Highlights

• Locally led adaptation (LLA) is an emerging priority among international climate and development donors and community-based organizations alike. Supporters of locally led adaptation can leverage the monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) process to promote local agency and effective, equitable adaptation.
• Monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) is an important process for managing the complexity, uncertainty, and context-specificity of any adaptation intervention, including those that are locally led.
• Different MEL approaches and methods are required that balance power, promote mutual accountability, value local knowledge and priorities, and create value for local actors.
• This paper recommends a systemic shift toward MEL that is locally led, context-aware, and itself adaptive. It provides operational steps throughout the MEL cycle that funders, intermediary organizations, and other institutions seeking to support locally led adaptation can take.

Context

In its 2019 flagship report, the Global Commission on Adaptation called for an increase in decentralization of adaptation finance to the local level. In 2020, partners of the Global Commission on Adaptation developed principles for locally led adaptation. These principles serve as foundational guidance for supporting and enabling locally led adaptation, and call for actions such as devolution of decision-making, patient and predictable financing, flexible programming, and redressing of social inequalities. This paper is intended to support implementation of these principles by exploring the role of MEL in supporting or discouraging locally led adaptation and to discuss MEL practices and approaches that align with these principles of locally led adaptation.

A growing body of research and practice is grappling with the opportunities and challenges of MEL for adaptation. Emerging evidence and practice centers on the MEL’s role in building social capital and equalizing the power dynamics that underpin the use and governance of knowledge generated through MEL. Grounded in the principles of locally led adaptation, this paper builds on these fields of research and practice to discuss how MEL can support local agency and reflect local priorities and expertise in the interest of more effective and equitable locally led adaptation interventions.

About This Working Paper

This paper presents a review of opportunities and challenges in MEL for locally led adaptation. It is based on a review of MEL approaches, practices, and literature, as well as consultations with a range of actors involved in locally led adaptation MEL.

The paper proposes key considerations relevant throughout the MEL cycle that align with the principles for locally led adaptation:

• Recognition of and response to structural inequalities
• Promotion of local agency in decision-making
• Understanding climatic and contextual uncertainty and complexity
• Prioritizing learning processes
• Generating value for local stakeholders

To operationalize these considerations, the paper discusses approaches, methods, and tools specific to each phase of the MEL cycle.

Conclusions and Recommendations

MEL of locally led adaptation requires a long-term systemic shift from traditional MEL to MEL that is locally led, balancing asymmetries in power and accountability. A range of MEL practices and tools are available in the short term to funders, intermediary organizations, and MEL practitioners to support locally led adaptation. However, limitations and practical constraints come with recommended changes to MEL practice, including changes in resources, time, and standard processes. Practical steps throughout the MEL cycle help navigate trade-offs and strengthen locally led adaptation interventions.

To support locally led adaptation through MEL, funders, intermediary organizations, and MEL practitioners should do the following:

• Understand and respond to structural inequalities, including how power dynamics affect the MEL process and whose objectives it serves, and whether different worldviews and definitions of resilience are equally valued. This is critical to ensure that MEL reflects the realities and priorities at the local level and that results are not inaccurate or biased, and to encourage the systemic change required for locally led adaptation.
• Embrace design of MEL systems that give equal or greater priority to downward accountability and learning compared with upward accountability. Distinct processes for accountability and learning can address tension between these objectives.
• Ask how MEL processes and outputs create value for local actors.
• Take a local demand–driven approach to building capacity for self-directed MEL. If MEL intends to support locally led adaptation, local actors themselves should determine what capacity, external expertise, and access to information they need.
• Enlist appropriate approaches and methods to navigate and better understand complexity and uncertainty.
• Create locally appropriate and context-specific indicator frameworks and adaptation metrics. Adaptive capacity is particularly useful as a starting point in defining a set of indicators that apply across scales and contexts.
• Adopt MEL technologies and process innovations as appropriate to increase local ownership.
• Develop MEL systems to support adaptive management, experimentation, and learning from failure.
• Collaborate with knowledge brokers who can translate terminology and concepts between external and local actors to enable ownership and contribution of local partners.
• Ensure that learning is applied, documented, and shared horizontally at the local level and vertically to national and international levels as appropriate, while prioritizing the knowledge needs and gaps of local actors as a primary audience group.

As locally led adaptation progresses, so should theory, practice, and learning about MEL for locally led adaptation. This paper provides a high-level and preliminary analysis of MEL for locally led adaptation, and encourages continued learning from local practice and local expertise in adaptation MEL.

As a process involving power and decision-making, monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) can either perpetuate structural inequity or actively work against it (Emerson 2020). Conventional MEL risks further entrenching the inequities that make certain populations disproportionately vulnerable to climate change. However, there is a paucity of documented experience that addresses the entire cycle of adaptation MEL in a way that intentionally redresses power imbalances between donors and local partners, addresses biases in the knowledge and values that are privileged, and promotes downward accountability to local actors.

This paper discusses the role of MEL in encouraging equitable distribution of resources and agency through locally led adaptation (LLA). It provides an assessment of approaches and practices throughout the MEL cycle that help balance power and accountability, and discusses the advantages and limitations of these practices.

The MEL approaches and practices outlined in this paper are targeted primarily to donor and intermediary institutions and individuals involved in designing or delivering MEL in the context of locally led adaptation or where local ownership is a development priority. Since these groups currently have the power to direct resources to MEL, and influence MEL design and outcomes, they have a critical role in leveraging MEL to support LLA. Local actors, however, are facing the very risks LLA interventions seek to address, and are therefore most directly affected by MEL practices and approaches. As funders and implementers of climate adaptation interventions invest in and prioritize locally led adaptation, assessment of the implications of MEL for LLA can inform approaches and practices that build social capital and encourage equitable distribution of power.

The conclusions and recommendations of this paper are intended to provide practical suggestions for donor and intermediary institutions and MEL practitioners to better support locally led adaptation through MEL, and fundamentally rethink the role of MEL to support their climate resilience and social justice objectives. The advancements in MEL discussed in this paper represent an evolution of good practice in the interest of more effective and equitable adaptation outcomes.

The paper draws attention to the critical role of MEL in supporting locally led adaptation and offers good practices and lessons learned from relevant literature and practice. Section 2 presents key considerations for supporting locally led adaptation that are relevant throughout the MEL cycle, using a set of principles for LLA that were developed for the Global Commission on Adaptation as a conceptual framework. Section 3 walks through each phase of the MEL cycle and assesses specific approaches, methods, and tools that align with the principles of locally led adaptation. This assessment is based on the relevant bodies of research and practice on adaptation MEL, community-based adaptation, participatory MEL, and decolonization of MEL, as well as a set of case studies and consultations with stakeholders of MEL for locally led adaptation. Section 4 synthesizes the key findings from this assessment and presents conclusions and recommendations for MEL to better support and enable locally led adaptation.

Locally led adaptation recognizes that people closest to the effects of climate change, especially those facing structural marginalization, require the financing and decision-making power to ensure that adaptation investments reflect their priorities. It entails investing in solutions whereby local actors have the agency to make and influence these investment decisions and wield the innovation, flexibility, knowledge, and sense of urgency required to confront the crises of climate change and socioeconomic injustice (Conde et al. 2005).

Locally led adaptation is an emerging priority of some governments, bilateral and multilateral donors, and other institutions. Examples include programs such as the Least Developed Country (LDC) Initiative for Effective Adaptation and Resilience, County Climate Change Funds in Kenya, Enhancing Direct Access programs within funds like the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund, and localization movements in the humanitarian and development sectors (LIFE-AR 2019; Crick et al. 2019; GCF 2019; Adaptation Fund 2020a). Institutions from grassroots networks to international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and funders are calling for the systemic changes required to channel more finance for adaptation to the local level and increase the agency and decision-making authority of local-level actors. In support of these efforts, principles for LLA have been established, and research and guidance are emerging to create enabling environments for LLA.

As adaptation and climate-resilient development investments aim to support local leadership, the process of designing, monitoring, and learning from these efforts must also support local leadership. Locally led adaptation is an approach that challenges some of the underlying assumptions and structures prevalent in international development, emphasizing that to be effective, local actors most directly impacted by climate change must drive the adaptation investments that affect them. This paper defines MEL and LLA terminology as described in Box 1.

Several shortcomings of common MEL approaches remain that must be addressed to support LLA. MEL that prioritizes upward accountability can reinforce asymmetrical power relations between donors and local actors (Ramasobana et al. 2020). Such requirements of upward accountability often create structures that do not support the learning and adaptive management essential to locally led adaptation (Spearman and McGray 2011). Restricted interpretations of MEL lead to problematic practices, such as a tendency to prioritize products and outputs over the process, and to underestimate the relevance of local knowledge and experience. This risks a process that disempowers or devalues local actors and is not critical of who is affected by the MEL process and how (Pauw et al. 2020; Christiansen et al. 2018; Holzapfel 2016). If MEL systems are not designed to create value and ownership for local partners, they risk being extractive and disrespectful of local actors’ time and knowledge (McCreless 2015; CARE 2014). Institutional standards and requirements for MEL often prioritize upward accountability, creating a structure that does not support learning and adaptive management essential to locally led adaptation (Spearman and McGray 2011). These examples of MEL practices and approaches not only fail to support local actors but also undermine the goals of donors and intermediaries to support local priorities.

MEL is a social undertaking. It is applied to social challenges, and it can reinforce or confront societal values and social dynamics such as power and legitimacy. If not approached with the intention to support LLA, MEL practices may conflict with the objectives of locally led adaptation. Traditional MEL is not neutral in its approach to knowledge creation or dissemination. The evidence and knowledge generated in contexts of adaptation are valuable, but communities affected by adaptation interventions do not always experience this value. The theories of change and indicators guiding MEL do not often reflect local input, let alone local ownership. MEL tends to rely on external experts rather than supporting local capacity to implement MEL. These outputs and inputs of the MEL process also have socioeconomic, political, and environmental implications and are therefore political resources with financial consequences (Chilisa et al. 2016; Frehiwot 2019; Kawakami et al. 2008).

While many conventional MEL approaches and practices may not align with the principles of LLA, the generalized MEL cycle presents important opportunities to support LLA. MEL involves power, decision-making, trust, and communication among participants. These features serve as entry points to support locally led adaptation, including through collaborative, locally led decision-making, integration of social and gender equity considerations, building trust, social capital and local ownership, and evidence and learning about LLA. MEL that leverages these opportunities is more likely to support effective, equitable LLA, including by grounding the design of adaptation in local realities, generating more complete evidence, and mitigating climatic and programmatic risk through iterative learning and adaptive management (Faulkner et al. 2015).

Eight foundational principles outline the basic requirements for finance for adaptation that is accessible to and owned by appropriate local actors, and provide a framework for assessing how MEL practices support locally led adaptation. These principles were developed for the Global Commission on Adaptation by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in partnership with World Resources Institute (Soanes et al. 2021). They build on a decade of foundational work carried out by IIED, with Slum Dwellers International, Huairou Commission, the International Center for Climate Change and Development, and many others regarding financing for adaptation and resource access in communities vulnerable to climate change. The principles are grounded in the recommendations of the Global Commission on Adaptation’s Adapt Now report to increase the volume of devolved and decentralized funding available to local actors to identify, prioritize, design, implement, monitor, and learn from climate adaptation solutions (Global Commission on Adaptation 2019).

These principles serve a basis for understanding the potential of MEL to support locally led adaptation. Table 1 summarizes the eight principles and is followed by a discussion of overarching considerations for MEL to support these principles of LLA.

Putting these principles of LLA into practice through MEL entails several key considerations, drawn from relevant MEL research and practice. The remainder of this section discusses tenets for supporting LLA that are relevant throughout the stages of MEL: design and planning, monitoring, evaluation, and learning.

Recognizing and addressing how structural inequalities affect MEL reduces bias. Structural inequalities, such as those related to gender, race or ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, can manifest in different ways in MEL. Unequal value may be attributed to the different worldviews and perspectives, biasing outputs of the MEL process toward the worldviews and perspectives of participants with the most power (Segone 2012; Joyce 2020). For example, if a planning workshop does not provide a safe and inviting environment for participants with firsthand adaptation experience to speak up, then the outcomes of the workshop, such as a theory of change or indicator framework, will not reflect a complete understanding of challenges and possible solutions. Structural inequalities may be present between local actors and external actors (such as donors and MEL practitioners), among actors at the local level, between local government and civil society, or between women and men (Morchain et al. 2019). As such, it is important for LLA interventions to deliberately encourage equity.

Steps can be taken throughout the MEL cycle to mitigate the effect of structural inequalities on MEL, including conducting gender and social equity assessments, ensuring balanced and representative decision-making structures, and including indicators to understand the equity of decision-making processes. In applying Oxfam’s Vulnerability and Risk Assessment methodology in Malawi, Botswana, and Namibia, Morchain et al. (2019) acknowledged how their position as academics would bias the outcomes of the assessment. They broadened the framing of the assessment to include development priorities, in addition to climate priorities, and used translators and breakout groups to mitigate the effect of preexisting cultural norms and power dynamics in group discussions (Morchain et al. 2019).

The importance of local agency applies to decisions made through the MEL cycle. For an intervention to be genuinely locally led, local actors must have agency over their priorities and how adaptation takes place. Extended to MEL, local actors would have agency over the priorities of the MEL system and how MEL takes place in support of the intervention. Ensuring local agency in MEL starts with local ownership to help shape the overall purpose of the MEL system and data collection analysis methods and tools, and actively centering learning processes and products on the needs and demands of local actors (Silva Villanueva 2011; Faulkner et al. 2015).

Increasing access to information by tailoring knowledge products and tools to local audiences, and enhancing capacity to engage in MEL, supports local agency. Local universities and civil society organizations have a role to play as climate knowledge brokers, transforming data and information into knowledge for practical adaptation interventions, often working with local actors to coproduce knowledge on adaptation experience. Adaptation at Scale in Semi-arid Regions is a university network consortium that translates the experiences and input of communities on the front lines of climate change, giving them the opportunity to influence adaptation policy responses. Similarly, the University of Arizona’s Cooperative Extension system provides insights on context-specific local adaptation, researching adaptation processes and disseminating knowledge about local adaptation interventions to help both local government and local actors, particularly farmers, make informed decisions about adapting to changing climatic conditions (Brugger and Crimmins 2015). In an example of local government tailoring adaptation knowledge to its constituents, the Planning Institute of Jamaica shared lessons learned about resilient agriculture by tailoring knowledge products and communications to different local audiences to support decision-making, including local farmers and government utility managers (Adaptation Fund 2020b).

MEL is a process for navigating the complexity, uncertainty, and context-specificity of LLA. Given the unpredictable nature of climate change and the complexity of social, economic, and ecological factors that affect adaptation, it can be hard to know what the outcomes of LLA solutions will be. MEL can provide a process for innovation, experimentation, and adaptive learning to help manage this complexity and uncertainty. Developing a participatory theory of change helps generate a shared and iterative understanding of local context and the many different factors that may affect the outcomes of the intervention. In monitoring, it becomes important to develop indicator frameworks that integrate social, environmental, and economic factors (such as those based on socioecological systems), and reflect the connections and feedbacks linking human and natural systems (Olsson and Galaz 2012). At the learning stage there should be a focus on learning from unintended consequences and failures as well as successes by drawing on and combining several sources of knowledge and experience, including expert, scientific, and local or indigenous knowledge (Hulme 2015).

Creating value for local actors avoids extractive MEL. Even participatory MEL processes can be extractive of local actors’ time, knowledge, resources, and expertise if they do not explicitly create value for them (Wilmsen 2008). Mechanisms for downward accountability can be built into MEL processes through local actors’ active participation and enabling them to assess donor performance (Ebrahim 2003; Van Zyl and Claeyé 2019). Indicator frameworks can support mutual accountability by including indicators that reflect local priorities and definitions of resilience, as well as indicators of agency and social inclusion in the adaptation process (Estrella and Gaventa 1998; Fisher 2014) Cocreation of methods can help ensure that evaluations are useful to local actors, donors, and evaluators alike. Tailoring evaluations to locally determined priorities can have the added benefit of incentivizing participation and interest in the evaluation and the adaptation intervention going forward (Dunkley and Franklin 2017; Fitzpatrick 2012). Learning questions and processes are another opportunity to prioritize the learning goals of local actors over those of external actors (Faulkner et al. 2015).

Effective learning processes support effective locally led adaptation outcomes. Learning is essential to embracing and understanding the complexity of adaptation, and is the process linking data and evidence to the resilience outcomes and other changes that adaptation interventions seek to create (Silva Villanueva 2011; STAP 2017). An adaptation strategy in its own right, learning is especially relevant for locally led adaptation because of its role in building adaptive capacity at the local level (Baird et al. 2014). Local actors learn from both successful and failed adaptation interventions through self-determined experimentation with different coping strategies, or through purposeful social learning processes, to prepare adequate responses and coping strategies to climate risks and intervention outcomes (Tschakert and Dietrich 2010). A fit-for-purpose learning process will reflect different learning needs, goals, and ways of learning among stakeholder groups, and legitimize the diverse types of evidence and knowledge that support them (Alessa et al. 2016).

The process of learning, versus knowledge products such as reports or briefs, is therefore a key consideration for LLA and is most effectively embedded throughout the MEL cycle. Supporting adaptive capacity through learning does require resources and time from all local and external partners involved and should be adequately planned and budgeted for (Tschakert and Dietrich 2010).

Applying these key considerations often entails practical constraints and challenges. The benefits of MEL processes that bring in a wider range of participants and introduce new elements may require additional time, resources, and capacity. Oxfam International recommends allocating 10–13 percent of a total budget to MEL (Carmona et al. 2018). Local and external partners alike may feel the burden of additional time, resources, and capacity. A challenge for those responsible for designing the MEL system is to balance the priority of local agency with the risk of overburdening local partners. Surveys or baseline studies that take more time than necessary, for example, can exhaust partners and make them less willing to engage in the MEL process (Flatters 2017). Emphasizing local agency to determine roles and responsibilities in MEL and adhering to the “do no harm” principle are strategies to help mitigate this risk.

There is increasing recognition that adaptation happens at a local level, and that local actors therefore should have agency over the adaptation interventions affecting them. National governments, multilateral development banks, bilateral donors, and international NGOs are investing in locally led adaptation to achieve resilience objectives that prioritize the communities at the front lines of climate impacts.

We recommend 10 ways in which institutions and individual practitioners, especially funders and intermediary organizations, can begin to align MEL with the principles of locally led adaptation. The recommendations outline opportunities to promote local agency in decision-making about the MEL process and to ensure that local actors have influence in critical decisions throughout the MEL cycle on the purpose of the MEL system, the theory of change behind the intervention, learning goals and processes, metrics and indicators to assess progress, how data is collected and used, what external support is needed, and evaluation approaches and objectives. The following recommendations are listed in the general order of the MEL cycle, although many apply throughout MEL.

1. All actors in the MEL process should understand and respond to structural inequalities, including how power dynamics affect the MEL process and whose objectives it serves, and whether different worldviews and definitions of resilience are equally valued. This is critical to ensure that MEL reflects local realities and priorities and that results are not inaccurate or biased. Basing theories of change and indicators on subjective definitions of resilience and local and experiential knowledge provides a way for MEL to reflect local priorities and perspectives. By prioritizing goals of local actors and legitimizing local knowledge and experience, MEL systems should aim to redress power imbalances and be part of a funder’s strategy to ensure that investments reach communities and reduce social and gender inequalities.
2. Funders, intermediaries, and practitioners should embrace the design of MEL systems that give equal or greater priority to downward accountability and learning compared with upward accountability. Distinct processes for accountability and learning can address tension between these objectives. Funders, intermediary organizations, and MEL practitioners should allow local partners to determine learning goals and collaborate to decide which approaches will best support these goals. Emerging approaches and tools that can support learning for LLA include social learning, learning through games, peer-to-peer learning, and virtual learning.
3. Funders and intermediaries should ensure that MEL creates value for local actors. MEL processes and the data and learning they generate should prioritize the knowledge and learning needs of local actors equally with funders’ MEL goals, which frequently relate to measuring progress and performance.
4. Funders and intermediaries should take a local demand–driven approach to building capacity for self-directed MEL. For MEL to support locally led adaptation, local actors themselves should determine what capacity, external expertise, and access to information they need to lead MEL that supports their goals in the long term. Engage knowledge brokers in this process as needed.
5. MEL practitioners should adopt appropriate methods to navigate and better understand complexity and uncertainty with regard to climate dynamics and locally led adaptation contexts and settings. This entails creating shared and comprehensive understanding both of local stakeholder and contextual dynamics, on the one hand, and locally specific understanding of the climatic conditions affecting local stakeholders, on the other. Establishing a climatic baseline and monitoring system and employing social assessment tools support understanding of relevant stakeholder and contextual dynamics as well as the outcomes of an LLA intervention.
6. MEL practitioners should create locally appropriate and context-specific indicator frameworks and adaptation metrics. Adaptive capacity is particularly useful as an adaptation metric and as a starting point in defining a set of context-specific LLA indicators. Indicator frameworks should also look to better integrate social, economic, and environmental dimensions of LLA, recognizing the spatial and temporal interconnectedness of these systems in adaptation. In order to support LLA, metrics and indicators must reflect what local actors view as important to measure and as reflecting their definitions of vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and strengthened resilience.
7. MEL practitioners should leverage MEL technologies and process innovations as appropriate to increase local ownership, voice, participation, and representation. Data collection and data analysis technologies across mobile applications, remote monitoring systems, climate and digital advisory services, and other technologies can be used both to increase access to climate data and information to inform decision-making, and to facilitate locally driven data collection and governance platforms.
8. With support from funders, MEL practitioners should develop systems to support adaptive management, experimentation, and learning from failure. This will entail promoting a culture that accepts learning from failure, building in time and resources to support iterative learning from the outset of an intervention, and designing monitoring frameworks that enable adaptive management for course correction. Encouraging near-real-time learning and openness about what works, what doesn’t, and why can foster a nimble intervention that is more likely to achieve its adaptation goals and help mitigate risks associated with financing and programming requirements for locally led adaptation.
9. Funders and intermediaries should engage knowledge brokers as appropriate to enable ownership and contributions by local partners. Differences in cultural norms and terminology should not interfere with a funder’s ability to engage local actors, or with local actors’ ability to engage in the MEL process. Knowledge brokers may have a role to play in facilitating local agency throughout the MEL cycle—for example, in the design and theory of change development, defining indicators, analyzing monitoring data, and sharing evaluation findings and lessons learned.
10. All actors involved in MEL should work together to ensure that learning is applied, documented, and shared. To promote more effective, equitable LLA interventions and build up an evidence base around LLA in the long term, learning should be shared and applied both horizontally at the local level and vertically through global knowledge exchange platforms, such as the annual UNFCCC Conference of the Parties, the annual conference on Community-Based Adaptation, the UN General Assembly, and the annual Gobeshona conference. Evidence and learning generated through the MEL process should, however, first meet the knowledge needs and gaps of local actors as a primary audience group.

The changes needed to enable widespread locally led adaptation will take time, and the same applies to shifting MEL for LLA. MEL practice to support LLA also often entails significant changes or trade-offs compared with current adaptation MEL practice. However, there are meaningful, concrete steps we can take to have more supportive MEL while managing constraints.

The authors of this paper believe that both the systemic shift and the practical steps can be taken in parallel—combining some relatively simple and immediate practical changes to existing MEL systems with a longer-term journey to systemically shift how MEL supports LLA interventions. Many of the practical steps suggested can be made in isolation or retrofitted to existing MEL systems. The systemic shift in approach requires that those funding, designing, and delivering MEL systems reconsider the value and use of MEL, placing the core emphasis on local ownership, downward accountability, and locally driven learning from the outset.

In keeping with the principle of coordinated action and investment for locally led adaptation, horizontal and vertical learning and knowledge-sharing will support this journey. Leveraging global platforms to share learning and exchange knowledge about LLA interventions can support more effective LLA in the long term.

MEL that supports locally led adaptation will also support improved LLA outcomes, enabling more context-sensitive, agile, equitable, and sustainable efforts to build climate resilience at the local level.

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We are pleased to acknowledge our institutional strategic partners that provide core funding to WRI: the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

The authors would like to give special thanks to our colleagues at the Least Developed Countries University Consortium on Climate Change (LUCCC), Luis Artur, David Mfitumukiza, and Sidat Yaffa, as well as our colleagues at Women’s Climate Centers International (WCCI), Rosemary Atieno, Godliver Kobugabe, Tracy Mann, Comfort Mukasa, and Rose Wamalwa for the expertise, insights, and examples they provided to inform this paper and review drafts. We would like to thank Christina Chan, Ayesha Dinshaw, Saleemul Huq, Nancy MacPherson, Arghya Sinha Roy, Saul Pereya, Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio, and Barry Smith for taking the time to review and strengthen the paper. We are grateful to Mahamat Assouyouti, Cristina Dengel, Susannah Fischer, Vincent Gainey, Kazi Eliza Islam, Timo Leiter, Heather McGray, and Nina Ullery for providing inputs and sharing their experience in the development of the paper. Thanks to Isabella Suarez for providing research support. Thank you to partners from the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, LUCCC, Slum/Shack Dwellers International, Huairou Commission, and WCCI, who convened at the Gobeshona 6 conference and provided inspiration and direction for the paper.

Tamara Coger is a Senior Associate at WRI.
Contact: tamara.coger@wri.org

Sarah Corry is a consultant at Sophoi.
Contact: sarah@sophoi.co.uk

Robbie Gregorowski is a Director at Sophoi.
Contact: robbie@sophoi.co.uk

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