Promoting meaningful accountability and transparency for locally led adaptation
There has been a growing ambition to channel more climate finance to local-level climate action in line with the principles for locally led adaptation (LLA). IIED and its partners are developing tools to help stakeholders assess whether their climate change adaptation projects align with the LLA principles.
Scorecards being piloted in Bangladesh (Photo: copyright Ranon Jahan, ICCCAD)
Climate finance for adaptation often does not reach communities at the frontline of climate change. Research in 2025 showed that less than a third of climate finance includes any support for local action and less than 0.2% specifically targets locally-led outcomes.
With increasing interest in locally led adaptation (LLA), it is crucial that new funding comes with more accountability and commitment to the principles for LLA.
What is IIED doing?
IIED and the International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), Fundación Avina, El Centro para la Autonomía y Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CADPI) and Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (FFLA)) are developing indicators to help actors in climate finance delivery chains assess whether adaptation projects align with the LLA principles.
These indicators have been developed to help to assess the LLA practices of donors, intermediaries, local partners and communities.
Understandings of LLA differ based on geographic, cultural, political and other factors. For instance, some Indigenous People’s representatives may see locally-led governance as self-autonomy over their lands rather than existing governance structures.
IIED and partners are creating a series of pilot projects to develop context-specific markers for LLA, using questionaries known as 'scorecards'. We are helping to clarify what it means to be accountable to the LLA principles in the context of climate finance.
Currently, the flow of climate finance can only be traced from international providers to national governments and intermediaries. The data on the amount of finance reaching the local levels is inconsistent with varying reporting methods between providers and data platforms.
IIED’s work on accountability seeks to improve transparency by tracing the flows of climate finance and influencing climate funders to adopt LLA-aligned practices. Additionally, we are conducting research to strengthen our definition of accountability and its mechanisms by drawing from lessons from mutual and bottom-up accountability systems at the local level.
Additional resources
Press release: Less than a third of climate finance even mentions local communities, study suggests (November 2025)
Locally implemented or locally led? Tracking finance for community climate action, Pia Treichel, Rojy Joshi, Edward N. Taylor, Malcolm Ridout, Paul Mitchell, Aaron Acuda, IIED issue paper (2025)
Fair share of adaptation finance in 2025, Clare Shakya, Jonathan Barnes (2022), IIED backgrounder
360-degree accountability: improving climate adaptation finance, May Thazin Aung, Jonathan Barnes, Clare Shakya (2022), IIED backgrounder
Partners
International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
El Centro para la Autonomía y Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CADPI)
Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (FFLA)
Donors
Contact
May Thazin Aung ([email protected]), researcher, IIED's Climate Change research group
