Recovery from COVID-19 provides a historic opportunity for giving greater voice to local people — especially women, youth, children, disabled, displaced and marginalised ethnic groups — and putting agency over their own adaptation into their hands. This paper outlines more than five years of action research, including collaborative research and dialogue between IIED, WRI and more than 50 adaptation stakeholders in support of the Global Commission on Adaptation’s Locally Led Adaptation Track.
To support this shift, this research presents eight principles for locally led adaptation and invite adaptation stakeholders to join us on a complementary ten-year learning journey. Endorsing these principles and embracing the learning journey will help guide stakeholders through the challenging route of increasing the business-unusual financing, programming and policy support needed to build resilient and regenerative societies, economies and ecosystems.
This research further provides details the core concepts of locally led adaptation; discusses the problems in business as usual and the solutions offered by business unusual; and proposes eight principles to help stakeholders build an adaptation ecosystem that empowers local actors on the frontline of climate change to lead more adaptation solutions.