Capacity Strengthening in Least Developed Countries for Adaptation to Climate Change (CLACC)

Advocacy and networking 

The Southern Voices Capacity Building Programme aims to strengthen climate networks in the South in their ability to advocate for climate policies that benefit poor and vulnerable people.  

Since the failure of the UNFCCC climate change talks to reach an ambitious global climate agreement, Southern civil society organisations (CSOs) and networks have continued to mobilise and increase their efforts to generate stronger public attention and influence climate negotiations and policies – at the international level and increasingly also nationally.

To assist in strengthening and consolidating these networks, IIED is a member of the Climate Capacity Consortium of five Danish and two international non-government organizations (NGOs) supporting the Southern Voices Capacity Building Programme, coordinated by CARE Denmark.  The programme is funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA).

The key programme areas are capacity building, advocacy and knowledge sharing. IIED manages ongoing support for networking and advocacy activities by our Capacity Strengthening in Least Developed Countries for Adaptation to Climate Change (CLACC) network with its 15 in-country civil society networks. CLACC is a network of Fellows and international experts from Africa and Asia who work under the auspices of IIED to support Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to adapt to the impacts of climate change.  

Annual attendance at COPs

Over half of CLACC Fellows were invited to join their national negotiating teams at COP17 in recognition of their expertise gained through CLACC and other sources over the years, and the COPs also provide an important venue for conducting national (as well as international) level advocacy: meeting key national contacts, donors, project partners and NGOs. 

Research

A research programme started in 2005. This assessed grass-roots adaptation activities in various sectors (coastal areas, water management, disaster preparedness and response, health, agriculture, forestry etc.), and fed this information into national adaptation planning (including NAPAs) and international decision-making. National and regional workshops consolidated lessons learned in LDCs on adaptation to climate change and the NAPA process. Lessons learned were disseminated at international meetings and through published reports.

The first research topic focused on climate change and health in the LDCs. CLACC partners engaged with in-country health experts, and with support from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) conducted an assessment of key climate change and health issues in their country. This information fed into national adaptation planning (including NAPAs) and international decision-making processes.

Following the research on health, the CLACC programme embarked on a research programme on climate change and cities. This acknowledged the little attention given to how urban areas in the poorer nations will cope with climate change impacts in the years to come. The work involved a mapping exercise to assess where vulnerable areas are and illustrate this on maps. Official city maps do not provide such information. Fellows needed to meet a range of stakeholders in order to assess where key vulnerabilities lie. This research will be followed by a programme of work on the economics of climate change in selected LDCs.

Regional workshops

The CLACC programme has had sufficient experience and knowledge on issues of adaptation to climate change to convene a group of like-minded actors from civil society in the four regions to discuss, brainstorm and plan next steps on the adaptation agenda in their respective regions and countries.

In collaboration with ecbi, four workshops were held in 2008 in West Africa, Botswana, Guinea and Maldives. In 2009 and 2010 workshops were held in Dakar, Senegal, in Johannesburg, South Africa, and in Nairobi, Kenya to bring together national civil society networks operating in West, Southern and Eastern Africa respectively. CLACC partners played a major role organising and attending these workshops, and they reflect a growing acknowledgement in the South of the need to share intelligence, lessons and best ways forward at a regional level for advocacy activities targeting international, regional and national processes.