The impacts of climate change are already being felt around the worldi. Vulnerable and marginalized communities are disproportionately being affected, and these impacts will increase in magnitude and intensity in the coming yearsii. An inclusive response is therefore needed to accelerate climate action, bearing in mind that local communities have a key role to play in leading adaptation effortsiii. The Step Change Initiative, which is a Canada-Netherlands partnership aimed at driving equitable and inclusive locally led adaptation is therefore focusing on priority adaptation areas and responding to critical capacity strengthening needs of these vulnerable communities.
The initiative enhances the integration of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion(GESI) in policies and practice to achieve climate-resilient development; supports the implementation of Ecosystem-Based Adaptation(EBA) to build the resilience of climate-affected communities; improves access to equitable finance for climate
resilient development that enables locally led solutions; strengthens the capacity of climate knowledge brokers to support Locally Led Adaptation(LLA) and enhances the capacity of key actors to use knowledge and implement locally led adaptation. The Step Change initiative aims to improve the quality of life and resilience of the most climate-affected people, by creating a vibrant, capacitated and impactful community of actors driving locally led adaptation.
To achieve this, the initiative is supporting several projects across the world, with seven of them being supported across Africa, to grow the number of organizations closing knowledge to action gaps and driving Locally Led Adaptation. They include:………….