Institutionalising locally led adaptation
IIED is working to catalyse change within the bureaucracies of governments, climate funds, financial institutions, NGOs and other organisations to increase the accessibility and effectiveness of adaptation funding at local levels, and address major economic, social and environmental challenges and inequity.
Some of the sticky notes posted by participants at the 17th International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation on what the LLA principles mean to them (Photo: Aaron Acuda, IIED)
Local actors and communities who are vulnerable and bear the worst impacts of climate change face significant challenges in implementing locally led adaptation priorities due to rules and requirements that hamper access to climate finance.
Climate finance providers and intermediaries can have burdensome rules and bureaucratic processes that can hinder local adaptation efforts by restricting the flow of funds to local organisations. For more effective locally led adaptation, institutions must go beyond modest changes to existing approaches and instead embrace transformative actions.
What is IIED doing?
IIED is working with climate funders, intermediaries and other stakeholders to implement ‘business-unusual’ approaches – that put local people at the centre of adaptation efforts with more agency – and is engaging in radical partnership models that build trust and redistribute power for locally led adaptation (LLA).
IIED seeks to transform bureaucratic processes, monitoring and evaluation, and more.
These may include ‘non-usual’ stakeholders from the institutions – such as finance, HR and compliance functions – that are key to identifying and shifting towards a more LLA-aligned programming.
IIED is supporting institutions to ensure the realities on the ground for local actors are reflected in institutional processes, which will strengthen trust and better enable a shift to more business-unusual approaches that prioritise support for locally-led action.
This work includes:
- Collaborating with institutions/organisations to institutionalise LLA including the systemic changes required in the ways they work with local actors, and
- Supporting the community of practice to collectively advocate for LLA.
Additional resources
Insight: How to fix funding bottlenecks and pave the way for locally led adaptation, May Thazin Aung, Sousan Suha (September 2024)
Contact
Rojy Joshi ([email protected]), researcher, IIED's Climate Change research group
