working paper

Locally Led Adaptation

From Principles to Practice

Tamara Coger Ayesha Dinshaw Stefanie Tye Bradley Kratzer May Thazin Aung Eileen Cunningham Candice Ramkissoon Suranjana Gupta Md. Bodrud-Doza Ariana Karamallis Samson Mbewe Ainka Granderson Glenn Dolcemascolo Anwesha Tewary Afsara Mirza Anna Carthy
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Appendix A: Locally Led Adaptation Case Example Profiles

Local on-granting and on-lending in Namibia via the Environmental Investment Fund

About: The EIF was created by an act of Namibia’s parliament and has been one of the most successful national institutions in accessing climate finance from entities like the Green Climate Fund to distribute funds to the local level. It is the only accredited entity in Namibia and currently implements four GCF adaptation projects.

Timeframe: 2012–present

Funding information: Varies depending on type of project. Empower to Adapt’s Resilient Grant Facility has three investment windows for grants up to US$400,000. Funding has come from multiple sources including the GCF.

How it is different from business as usual: Funds go directly to legally registered community-based entities, whereas typically civil society in Namibia acts as an intermediary. The fund was designed with the needs and interests of the local communities in mind, with funding from the GCF establishing a Resilient Grant Facility under the Empower to Adapt project to provide funds directly to communities.

Sources: Aribeb 2021; EIF Namibia PMU 2022.

Strengthening forest management in Mali with Tree Aid and Sahel Eco

About: Tree Aid and Sahel Eco used funds from the Darwin Initiative to implement a project to protect and restore biodiversity while increasing household incomes. The project’s activities included forest protection through natural resource management best practices, planting of indigenous tree species, and capacity building to manage two local forests. The project also established two types of locally owned structures for nature-based solutions: Village Tree Enterprises (VTEs), which are small, collectively run businesses based on non-timber forest products (NTFPs), and local forest management committees.

Timeframe: 2017–2020

Funding information: An initial investment of £30,000 set up the VTEs, and £31,000 set up local forest management committees. The Darwin Initiative provided funding.

How it was different from business as usual: The structures established by the VTEs and forest management committees help address some fundamental challenges of climate vulnerability. In Mali, excluded groups that do not own sufficient land cannot access credit from microfinance institutions to undertake economic activities. VTEs filled this gap by enabling those excluded from access to finance to build strong local entities, allowing them to increase incomes from NTFPs. In addition, these structures improved women’s participation in managing and accessing forests and their products to generate income. Women from poorer households were particularly targeted so that they could meaningfully participate in the VTEs and local forest management committees. Since these structures were established, most women have reported a moderate or equal ability to choose how to spend their own income. After project activities were completed, most beneficiaries believed they had fairer and more equal access to local forest resources.

Sources: CAN-UK 2021; Tree Aid 2020.

Empowering grassroots women’s networks to build resilient communities in India with Swayam Shikshan Prayog via the Huairou Commission’s Community Resilience Funds

About: Swayam Shikshan Prayog is an NGO committed to empowering grassroots women’s organizations to transform community development. SSP used resources from the Huairou Commission’s Community Resilience Funds to help women expand their livelihoods and generate income options in the areas of sustainable agriculture, natural resource management, and disaster-proof infrastructure.

The Community Resilience Funds provided women access to modest financing starting at $100 to improve their climate resilience by setting up vegetable gardens, planting trees, installing low-cost toilets, and a range of other activities.

Timeframe: 2010–present

Funding information: SSP receives funds from Huairou Commission’s Community Resilience Funds annually and leverages these to expand funds available to grassroots women’s groups.

SSP partners with federations of women’s savings and credit groups to design grassroots women-friendly systems to manage and monitor CRF operations. Federation leaders who oversee CRF operations also appoint decentralized monitoring groups. These local monitoring groups make regular field visits to monitor fund use and mentor CRF recipients.

Source: Gupta 2013.

Urban Poor Funds through Slum Dwellers International, with an in-country example of the Gungano Urban Poor Fund in Zimbabwe

About: The Urban Poor Funds from Slum Dwellers International support priorities of the urban poor through capital grants by aggregating slum dwellers’ own savings using revolving funds for sustainable slum upgrading. The Urban Poor Funds have increasingly emphasized urban climate resilience over time.

One in-country example of the Urban Poor Funds is the Gungano Urban Poor Fund, which provides loans to poor urban households in Zimbabwe that cannot access other financial services. The fund aims to develop a scalable and replicable finance model to partner with national and local governments to upgrade informal settlements.

Timeframe: 1999–present

Funding information: The fund has accumulated $804,000 in savings since 2009. Slum Dwellers International’s Urban Poor Funds have provided support.

How it is different from business as usual: The fund provides ease of access for poor households in a way that international funds do not. Funding decisions on loans are built around women-led daily and/or weekly community meetings. Ninety percent of the fund’s membership are women. In addition, risk mitigation rules are designed by the community rather than an international funder. To manage the loan risk for individuals’ home improvements, loans are given to groups of individuals, organized into “solidarity loan groups.” The fund also reaches the urban poor where access to funding from traditional sources such as banks is limited, thereby filling a much-needed gap in finance.

The fund is also flexible in its programming and learning. When Zimbabwe experienced hyperinflation in 2008, its members developed a system called dombo to dombo (stone for stone) where they accepted payment in material supplies instead of cash.

Sources: Soanes 2018; Mudimu 2021; Masimba 2021.

Community Resilience Funds and making decentralization work through grassroots efforts, YAKKUM Emergency Unit, Indonesia

About:YAKKUM Emergency Unit is an Indonesian NGO focused on building resilient communities. Since 2015 it has steadily invested in grassroots women’s leadership in building resilience. Huairou Commission’s Community Resilience Funds were used by YEU to provide grants help women organize waste banks, rice banks and other resilient livelihoods activities, and negotiate with government. To date, the grants have supported more than 60 women’s groups 44 villages to advance their community resilience work.

Timeframe: 2015–present

Funding information: Each women’s group receives approximately $1,000–2,000 from YEU which come from the Huairou Commission’s Community Resilience Fund.

How it is different from business as usual: The Community Resilience Funds enabled women, living in disproportionately vulnerable communities, to participate in local decision-making and design bespoke climate solutions. Ongoing resilience building activities resourced through the Community Resilience Funds include the public demonstration of resilience practices and assessment of vulnerabilities. These experiences inform the priorities women bring to local disaster management committees and local DRR platforms for disaster preparedness and planning. Also, grassroots women’s risk and vulnerability assessments bring up-to-date, localized knowledge of the disaster vulnerable groups and households—frequently left out of government databases- to village disaster planning processes.

Sources: Gupta 2017; Warsilah and Pattinama 2021; Huairou Commission 2018.

The County Climate Change Fund using devolution in Kenya through the national Treasury and ADA Consortium

About: Under Kenya’s Climate Change Act of 2016, county governments became key implementers of national climate change policy. The County Climate Change Fund is integral to implementing this vision of devolved climate action. It is a mechanism through which counties can build climate-resilient communities and reduce climate vulnerabilities. The CCCF has been piloted successfully in five counties, and its expansion is a priority in Kenya’s National Climate Change Action Plan (2018–2022).

Timeframe: 2019–present

Funding information: Typically, the CCCF requires a commitment of 1–2 percent of counties’ development budgets.

How it is different from business as usual: While a business-as-usual approach is typically top down, the CCCF has a unique governance mechanism that puts in place checks and balances to ensure that decision-making is appropriately devolved.

Ward committees are a central pillar in governance, and their members are elected by communities to represent their needs. Ward committees are responsible for consulting with local communities and investing in climate action that reflects local needs. Power is maintained at the ward level and lower-county or higher-level government committees are prevented from vetoing decisions made at the ward level.

The principle of downward accountability is also reflected in the CCCF’s funding structure. Ninety percent of the fund is invested in climate. Currently, 70 percent is earmarked for subnational investment at the ward level; 20 percent at the county level; and 10 percent for consultation, proposal development, and monitoring and evaluation costs.

Sources: Orindi 2021; Crick et al. 2019.

Supporting displaced people in Bangladesh via the Climate Bridge Fund, BRAC Bangladesh

About: The Climate Bridge Fund was established by BRAC and provides direct financing to registered NGOs in Bangladesh to support projects that address issues faced by those displaced by climate change.

Timeframe: 2019–present

Funding information: €12 million with support from KfW.

How it is different from business as usual: The fund is unique in that its support targets the needs of those displaced by climate change, helping to ensure that some of the groups most vulnerable to climate change have funding access.

The fund has a requirement that proposal implementers and beneficiaries engage in dialogue during the application process—an effort to bridge the disconnect that typically occurs between these groups to help ensure that local needs are more strongly considered in climate actions.

Sources: BRAC 2020; Rabbani et al. 2021; Hridita 2021.

Community on-granting through the Community Adaptation Small Grants Facility in South Africa via the South African National Biodiversity Institute and SouthSouthNorth

About: YAKKUM Emergency Unit is an Indonesian NGO focused on building resilient communities. Since 2015 it has steadily invested in grassroots women’s leadership in building resilience. Huairou Commission’s Community Resilience Funds were used by YEU to provide grants help women organize waste banks, rice banks and other resilient livelihoods activities, and negotiate with government. To date, the grants have supported more than 60 women’s groups 44 villages to advance their community resilience work.

Timeframe: 2015–present

Funding information: Each women’s group receives approximately $1,000–2,000 from YEU which come from the Huairou Commission’s Community Resilience Fund.

How it was different from business as usual: The Community Resilience Funds enabled women, living in disproportionately vulnerable communities, to participate in local decision-making and design bespoke climate solutions. Ongoing resilience building activities resourced through the Community Resilience Funds include the public demonstration of resilience practices and assessment of vulnerabilities. These experiences inform the priorities women bring to local disaster management committees and local DRR platforms for disaster preparedness and planning. Also, grassroots women’s risk and vulnerability assessments bring up-to-date, localized knowledge of the disaster vulnerable groups and households – frequently left out of government databases- to village disaster planning processes.

Sources: Soal et al. 2021; Schäfer et al. 2014; Merrill and Soal 2021; Merrill 2021.

Grants to Indigenous peoples’ organizations through the Pawanka Fund, a regional Latin American and global example

About: Created as a Global Indigenous Fund as part of the United Nations World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, the Pawanka Fund is led by Indigenous peoples around the globe, involving more than 300 local partners from nearly 60 countries. Funds seek to strengthen, protect, and enhance distinct cultural institutions, Indigenous worldviews, customary laws, and governance systems.

Partners also have direct funding and have full control over the funding decisions. Funding also comes with flexible requirements for reporting.

Timeframe: 2014–present

Funding information: Grants are typically around $10,000–$50,000 per project through support from the NoVo Foundation, Christensen Fund, Swift Foundation, Tamalpais Trust, and others.

How it is different from business as usual: The fund takes a highly collaborative approach and considers all partners as part of a global community of Indigenous peoples. This is different from typical top-down approaches that create an unequal power dynamic between funder and recipient. The fund believes it can support Indigenous peoples in their own empowerment process rather than believing that the fund is empowering them. Pawanka works in philanthropy networks to change the paradigm and power relations between partners and funders.

Peer-to-peer learning exchanges are implemented across partners to share challenges, threats, and solutions for climate action. Additionally, Pawanka Fund’s due diligence is set by Indigenous representatives and is based on cultural criteria in contrast to the financial and legal criteria set by other donors. These criteria require applicants to prove, for instance, that they are committed to supporting the well-being of those in the community and gender social equity.

The approach to grantmaking is collaborative and the fund supports applicants by mentoring them in the design, implementation, and monitoring of projects. It also provides technical assistance to partners so they can meet legal and financial requirements.

Sources: Pawanka Fund 2021; Lopez 2021.

Civil society on-granting via the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, Caribbean Region, facilitated by CANARI

About: The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund’s Caribbean Islands program, implemented with the support of the Caribbean intermediary CANARI, provides rapid and flexible financing to civil society to protect biodiversity and critical ecosystems.

In its role as the Regional Implementation Team, CANARI supports civil society organizations to design, implement, and replicate successful conservation projects at all scales; it also manages and monitors small grant awards. During its first Caribbean investment from 2010 to 2016, CEPF awarded 77 grants totaling around $6.9 million.

Timeframe: Phase I: 2010–2016; Phase II: 2021–2026

Funding information: Small grants are under $50,000, and large grants are greater than $50,000. The CEPF is a joint initiative of l’Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, the European Union, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan and the World Bank. The CEPF Phase II investment in the Caribbean Islands Biodiversity Hotspot is financed through the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund–Caribbean Hotspot Project of the World Bank, using funds provided by the Government of Japan.

How it is different from business as usual: CCEPF and CANARI place a strong emphasis on building long-term institutional and technical capacity within civil society organizations in the Caribbean. Grants, therefore, often include a capacity building component, regardless of the technical focus. CANARI strives to help CBOs access and manage funds, facilitating local capacity-building relationships with intermediaries, where necessary.

Additionally, CEPF and CANARI seek to ensure that Caribbean regional and local civil societies are the main beneficiaries of the grants. During the 
Phase I investment, for example, 78 percent of funds went to regional and local Caribbean CSOs.

Sources: CANARI 2012; Granderson 2022.

Gran Chaco Proadapt and Redes Chaco network’s locally led model for climate information and early warning

About: Gran Chaco Proadapt is an initiative providing flood early warning and climate information services to support the climate resilience of communities in the Gran Chaco region, which encompasses parts of Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. The initiative is a collaboration among civil society organizations, local private sectors, local governments, and national and international climate funders.

Timeframe: 2017–present

Funding Information: Gran Chaco Proadapt is supported by the Avina Foundation in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank and the Nordic Development Fund.

How it is different from business as usual: Gran Chaco Proadapt is driven by a very active grassroots network of community organizations in the Gran Chaco region called Redes Chaco. It is founded on Redes Chaco’s extensive efforts to build trust among its members, which include farmers’ associations, women’s collectives, youth groups, Indigenous handicraft-makers, and local authorities, as well as with partners. This trust-building took time but provided a foundation for Gran Chaco Proadapt to be an effective locally led platform. Gran Chaco Proadapt entails measures to support local agency and address barriers to accessing and using climate information that local communities may face. These include a map-reading literacy program, creative use of communications applications like WhatsApp and Telegram, and establishment of women-led digital centers in remote regions to facilitate connectivity and digital literacy training for women. Redes Chaco and Gran Chaco Proadapt promote equitable access to climate information and decision-making.

Sources: Tye 2021; GCP n.d.

Local on-granting in Micronesia via the Micronesia Conservation Trust

About: The Micronesia Conservation Trust supports biodiversity conservation and related sustainable development for the people of Micronesia. It is the smallest entity to have been accredited by the Green Climate Fund and the Adaptation Fund.

MCT supports conservation by providing sustained and long-term funding through a grants program that encourages communities to adopt sustainable and appropriate solutions to local environmental challenges.

Timeframe: 2002–present

Funding information: MCT provides two types of grants. The first is a direct grantmaking program funded by the MCT endowment (worth $25 million), which is predominantly funded by governments. This program funds projects, capacity building, and operating grants. In the other grantmaking program, MCT acts as an intermediary between foundations for donors to regrant to recipients in Micronesia. Small grants are between $10,000 and $50,000.

How it is different from business as usual: Unlike business as usual, the fund places emphasis on building community by providing mentorship from the proposal to grant award stages. For instance, when communities are seeking to apply for small grant funds, MCT collaboratively works with them to develop the proposal. Additionally, 90 percent of MCT’s team are from the region and have built a strong relationship with their project partners for over 18 years.

Its principles of communal support are further reflected in its small grants program. When applying for a grant, local community organizations can define their own budgets, priorities, and components instead of having to adhere to predefined criteria. The funds also prioritize supporting activities for communities that already have established plans.

Sources: Alefaio 2021; Brown and Kadhikwa 2021; MCT n.d., 2015.

Adaptive social protection via the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, government of Odisha State, India

About: The Indian government implemented the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to guarantee 100 days of wage employment to every rural household. It also supports the development of natural resource management assets. It is one of the largest work guarantee programs in the world.

In Odisha as well as other Indian states, the integration of climate information and climate risk management approaches into the MGNREGS helps increase livelihood resiliency.

Timeframe: 2006–present

Funding information: Public finance.

How it is different from business as usual: MGNREGS, despite being one of the largest national wage guarantee programs in the world, took innovative approaches to devolve decision-making and respond to local needs. For instance, the 100-day wage guarantee provision, which guarantees work for up to 100 days to rural adults, has a climate provision where it allows households in drought-hit states to demand 150 days of work. In this process, community leaders were involved in decision-making fora and in planning and monitoring adaptation actions. There was also continuous engagement with communities, which set adaptation priorities and have control over 70 percent of the funds. Additionally, the program also links MGNREGS job card holders to banks and digitized payments providing access to formal banking—a major limitation in accessing finance for rural people.

MGNREGS enables rural households to participate in village-level governance bodies to make decisions around MGENREG spending. MGNREGS carefully coordinates with government departments and schemes at the district level to support households in developing resilient agricultural strategies. For instance, the Department of Horticulture provides technical training to beneficiaries while the Integrated Tribal Development Agency supports tribal communities and MGNREGS job card holders in developing rubber plantations and processing facilities.

Sources: Dakua 2021; Steinbach et al. 2017.

Microfinance for resilience via Fundecooperación, Costa Rica

About: Fundecooperación is a private foundation that was accredited by the National Implementing Entity for the Adaptation Fund in Costa Rica. The fund collaborates with public and private sector entities and seeks to support financial inclusion and sustainability in tourism and agriculture. It funds micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises and community-based organizations with a business focus to bridge the gap between small-scale entrepreneurs and credit sources.

The fund has several climate-related programs. Adapta2+ is a program that supports grantmaking to different local executing entities on climate projects. Another facility is a microfinance credit facility, MEbA (Microfinance for Ecosystem-based Adaptation), for projects in sustainable livestock, MSME greening, and women and biodiversity. The fund also has a customized credit program that provides access to credit for MSMEs that do not qualify for traditional financing.

Timeframe: 1994–present

Funding information: Varies depending on the program. For example, the customized credit program offers credit for climate-resilient actions in the livestock sector ranging from about $300 to $11,000.

How it is different from business as usual: Fundecooperación is a national fund that prioritizes the interests of local organizations. It considers itself to be a bridge connecting international providers with local institutions, communities, and MSMEs. It offers a range of programs and financial products that are based on the needs of local actors and fills a gap in financing for climate resilience in areas traditionally ineligible for funds. Though the fund is accredited and eligible to access international funds like Adaptation Fund, it has retained its agility and flexibility as a small organization able to provide tailored finance to local actors.

Sources: Fundecooperación n.d.-a, n.d.-b.

The Huairou Commission’s Community Resilience Funds

About: The Community Resilience Funds are a mechanism for channelling resources to organized groups of women in climate-vulnerable areas. The funds work with a range of women’s organizations—from cooperatives and savings groups to informal settlement associations.

Timeframe: 2015–present

Funding information: Funds are used by women’s organizations to map community risks and vulnerabilities, identify priorities, seed and scale up women-led resilience practices, build collective leadership, and engage government institutions.

How it is different from business as usual: The fund is founded on the premise that women are drivers of community resilience as opposed to mere victims. Women’s groups collectively decide on funding priorities. Furthermore, the flexibility of the CRF and its holistic approach to resilience locate adaptation and resilience within a holistic, transformational process that seeks to shift power relations rather than approaching resilience as a technocratic exercise.

Source: Huairou Commission 2018.

Repositioning grassroots women as resilience experts and shifting institutional perspectives with Shibuye Community Health Workers in Kenya

About: SCHW is a community-based organization comprised of self-help groups who focus on empowering women to collectively improve the everyday lives of women and their communities.

Timeframe: 2011–present

Funding information: SCHW receives grants from Huairou Commission, Germany's Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, and other international entities.

How it is different from business as usual: The SCHW represents grassroots women-led actions that have enhanced women’s involvement in public decision-making and agenda-setting.

To enhance their understanding of climate change impacts on their livelihoods, grassroots women collectively mapped their climate vulnerability and tested a range of resilient farming activities. Their success in activities such as rejuvenating degraded lands, improving nutrition and farm productivity in the face of climate change resulted in attracting institutional resources from partners such as the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Development’s credit fund—the Women Enterprise Fund—to access finance. Women from Shibuye were also invited to join local governance structures such as the county planning and budgeting mechanism in Kakamega county and committees for agriculture and poverty eradication.

Source: Shivutse n.d.

Facilitating local government– and local CSO–led adaptation through integrated government financing via Nepal’s Local Adaptation Plans of Action

About: Nepal’s Local Adaptation Plans of Action (LPA) were initially piloted to implement decentralized, bottom-up planning processes that consider local adaptation needs. LAPA’s main objectives are to work with local actors to understand climatic conditions during uncertain times, implement flexible climate-resilient plans, and promote integrated climate approaches.

In the 2010 pilot for LAPA, Village Development Committees were assigned oversight to help link national climate development planning outcomes and processes with local actions.

Timeframe: 2010–present

Funding information: Nepal LAPA policy states that 80 percent of available adaptation budgets should be for local-level adaptation actions, with 20 percent for institutional capacity building and coordination at the national level. Funding includes support from the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency) Australia.

How it is different from business as usual: The LAPA mechanism is a locally led adaptation process that is formally approved by the national government, operating under the Nepal NAPA framework 2010 and National Climate Change Policy 2011. When the LAPA mechanism was formalized in 2011, Nepal became the first country to formalize LAPA in its national planning framework.

To engage communities, the LAPA process has relied on a variety of participatory tools for climate hazard mapping including participatory vulnerability ranking and vulnerability assessments. These tools have not only contributed to building a robust understanding of climate risk and uncertainty but enabled members of excluded groups including women and ethnic people to provide input to the planning process.

Many local actors have noted, however, that there remains a gap between local and national planning processes in practice.

Sources: Regmi et al. 2014; Lamsal 2021; Chaudhury et al. 2014; ADRA Nepal 2018.

Performance-based climate resilience grants via the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility, hosted by the United Nations Capital Development Fund

About: LoCAL is a mechanism to integrate climate change into local governments’ planning and budgeting systems through performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs). PBCRGs support subnational climate change programming and provide technical and capacity-building support.

Timeframe: 2011–present

Funding information: The fund operates primarily in least-developed countries. Typically, funding equates to 10–20 percent of regular capital grant allocations to subnational governments. Funding includes support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, NDC Partnership, and Korea’s Ministry of Environment, among others.

How it is different from business as usual: LoCAL recognizes the importance of improving existing decentralized fiscal systems to channel climate finance. The funds are channeled through national treasuries for further disbursement to the subnational level.

LoCAL has also created a flexible program of learning to understand the needs and priorities of subnational governments. The facility assesses institutional structures around good governance, fiscal management, and country priorities before it determines grant size. This assessment enables LoCAL to adjust funds for local governments based on their ability to meet minimum criteria and financial absorption capacity.

Sources: UNCDF n.d.; De Coninck et al. 2021.

SIRF Fund from the government of Antigua and Barbuda

About: A national fund developed by the government of Antigua and Barbuda, SIRF Fund serves as a primary channel for environmental and climate change funding. It was established as a special fund that earmarks income from a range of sources including national park fees and pollution charges to achieve environmental goals.

The SIRF Fund acts as an intermediary that provides access to nongovernmental, public and private sector, and community organizations in Antigua and Barbuda as well as other islands in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. The fund employs a range of mechanisms including small and medium loans, debt-for-nature swaps, insurance, and a revolving fund.

Timeframe: 2006–present

Funding information: Various bilateral and multilateral sources—such as the World Bank, Global Environment Facility, United Nations Development Programme, and Caribbean Biodiversity Fund—provide funding, which varies by instrument. Small and medium loans, for example, are channeled via credit unions and banks starting at a 3 percent interest rate.

How it is different from business as usual: The SIRF Fund is mandated under the Environmental Protection and Management Act of 2015 to provide streamlined, coordinated environment- and climate-related finance to reduce the need for multiple intermediaries.

The fund has a range of financing mechanisms that accommodate different sectoral needs and target groups at various scales. Revolving funds provide concessional loans to vulnerable populations that cannot typically access finance from traditional banks.

Sources: SIRF Fund n.d.-a, n.d.-b.

Shramik Bharti community grain banks in North India

About: Shramik Bharti is a grassroots nonprofit organization that supports communities experiencing poverty to identify sustainable ways to support their incomes and improve their quality of life with a particular emphasis on supporting women and other members of groups that have been marginalized.

Timeframe: Approximately 2012–present

Funding information: HDFC Bank’s corporate social responsibility initiative contributes funding for 60 of Shramik Bharti’s community grain banks.

How it is different from business as usual: Shramik Bharti’s community grain banks help farmers adopt more climate-resilient farming practices and provide support to farmers and their families coping with the impacts of climate change on crops and their livelihoods. In addition to building the adaptive capacity of farmers and their families, the initiative creates opportunities for women to become leaders and have decision-making authority, including as managers of the grain banks. The approach focuses on promoting dignity and meeting the needs of local smallholder farmers. Shramik Bharti organizes awareness events and conducts needs assessments to help prioritize the needs of the community.

The community grain banks are one of many initiatives Shramik Bharti facilitates supporting locally driven economic and climate resilience. Others include locally driven solutions to water resources management challenges and the development of community-driven, self-sustained self-help groups and federations.

Sources: Shramik Bharti n.d.; Narayan 2019; Kanpur Online n.d.; Gupta 2021; Krishna 2021.

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