Community members from Patuakhali, Bangladesh trained faculty members of the Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre on the People’s Adaptation Plan Process and explained how local leadership can make investments in resilience more effective, efficient, and sustainable. This training session took place during a week-long workshop organized by the GCA in Savar, Bangladesh, aimed at developing a course module on locally led adaptation for public administrators across vulnerable sectors in Bangladesh.

The 19th International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change (CBA19) is taking place from 12-16 May 2025 in Recife, Brazil. The CBA conference is a space for sharing lessons on community-based and locally led adaptation (LLA) approaches, and exploring how to put the principles of LLA into practice. This year's conference is focused on how we can achieve just and equitable adaptation. Conference sessions are grouped under the following three thematic areas: (i) LLA in action, (ii) Urban adaptation, and (iii) Nature/adaptation.

The Global Center on Adaptation is organizing a week-long Training of Trainers workshop for faculty members of the Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre, on institutionalizing locally led adaptation (LLA) across sectors in Bangladesh. The workshop initiates a process for developing a comprehensive LLA course module, with support from the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies and the Centre for Participatory Research and Development, which will be embedded in core training programs for Bangladeshi government officials.

A Regional Workshop on Institutionalizing LLA in South Asia was organized by GCA, in collaboration with DanChurchAid, in Kathmandu from 12-14 February 2025. Hosted by the Ministry of Forests and Environment, Nepal, the workshop provided an opportunity for participants from across the region to share challenges, opportunities, and best practices for embedding LLA in national governance systems. Watch the proceedings here.

The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), in collaboration with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Adaptation Fund, will host a meeting to discuss the potential of the Enhanced Direct Access modality in Nairobi, Kenya.

What are development partners, multilateral institutions, and national governments doing, to support LLA? How do communities in Latin America rate climate finance providers, on their performance on LLA? What are farmers in Cambodia and coral gardeners in St Lucia doing, to adapt to climate change?

Find out in the 2024 Stories of Resilience!

As the international community gathered in Azerbaijan for COP29, connected to the work of the Global Hub, the GCA COP29 Leaders Event “Global Champions for LLA” was the Global Center’s flagship event at the United Nations Climate Change Conference at Baku. It served as a celebration of the possibilities of adaptation action led by, and for, communities most affected by the climate crisis and included the presentation of the 2024 Local Adaptation Champion Awards.

GCA hosted a reception to meet with, hear from, and celebrate the winners of the 2024 Local Adaptation Champions Awards. This year the Awards recognized the efforts of local adaptation practitioners in four categories: Food Security, Local Entrepreneurship, Urban Adaptation Solutions, and Water Security.

The Global Hub on Locally Led Adaptation organized a knowledge and experience sharing session on 7 October 2024 for partners who are working with climate vulnerable communities to develop People’s Adaptation Plans with support from GCA.

Community leaders from Mongla shared their experience in developing People’s Adaptation Plans with residents of informal settlements in Kuakata, another secondary city in Bangladesh where the GCA is collaborating with BRAC to facilitate locally led adaptation planning, to inform investments by the Asian Development Bank’s Coastal Towns Climate Resilience Project.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited the GCA booth showcasing the Global Hub on LLA during the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Expo 2024, held in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She also highlighted the GCA’s South Asia Regional Office during her official address to the Expo. 

GCA and BBC Media Action, hosted an experience sharing and completion ceremony in Dhaka, Bangladesh to celebrate the completion of a year-long training program from 40 journalists and 24 young communicators from six climate vulnerable districts in Bangladesh.

The Center for People & Environment (CPE) has issued a call for abstracts in the lead up to the Second South Asia Conference on “Unfolding Emerging Issues in the Context of Changing Climatic Scenario”. The Conference will be held on 2 and 3 November 2024 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The deadline for abstract submissions is 31 August 2024.

The CRPP Partnership Forum 2024 will take place at the Anantara Siam Bangkok Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand from 27th and 28th February, and will spotlight climate risk, poverty reduction and gender equality though decentralization programs and skills development.

The fourth Gobeshona Global Conference will be held virtually from 1-8 March 2024, and focus on the theme of Monitoring Locally-Led Adaptation and Resilience. The annual Conference aims to bring together international partners to explore and share experiences on locally led adaptation, while showcasing diverse implementation methods, progress monitoring, and lessons learned.

This book explores the dynamics of equitable research partnerships, providing practical recommendations to overcome obstacles and forge effective collaborations between academia and diverse communities.

A national workshop on urban flooding in India highlights the imperative of inclusive policies for flood resistance, and the engagement of communities for formulating guidelines and for resource distribution.

The Community Dialogue organized a day before the Africa Climate Summit will seek inputs from community members, on how adaptation finance can not only be doubled by 2025, but also be made more accessible by communities, and flexible and predictable to address their needs more effectively.

At the second planning meeting of the Bangladesh National Platform on Locally Led Adaptation on 17 August 2023, participants discussed a mechanism to promote a "360 accountability" approach that is currently being piloted through the Community Led Innovation for Climate Risk Mitigation project in Cox's Bazaar. The mechanism is focused on tracking LLA finance flows; groundtruthing with metrics and markers; and dialogues to bring together divergent perspectives on LLA.

Communities and local governments need the right information, at the right scale, to inform locally-led adaptation planning processes. How can this best be delivered in ways that are more targeted to local needs, and more accessible and usable by local actors? Communities around the world are collecting data to understand their own risks and vulnerabilities. How can their efforts be recognised and supported? This Roundtable convened community representatives and experts to discuss challenges and opportunities to data available for LLA.

1300-1430 GMT on 14 March 2023

The 2022 GCA Local Adaptation Champions Awards recognize locally led efforts to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change across four categories: financial governance, inclusive leadership, capacity and knowledge, and local innovation. The four winners of the Awards in 2022, from Asia and Africa, shared their work during Gobeshona 2023.     

10:00-11:30 GMT on 16 March 2023

The GCA South Asia Partnership Forum took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 11 December 2022, right after the launch of the Global Hub on Locally Led Adaptation and focused on sharing experiences and lessons on scaling up LLA.

“Our government will extend all possible support to the Global Center on Adaptation and its newly launched global initiative on Locally Led Adaptation," Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said, while launching the launching the Global Hub on Locally Led Adaptation. "We are pleased to have this as yet another offering from Bangladesh for the climate-vulnerable peoples around the world.”

The planning process in Mukuru to improve water management, roads and sanitation shows how locally led action can unlock the enormous potential and creativity of communities to develop and implement solutions, while catalyzing adaptation that is more effective, equitable and better targeted at local needs.

Stories of Resilience: Lessons from Local Adaptation Practice, published by the GCA in collaboration with Independent University, Bangladesh and the International Institute for Climate Change and Development, was launched on 14 November 2022 during COP 27 at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.