CBA13: Local solutions inspiring global action
The 13th international conference on Community-based Adaptation to Climate Change (CBA13) took place in Ethiopia from 1-4 April 2019. It had the theme: "Local solutions inspiring global action'.

A government scheme to employ people to build water management infrastructure has supported Ethiopian smallholders and saved water for growing crops. (Photo: Stephan Bachenheimer / World Bank)
CBA13 brought together practitioners, grassroots representatives, local and national government planners, policymakers and donors working at all levels and scales to discuss how we can drive ambition for a climate-resilient future.
The conference took place on 1-4 April 2019 in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, and offered four days of discussion and debates, skill shares and knowledge exchanges.
Aims
The CBA conference series aims to bring together a community of practitioners who are collectively seeking to reimagine solutions that enable transformative outcomes through the agency of communities driving climate action.
The conferences offer an innovative and interactive space, enabling the CBA network to promote climate action through:
- Inclusive, gender-transformative and meaningful engagement
- Sharing and collaborating around good practice and challenging assumptions
- Drawing on evidence to inform the scalability of effective approaches, and
- Influencing and shaping decision making processes.
Themes
The conference had three key themes:
- Climate finance: what are the mechanisms and enabling environments needed for climate finance to flow at scale to support effective adaptation? This interview further discusses what's in store.
- Adaptation technology: how can long-term and existing, as well as the wave of new and emerging, technologies and practices be harnessed to build resilience? This interview gives a taster of the issues participants will be tackling.
- Policy engagement: how can the wealth of learning generated through widespread experiences of local climate action best inform the policies of the most vulnerable countries? This interview highlights how sessions will challenge existing evidence-to-policy mechanisms and test emerging ones, using examples from real experience.
Key messages
IIED has published the key messages from CBA13, and the CBA community of practice will be working together to bring these messages to global events throughout 2019.
Format
CBA13 featured a mix of sessions in different formats, including:
- Marketplace sessions
- Skill share sessions
- Open space sessions for 'Burning issues' and 'Big ideas'
- Thematic sessions
- Dragons' Den sessions
Parts of the programme was 'crowd sourced': delegates had the opportunity to submit session proposals when they registered. The flexible, participatory format is one of the benefits of this event. What's so good about CBA conferences? Read testimonials from previous participants.
Programme
Coverage and outreach
The CBA conferences are part of an ongoing process that is designed to keep the CBA community of practice engaged throughout the year, and the outcomes from CBA13 will inform our policy engagement during 2019.
In this blog, IIED’s Sam Greene explains how the CBA conferences have evolved, and how the CBA community will seek to engage through policy processes the year round.
Key messages from the 2018 conference in Malawi were carried forward to the Development and Climate Days event at the UN climate talks (COP24) and CBA12 partners helped shape the conversations at the event. We provided full coverage of the conference on social media – read more on our coverage of CBA12.
About the organisers
CBA is organised in partnership, by IIED and CARE, the Climate Justice Resilience Fund, the Global Resilience Partnership, Irish Aid, Practical Action and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.
Contact
If you have any questions about the conference, please email [email protected].