Promoting Pro-Poor Adaptation to Climate Change

Locally Led Adaptation & Resilience

Southern Voices’ new report summarizes the experiences and the key tools used by civil society organizations in their previous two-years of climate policy advocacy.

This leaflet shares the experiences and tools used by SV-Adapt partner networks in their adaptation advocacy to build resilient communities and enhance national-to local-level adaptation governance using the Joint Principles for Adaptation.

The publication presents 14 case studies, with real examples from civil society actors, on advocacy solutions to the three key obstacles faced when establishing adaptation frameworks that enable poor communities to build resilience: (1) a shortage of resources; (2) a shortage of official support; and (3) a shortage of shared knowledge.

The toolbox for adaptation advocacy

The leaflet also presents the tools used by partners throughout the project. Those used by Southern Voices on Adaptation (SVA) include:

1. The Joint Principles for Adaptation – a set of principles developed by civil society to promote, monitor, and guide advocacy for pro-poor adaptation frameworks
2. The National Adaptation Policy Assessment Tool – a tool used by a number of partners to “score” the adaptation policy frameworks, such as National Adaptation Plans, and their progress in achieving improvements
3. The Influencing Strategy – used by partners to map-out the opportunities, risks, and assumptions in their policy context, helping to guide their advocacy to maximize results and achieve their desired outcomes.

An invitation

Most importantly, this report serves to engage, entice, and inspire new actors to pick up and mold the Joint Principles on Adaptation (JPA) approach to their goals. Demonstrated by the numerous examples and varied contexts where the JPA have helped civil society throughout the Global South, the opportunity for further experimentation has never been better.