Key messages:

• Solid evidence from a wide range of geographies, sectors and approaches suggests that locally led adaptation (LLA) is a good investment, generating positive social and economic co-benefits and building communities’ capacity to adapt to climate change.
• The evidence base has limitations and gaps. These include a focus on short-term benefits rather than long-term resilience building, limited comparative analyses, and a critical lack of recognition and documentation of Indigenous and local knowledge on LLA outcomes.
• The report argues that the limited uptake of existing evidence by funders is largely caused by three divides: in underpinning values, ways of knowing (epistemologies), and prevailing practices in used by knowledge producers and funders.
• The report recommends actions to help bridge divides. The recommendations build on a central tenet: Generating evidence on locally led adaptation is valuable for all, and it is essential for enabling transparency, fostering accountability, aiding learning, and strengthening sustainability of adaptation action. Key among the recommendations are:
  • Adaptation funders and host governments should recognize and use existing evidence to channel funding towards locally led adaptation by building on strengths, including Indigenous and local ways of knowing. At the same time, they should provide additional funding to produce evidence by adopting a dual-track approach that serves both their decision-making needs and those of communities.
  • Knowledge producers and other actors on the ground should continue to generate knowledge as an integral part of the adaptation mission and champion such efforts to serve aims beyond funder requirements. They should fill key knowledge gaps and synthesize evidence of LLA outcomes for uptake in national and global assessment processes, focusing particular on ethical co-production and synthesis of Indigenous and local knowledge.

SEI led the report and project with the following partner organizations: 

• the Adaptation Research Alliance
• BRAC Europe
• Caribbean Natural Resources Institute
• Climate Analytics
• International Institute for Environment and Development
• Least Developed Countries Universities Consortium on Climate Change
• PlanAdapt
• SouthSouthNorth
• The University of the West Indies
• World Resources Institute