Local communities face the brunt of climate change effects, yet they often lack a say in crucial decision-making processes. It's essential to move away from top-down approaches and adopt a model that empowers local actors with the authority and resources needed to enhance their resilience to climate change. Implementing Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) is crucial to address this challenge effectively.
What is Locally Led adaptation (LLA)?
LLA is a framework built on key principles designed to help communities adapt to climate change. It aims to unlock, support, and harness the vast potential and creativity of communities to devise and implement solutions. By shifting power to local stakeholders—without placing the entire burden of adaptation on them—we can achieve adaptation that is effective, equitable, and transparent.
This approach empowers local actors by granting them decision-making authority over climate funds, leading to solutions that are better suited to local conditions. The LLA approach is guided by eight principles, which have been endorsed by over 120 organizations globally and further supported by numerous partners at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28).
Principles of LLA
The Principles for LLA are designed to steer the adaptation community toward programs, funding, and practices that are increasingly owned by local partners. Through a collaborative community of practice, these organizations will share progress and lessons learned to deepen our understanding of what is necessary for effective and equitable locally led adaptation. The eight LLA Principles were developed by the Global Commission on Adaptation and introduced at the 2021 Climate Adaptation Summit. Here is a brief overview of these principles:
Devolving decision making to the lowest appropriate level: Giving local institutions and communities more direct access to finance and decision-making power over how adaptation actions are defined, prioritized, designed, implemented; how progress is monitored and how success is evaluated.
Addressing structural inequalities faced by women, youth, children, people with disabilities, people who are displaced, Indigenous Peoples and marginalized ethnic groups: Integrating gender-based, economic and political inequalities that are root causes of vulnerability into the core of adaptation action and encouraging vulnerable and marginalized individuals to meaningfully participate in and lead adaptation decisions.
Providing patient and predictable funding that can be accessed more easily: Supporting long-term development of local governance processes, capacity and institutions through simpler access modalities, as well as longer term and more predictable funding horizons to ensure that communities can effectively implement adaptation actions.
Investing in local capabilities to leave an institutional legacy: Improving the capabilities of local institutions to ensure they can understand climate risks and uncertainties, generate solutions and facilitate and manage adaptation initiatives over the long term without being dependent on project-based donor funding.
Building a robust understanding of climate risk and uncertainty: Informing adaptation decisions through a combination of local, traditional, Indigenous, generational and scientific knowledge that can enable resilience under a range of future climate scenarios.
Flexible programming and learning: Enabling adaptive management to address the inherent uncertainty in adaptation, especially through robust monitoring and learning systems and flexible finance and programming.
Ensuring transparency and accountability: Making processes of financing, designing and delivering programs more transparent and accountable downward to local stakeholders.
Collaborative action and investment: Collaboration across sectors, initiatives and levels to ensure that different initiatives and different sources of funding (humanitarian assistance, development, disaster risk reduction, green recovery funds, etc.) support each other, and their activities avoid duplication to enhance efficiencies and good practice.
References
Coger, T., Dinshaw, A., Tye, S., Kratzer, B., Thazin Aung, M., Cunningham, E., Ramkissoon, C., Gupta, S., Bodrud-Doza, Md., Karamallis, A., Mbewe, S., Granderson, A., Dolcemascolo, G., Tewary, A., Mirza, A., & Carthy, A. (2022). Locally Led Adaptation: From Principles to Practice. World Resources Institute. https://doi.org/10.46830/wriwp.21.00142
Danish Instritute For International Studies. (2024, April 9). Locally-led climate change adaptation works: Here are eight ways to support it. https://www.diis.dk/en/research/locally-led-climate-change-adaptation-works-here-are-eight-ways-to-support-it
Global Center on Adaptation. (n.d.). Locally Led Adaptation. Global Center on Adaptation. Retrieved June 7, 2024, from https://gca.org/programs/locally-led-adaptation/
International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD). (n.d.). Locally Led-Adaptation (LLA) Programme. Retrieved June 7, 2024, from https://www.icccad.net/programmes/lla-programme/
Mirza, A. B., Rozario, S. R., & Zahin, C. A. (2023, May). Scaling up locally led adaptation in Bangladesh: Three action areas. IIED. https://www.iied.org/21456iied
Principles for Locally Led Adaptation. (n.d.). Retrieved June 7, 2024, from https://www.wri.org/initiatives/locally-led-adaptation/principles-locally-led-adaptation
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