For locally led adaptation to scale, top-down approaches will not work

For locally led adaptation to climate change to succeed, practitioners are calling for changes that mirror calls for decolonization in the development sector: redefining power dynamics, how knowledge is shared and valued, and how financing should be distributed. Climate adaptation initiatives driven and implemented by local communities have seen a significant increase in recent years. This surge follows the endorsement of the eight Locally-Led Adaptation Principles by over 100 organizations as of November 2022. Despite widespread recognition of the importance of locally led adaptation, or LLA, conventional, top-down approaches mean that implementation continues to fall short. LLA efforts are failing to authentically engage with and support local communities. “A significant disconnect exists between public policymakers and the ground realities faced by frontline communities,” Shajeea Khalid, policy and operations associate at Climate Finance Pakistan, explained. The implications of this disconnection are that adaptation efforts tend to be “‘capitalism-led’ (driven by business needs), rather than ‘locally led’ (driven by the actual needs of communities)," according to Khalid. This in turn has led to a situation where “LLA remains a buzzword,” with little public grounding in practical implementation. The barriers to LLA are widespread and include “a lack of access to necessary funds, limited capacity building, and the absence of enabling policy environments,” according to Patrick Verkooijen, chief executive officer of the Global Center on Adaptation. “Global leaders are finally starting to understand that a top-down approach can never work.” --— Patrick Verkooijen, CEO, Global Center on Adaptation. The movement toward LLA is not just about mitigating the impacts of climate change, it's about transforming the very structures of development to ensure that they are inclusive, respectful, and truly reflective of the communities they serve. Effectively scaling and implementing LLA “requires fundamental shifts in paradigms and structures of development aid programming, humanitarian aid and trade,” according to Shuchi Vora, resilience knowledge coalition lead at the Global Resilience Partnership. How LLA fits into the decolonization of development The push for LLA reflects a broader call to decolonize global development. LLA seeks to redefine power dynamics and prioritize bottom-up approaches in tackling climate change, and in this sense is part of the localization agenda. Using traditional development approaches in adaptation programming can “create pressure for results and the inability to treat root causes while dealing with short-term symptoms,” Vora explained. Many LLA projects have attempted localization from an external standpoint, hindering the genuine engagement needed to strengthen local communities. “Global leaders are finally starting to understand that a top-down approach can never work,” Verkooijen said — and local groups need to be in charge of the recovery and funding for adaptation to climate change. For Verkooijen, scaling LLA means systemic change needs to occur throughout multiple levels, including decentralizing decision-making, shifting funding flows to prioritize local action, creating policies that strengthen local authorities, and integrating traditional knowledge and practices into mainstream adaptation strategies. However, widespread impact is unlikely without shifting from individual changes to systemic transformation as a whole. Vora highlighted that employing systems thinking, an approach that considers the broader relational dynamics within a system, can provide a helpful lens. “It involves working across scales, unraveling system dynamics and patterns, and also fundamentally shifting our own paradigms as actors who are trying to influence a system, using all of these as levers to change structures and mental models at scale,” she explained. Capacity building Limited time and the lack of skills often make managing long-term projects challenging for local communities, according to Verkooijen. He emphasized the need for comprehensive support, including assistance in drafting project proposals, providing information on current and future climate impacts, and facilitating access to funding. A pressing issue is competitiveness and low return-on-time-investment associated with foundation funding, Climate Finance Pakistan’s Khalid explained. “Hundreds of organizations in the Global South spend weeks drafting applications to beg endowments in the Global North for money that there is a high chance these organizations will not get. What is the incentive for any organization to engage in this process?” she said. Khalid is calling for more training programs focusing on adaptation techniques and project management for staff in local organizations — but individuals from the global north should not be the ones to teach local organizations. Instead, Khalid is advocating for the development of solutions within affected countries themselves, suggesting immersive exchange programs and fellowships like the Acumen Impact Fellowship as effective ways to train local leaders. Capacity building holds great potential. Yet, it also needs to be coupled with a broader systemic shift that recognizes the wisdom and expertise already present within local communities and places them as leaders spearheading decision-making. “Globally, we have been used to implementing development aid, humanitarian assistance and trade in a fairly linear, top-down manner,” Vora from the Global Resilience Partnership said. Now, in an LLA setting, she underscores the importance of shifting the role of development professionals and global experts from "knowers" to "facilitators" of solutions. Rethinking finances Any effort toward localization that fails to include the redistribution of finances is ill-founded. For LLA, it is not just the level of funding that needs to be increased — how it is allocated and used needs to be redesigned, Verkooijen stressed. He underscored the need for “better, more accessible, and flexible funding” to effectively scale efforts. Khalid challenges the notion that public financing or international funds such as the Green Climate Fund will adequately address the needs of low- and middle-income countries. She highlighted how Pakistan alone requires $340 billion by 2030 to meet its climate goals, surpassing the second replenishment of the Green Climate Fund, which stands at $13.5 billion, or $51.9 billion including co-financing. Khalid also emphasized the need to address broader systemic issues in finance allocation and prioritization. “At COP28, countries rejoiced at pulling together around $700 Million for the Loss and Damage Fund (in pledges only, not in disbursed funds, which will take years longer to materialize). To put this $700 Million in context, the combined (declared) earnings of three footballers (Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar Jr.) were USD 500 Million in 2023. There is clearly a problem with how public finance moves.” More broadly, Verkooijen emphasized the need to find ways of financing local communities “without creating undue risk for donors.” He underscores the role of the Global Center on Adaptation as a facilitator, which he said can act “as a transmission belt to accelerate People's Adaptation Plans into the existing projects of large financiers, including international finance institutions such as the World Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Asian Development Bank." Private finance also has a role to play, according to Verkooijen, but it calls for mechanisms to de-risk investment in local adaptation projects such as blended finance — which can leverage private investment with public funds to mitigate risk, he said. “This can be particularly effective in local adaptation plans by providing the necessary capital to pilot new approaches that, if successful, can be scaled up,” Verkooijen explained. Dig into Roots for Change, a series examining the push toward locally led development. This is an editorially independent piece produced as part of our Roots for Change series. Click here to learn more.