Locally led adaptation in African communities: Insights from practice

This report, Locally led adaptation in African communities: Insights from practice, presents the experiences of practitioners in the CDKN network innovating tailored approaches to LLA across diverse African contexts. These voices are not normally heard in regional and international debates; the report gives them a platform.

Recommendations from the study include: 

• Support communities to advance conversations about climate change in their own language, framed with their own cultural references and dominant concerns, to stimulate a constructive cycle of interest, innovation, learning and action in climate change adaptation.
• Promote LLA action within existing community institutions – formal and informal – that are well used and respected by local people, with a view to sustaining capacity over time.
• Be guided by the diversity of local contexts. Start with community knowledge, priorities and lived experience as the basis for designing and evaluating initiatives. Where relevant, steer funding toward local intermediary organisations that can do this.
• Recognise that vulnerability to climate change, as well as the capacity to lead adaptation, is shaped by intersecting social, economic, and cultural factors that go beyond single factors such as gender or age.