actions that suit their needs and contexts. Through this project, Local Government Division, Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-Operatives, Government of Bangladesh provides a mechanism for accessing and managing climate finance from various sources, a platform for sharing best practices and lessons learned, and a system for monitoring and evaluating effectiveness and impact.

2023 Local Adaptation Champions Award Winner

In northern Tanzania, the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) enhances indigenous pastoralist women’s leadership capabilities to build women’s capacity to achieve equality as decision-makers in pastoralist societies.

The Songtaaba Association from Ouagadogou, Burkina Faso, is a local collective comprised mainly of women. Fed up with the fast-growing piles of garbage where they live, members of the association decided to take matters into their own hands and started an initiative to reclaim garbage from the streets and convert it into sustainable products for local markets. By doing so, they have also created stable jobs for those most in need.

In 2002, Irene Walimbwa, a local advocate and champion of women and youth empowerment from the Mount Elgon Community in Uganda, mobilized a group of vulnerable women and young farmers to start a savings association for small business support. Early successes focused on livestock husbandry, but this work soon led to the idea of starting a company to process bamboo products to ease these local tensions and advance sustainable development in the Mount Elgon region

The Drip Pool Irrigation Program initiated by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme – India (AKRSP-I), is a locally led initiative developed by and for farmers, to help them mitigate climate risks and enhance agricultural productivity. By combining technology, finance, and community collaboration, the program has enabled small and marginal cotton farmers in the Surendranagar, Rajkot, and Morbi districts to adopt drip irrigation and build resilient farmer institutions.

Farmers in Rangpur have started early planting of winter vegetables to avert potential crop damage due to cold weather extremes. Pesticide use has reduced as a result, and farmers are now earning more profits than before. The local agriculture extension office has been providing necessary awareness and training on the benefits of early planting, and more and more farmers are beginning to adopt this practice.

Unpredictable rainfall patterns, flash floods along with incidence of drought conditions due to climate change, are adversely affecting farmers and fisherfolk in the northern district of Kurigram. To address the issue, locals, with support from the Bangladesh Water Development Board have started reclamation and rehabilitation of abandoned canals in the area. Fisherfolk now have new spaces for cultivating fish, while farmers are growing seasonal crops along the banks and using the water to irrigate their fields during dry season.

Majority of the people living along the banks of Teesta and Brahmaputra River in the northern areas of Bangladesh are engaged in fishing for their livelihoods. Howeever, irregular rainfall and untimely floods due to climate change are hampering the regular breeding and production of local species of fish. Faced with huge losses, many fishermen had to sell off their own boats, and forced to join bigger fishing groups for only half as much income as before. Left with no choice, several of them had to migrate to other places.

Irregular rainfall, untimely floods, extreme heat and droughts are the major climatic hazards experienced in the northern districts of Bangladesh. As a result, agriculture using traditional methods and techniques have become very difficult. To cope with the situation, local farmers have devised innovative ways to deal with the issue, including early planting as well as use of polytunnels and short duration crop varieties, allowing them to grow vegetables all year round.

Lazina Begum, resident of Musallipara village in Kurigram, has started practicing ‘sack gardening’ on raised beds, as an innovative approach to protect her crops during flood months. Her once-submerged land has now transformed into a thriving garden, boasting a variety of vegetables including ginger plants, pointed gourds, long beans, and an array of leafy greens. The raised bed method and sack gardening not only shield her crops from the recurrent floods, but have also become a source of substantial income for her.

For the past couple of decades, salinity levels in water and soil have been gradually rising in Bagerhat, forcing people to quit agriculture and start practising shrimp farming. However, due to extreme heat and irregular rainfall in recent years, the number of virus attacks on shrimp farms have increased, causing huge losses for the farmers. In response, several farmers have opted for crab farming which proved to be more profitable than shrimp farming.

Md. Abu Taher, a young farmer from Gaibandha is growing BRRI-52 rice, a flood tolerant variant of rice. With training and support from the local agriculture extension office, other farmers like Taher are also using this rice variant to sustain their livelihoods in the face of erratic rainfall patterns caused by climate change.

For the past 20 years, Faruk had been ‘hilsa’ fishing in Meghna river to earn a living. However, several Chars (riverine islands) have emerged along the river in recent years, significantly restricting upstream migration of ‘hilsa’ population. Over 165,000 fishermen living in Bhola district have been affected as a result. However, Faruk had not given up. As an alternative, he adopted cage culture to cultivate tilapia and other freshwater fish.

Irregular rainfall due to climate change poses an array of challenges for agricultural production in the northern district of Gaibandha. Irrigation costs is one of tge major issues facing farmers in the region. To cope with this, local farmers have started using solar irrigation pumps for their agricultural purposes. Their production costs have fallen by over 30% as a result. The practice is becoming increasingly widespread in the region, with almost 3000 farmers across Gaibandha using solar irrigation pumps now.

Tulatoli Colony, situated in Ward no 5 of Monpura Island in Bhola, is home to around 100 families. Due to its low elevation and absence of embankments, the colony is frequently flooded during cyclonic storms and tidal surges. In response, families are building their homesteads and toilets on raised platforms to prevent inundation during floods.

Rehana Khatun had been living in Porar Char of Kurigram for the last 12 years, until a devastating riverbank erosion last year swallowed the entire Char. Losing her home and all her belongings, Rehana moved to the nearest YouthNet Char with her family. With training and financial support from a local youth-led organization called YouthNet, she bought a sewing machine and took up tailoring to earn a living. She is now earning enough to provide for her family.

Char (riverine islands) areas situated along the Teesta river in the northern district of Gaibandha are frequently subjected to riverbank erosion, resulting in significant loss of land and property. To combat this issue, local residents of Bhati Kapshia Char in the Sundarganj upazila of Gaibandha have collectively planted 4000-5000 trees of various species, including banana trees and vetiver grass, across a stretch of 1.5 kms along the riverbank. Erosion has substantially reduced since. Local authorities believe that this collaborative initiative could serve as a model for protecting other Char areas across the country.