LAMA Platform

African communities are among the most severely impacted by climate change, with about 50% of its 1.5 billion vulnerable people relying on farming, a climatically sensitive sector, for their primary livelihood. Coping strategies include developing local adaptation actions supported by National Adaptation Plans of countries and partners.

Global and national policies and strategies are keen to deploy locally led and inclusive adaptation (LLA) actions to combat vulnerabilities faced by these communities (GEF, 2011). The LLA approaches promote locally embedded climate action, including decision-making, technology adoption, financing, and actions tailored to specific vulnerabilities within communities (Soanes et al., 2017). During COP 26, Parties agreed to increase adaptation funding to US$50 billion annually, to scale up adaptation for the most vulnerable communities, including women and marginalized people.

Despite growing interest in accelerating LLA, evidence on effective interventions, vulnerability-specific approaches, and investment opportunities remains scarce. This gap is primarily due to the absence of dedicated bottom-up indicators or community-led frameworks and metrics. Such tools are essential for: i) aligning the priorities of diverse social groups, particularly the vulnerable and marginalized, with policy and investment opportunities; ii) measuring and reporting the effectiveness of LLAs in addressing intersectional vulnerabilities; and iii) linking lessons learned to national adaptation plans, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and the Global Goal on Adaptation. Without a clear understanding of key indicators of local resilience, resources may be misallocated, hindering progress towards a more resilient future.

While various frameworks exist for measuring adaptation, including those for business, development, and general LLA principles (such as the International Platform for Adaptation Metrics, or IPAM), these often adopt a broad, top-down approach. Such frameworks may lack the granular detail necessary to address specific vulnerabilities and resilience aspirations through targeted research and investments, or to strengthen local leadership. Although local context is crucial in any metrics framework, there is a compelling case for developing metrics that can aggregate local information to inform national and international priorities and evaluations. This is essential for bridging the gap between adaptation needs and investment.

Africa currently hosts numerous adaptation interventions and projects, each with varying degrees of research and practice focus, including adaptation evaluation. These projects typically develop their own assessment and metrics frameworks, often limited in scope to the project's sector or type. As a result, evaluations are confined to the project period, and findings are rarely shared or integrated into broader national or international frameworks. Furthermore, these interventions and projects operate in isolation, hindered by geographical, linguistic, ethnic, sectoral, and disciplinary disparities, as well as the diverse range of environmental and climate challenges.

Under the IDRC-funded Locally Led Adaptation Metrics for Africa (LAMA) project, ARIN proposes establishing a LAMA Platform. This platform will foster learning and consolidation of locally led adaptation indicators across Africa. By convening stakeholders engaged in LLA initiatives, the platform will facilitate the sharing of experiences, tools, and indicators, ultimately developing locally led and inclusive frameworks and data to inform the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and the Global Stocktake (GST).