A shared vision, clear actions and a growing community: the next 20 years of locally led adaptation starts now
The last 20 years has seen community-based adaptation push itself from the margins towards the mainstream, becoming locally led adaptation. To achieve just climate resilience for all, the next 20-year phase must see more power move into the hands of local communities.
CBA20 participants exchange research and knowledge developed by local communities (Photo: Paul Mitchell, IIED)
After four intensive days at the 20th International Conference on Community-based Adaptation (CBA20) in Manila, the dust is finally settling.
What started 20 years ago in Dhaka as a small gathering of 80 pioneers has blossomed into a global movement of nearly 400 practitioners, community leaders and policymakers from 67 countries.
Yet this milestone anniversary was less about self-congratulation and looking back, and more about the urgent matter of driving locally-led climate action into the heart of policy and practice for the coming 20 years.
The conference’s three core themes reflected the most pressing adaptation challenges of our time:
- Achieving just and equitable adaptation in urban areas, focusing on building the climate resilience of informal settlement communities
- Scaling local level health investments as a critical adaptation response in the context of rising temperatures and escalating threats, and
- Knowledge nexus – combining local, traditional and Indigenous Peoples' knowledge systems with climate science to drive adaptation decision-making.
Finance, gender, decolonisation and equity cut across all sessions, ensuring our technical discussions remained rooted in social justice.
CBA20 brought together 400 practitioners, community leaders and policymakers from 67countries (Photo: Paul Mitchell, IIED)
Grounded
Two days of highly interactive sessions and activities were followed by field trips on day three. Local communities in the Metro Manila area demonstrated innovative adaptation solutions – from urban agriculture to community housing initiatives.
These visits were a vital way of connecting the CBA conference with lived realities, bringing ground-truth and a sense of urgency into the room for day four.
The ‘advocacy shuffle’
The final day brought everyone together to reflect, synthesise and envisage a CBA of the future. We divided into five constituency groups – Indigenous Peoples, local communities, international organisations, and small groups of governments and funders − to identify the messages that most resonated (from CBA20 and the past) and to develop concrete actions to take forward.
Then came the ‘advocacy shuffle’ where each group sent ‘advocates’ to other constituencies to lobby for their priorities. This process of mutual influence forced hard conversations: Indigenous Peoples representatives challenged funders to defend their complex reporting hurdles, while local communities requested governments to co-develop proposals alongside them, rather than simply 'consulting' with them.
Plastic bottles repurposed to grow seedlings at the SEED Philippines Urban Agri-Farm, a pioneering initiative that brings sustainable urban agriculture to a dense metropolitan setting (Photo: Dana Velasco/PACSII)
A roadmap for change
The messages and actions that emerged provide a clear, actionable roadmap for the future of CBA:
Indigenous Peoples: knowledge as the driver. "Adaptation cannot happen without us" was the definitive message, and the call was clear – Indigenous knowledge systems must move from the periphery to the centre of all planning. Local innovations must also be recognised as coming from the communities themselves, serving as the core of just and equitable action. The group also called for a more concrete centring of Indigenous Peoples in all adaptation action and suggested future CBA conferences use the term ‘Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ to highlight this commitment.
Local communities: centring community priorities and data. Adaptation planning must mainstream community priorities, with these priorities forming central pillars – not included as separate workstreams or added on as a footnote. Communities also called for locally-led data to be recognised as legitimate and utilised to back adaptation actions, provided that the data collection is non-extractive and remains useful to the communities themselves.
International organisations: increasing local agency. The key ask was a radical reduction in bureaucratic burden. This includes reviewing and simplifying language to make it more accessible and ensuring local actors have agency and ownership in every stage of the project cycle.
National governments: co-development as standard. Governments committed to mainstreaming local planning. This means governments helping in proposal development and ensuring funding flows directly to communities. The ultimate goal is a government that is primarily accountable to its people.
Funders: streamlining for impact. The donor group acknowledged a simple truth: "We need to make everything easier." Their commitment included moving toward a 'single due diligence passport' and accepting one simple report with common indicators. They recognised the need to support core resilience through overhead funding and to finally scale beyond pilots.
A vision forged in dialogue
As this roadmap emerged, a separate but equally vital process was unfolding. A small group of representatives from each constituency was tasked with forging a shared vision statement for CBA for the next 20 years.
The group checked in regularly with their respective constituencies throughout the day, negotiating feedback and identifying non-negotiable 'red lines'. The result was a powerful commitment to our shared future:
"The CBA conference is a vibrant convening for the locally led adaptation movement of diverse actors that mutually learn and share experiences in order to shift power into the hands of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to enable just, equitable and transformative climate action."
Good progress, but more to do
The room was full, solutions were flowing and energy was high. But panel discussions highlighted gaps. One blank space – the elephant not in the room − were government representatives at CBA20, who were few in number.
Positively, Beth Chitekwe-Biti of Slum Dwellers International noted that many good examples of government action on locally-led climate action already exist, and that CBA would be a good place to showcase them. Yla Gloria Marie Paras from the Manila Observatory added that efforts for scaling up locally-led climate action could be amplified if government, funders and communities work in a more joined-up way.
CBA discussions are a critical source of frontline information. Moving forward, these processes can and should contribute directly to global processes, such as the UNFCCC Global Stocktake − a process whereby countries assess progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, including the Global Goal on Adaptation.
Taking a ‘whole-of-society’ approach − where public, private and civil society actors work together to find adaptation solutions that are coherent and inclusive − is the only way to ensure we are building local resilience sustainably.
The next 20 years starts now. We have the vision, we have the refined actions, and we have the community. Now, let's get to work.
