 Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone, a really warm welcome to the 14th annual community-based adaptation meeting. My name is Manish Bhapna, I'm the executive vice president of the World Resources Institute. And the first thing I want to do is one of the most important things, which is to recognize and thank the various organizations that have come together to make this conference possible. Starting here I just wanted to read out the names of the organizations just for a moment. The Kingdom of Bhutan, the Climate Justice Resilience Fund, IIED, thank you IIED in particular for really shepherding this over the last 14 years. I reshade the Global Resilience Partnership, the Global Commission on Adaptation, Care, Practical Action, IUCN Netherlands, Slum Dwellers International, the Huayru Commission, the African Center for Trade and Development, the Environmental Management for Livelihood Improvement, Huay's Facility, GAIO, East African Youth Organization and BRAC. So thank you all, delighted to have so many different organizations participate in helping pull this together. I want to say this is the only conference dedicated to community-based adaptation and it's really hard to imagine when this topic was more important or more timely than it is today. Just a couple of reflections on both the issue of importance and the issue of timeliness before we jump into the main session. I think we have learned that we live, we have known this, but I think the world is increasingly recognizing that we live in a deeply unequal society. The COVID-19 health pandemic, the economic crisis, the climate impacts, all hate local communities, often low-income vulnerable communities, the hardest. The World Food Program estimates that 130 million more people will be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of this year. The World Bank estimates that 100 million people will also likely be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of deadly climate impacts and the vast majority of these people live on the front lines in the developing world. So this point, the world is structurally unequal, is something that's more apparent today than perhaps in a very long time. The second reason why this conference is so important is that we know local communities are rarely involved in responses to the health pandemic or the climate emergency. Governments, international organizations rarely put local communities at the center of policies and investment responses. A recent study by Oxfam showed that between 2007 and 2013, less than 2% of humanitarian assistance went directly to local actors. IID had recently completed a study that showed that only 10% of international climate finance goes to local communities. And we also know that civic space in so many countries around the world is closing rapidly. So the trend line is moving in the wrong direction. And yet we know that the active engagement of local communities is absolutely essential if we're going to have any type of inclusive, durable response in solutions to the COVID-19 health pandemic, the economic crisis, and the climate challenge. Why is this conference so timely? Because I think to some extent there's increasing momentum on adaptation in no small part because of the work of so many of you at this call today. One of the areas or one of the mechanisms whereby we have seen quite a bit more momentum on adaptation is some of the work associated with a global commission on adaptation that several of the speakers today are involved in. They have helped champion a locally led action track that is intended to really bring to the forefront the need to support community-based adaptation. And as many of you know, there will be a climate adaptation summit that will be hosted by the Netherlands in January, where we hope to bring some of the more important commitments around community-based adaptation to the forefront. But this conference is also so timely because this is a good moment to engage people outside of the adaptation community, outside of the climate community. Just this month there's a very active conversation taking place in the United Nations around financing for development. Finance ministers met on September 8th. Heads of State are meeting on September 29th to talk about how to prepare, how to mobilize finance for responding to the pandemic, to the economic crisis, to the climate crisis. And that is the type of forum that this community needs to engage and influence to shape. How do we shape that the finance packages that are developed in these conversations support local communities, promote community-based adaptation? So just an incredibly important moment to be having this conversation. So with that we have an incredibly exciting week. There will be five themes that this conference focuses on in particular. We're going to look at climate finance, how public and private sector finance can be transparent, can be mobilized in ways that are accountable to scale up climate action while remaining inclusive, while ensuring that communities are actively engaged. We're going to look at adaptation technology. Our technology can be used to both mobilize adaptation at scale at the national level but really look at what it means for local level. We're going to look at responsive policy. Our social movements can inform policy that's ambitious and inclusive. Looking at nature-based solutions. Clearly critical for local communities around the world and we're going to look at youth inclusion. How we transform our institutions so they can take advantage of you young people's participation in developing locally-led adaptation. So those are themes that we're going to explore across the week but this today we have a terrific inaugural session with three community leaders who all have deep experience in building resilience and they're going to offer their insights on why this conversation is so important and so timely as the world aims to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, the inequality crisis and the climate crisis. I'm going to introduce these three community leaders in just a moment but to start off we're going to hear a video greeting from the Honorable Secretary Sonam Kunso Wangdi who is the Secretary of the National Environment Commission for the Kingdom of Bhutan and the chair of the least developed countries group and as many of you may know the LVC group has set forward their vision 2050 which commits to ambitious low carbon climate resilient development with particular pledges to develop strong climate finance architecture with 70% of flows supporting locally-led action by 2030. So let's start with the video and then I'm going to introduce the speakers we have for this inaugural session. Excellencies, distinguished participants and friends, thank you for joining us online to mark the beginning of the 14th international conference on community-based adaptation to climate change. Bhutan in our capacity as chair of the LVC group is proud to host this year's event and we welcome you and your participation from wherever you're connecting. While in normal times we would have a physical meeting this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, CBF 14 has had to innovate to bring its wider community of practice together in a new way. This way of doing things will be an experiment for all of us but we hope that we will be able to learn from the experience together and perhaps shape new ways for us to collaborate going forward. Despite the pandemic the impacts of climate change continue to be clear and increasing while fires are burning in California, intense flooding has damaged homes and destroyed livelihoods in Sudan, India, Yemen, Bangladesh and many more other locations. Climate change adaptation is as important as it has ever been. The urgency and ambition needed to fully prepare for the future must continue to increase if we are hard to protect ourselves and our communities. To do this it is crucially important that opportunities for grassroots community-based organizations, non-government organizations of all kinds, local and national governments, researchers and development partners to come together, learn, share innovation and expertise remain available. These moments are central in building the community of practice, networks and know-how that are necessary to develop complex responses to a complex challenge. They ensure that development partners and international organizations can remain grounded even to learn from those who are most vulnerable by providing opportunities for them to listen to local solutions and visit. Adaptation to climate change cannot be successful unless it builds on the knowledge and understanding of the people who are most affected by climate risks. CBA 14 is also an essential resource and learning opportunity for the LDCs. Last year at CBA 13, the Thalangaya we held on the least developed countries initiative for effective adaptation and resilience, LiveAR. Directly inform the LiveAR Compact that has been signed by over 10 countries. The Compact sets out a vision for a climate-resilient future for all LDCs by 2050 and commits to increasing the flow of climate finance to the local level to 70% of the total. CBA's five themes are of central importance to the future of adaptation and resilience and to informing the next stages of LiveAR and other initiatives. The climate finance theme will explore how we scale up the flow of finance to the local level. The responsive policy theme will explore the role of social movements in driving change and the adaptation technology theme will discuss how new technologies can go beyond innovative projects and become part of national policies. We recognize that addressing poverty, biodiversity laws and climate change are issues that cannot be taken separately but must be addressed together. So I am pleased to see the addition of a theme on nature-based solutions. Finally, the youth inclusion theme, like entirely by young people, will explore the barriers to the participation of young people in shaping climate policies. We must use these movements to understand the challenges that we can scale up climate finance to the level necessary, scale up technology or nature-based solutions through policy that is inclusive and builds resilience, prosperous societies. We must continue to build ambition on top of previous commitments under the Paris Agreement so that COP26 in 2021 we will be able to secure an agreement that safeguards a resilient future for LDCs. I thank you. Are we ready to start the main panel? Sheila Patel, who is the co-founder of Slum Dwellers International, the director of Spark India and also a commissioner on the Global Commission on Adaptation and a champion of the locally led adaptation track. We have Muhammad Musa, who's the executive director of BRAC International, also a commissioner of the Global Commission on Adaptation and one of the champions of the locally led action track. And we have Rosemary Atyano, who's the chief executive officer and the founder of Community Mobilization for Positive Empowerment Company. Welcome, Sheila, Musa and Rosemary. Rosemary, I'd like to start with you. What are some of the challenges that you're seeing on the ground in the communities that you work with, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic crisis, climate crisis, all these crises are coming together? What are some of the challenges you hear from communities and what are some of the innovations you're seeing in response to those challenges? You have to unmute those, Marie. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to join the CBA 14. It's my first time going in such conference. I'm very delighted to be here. And I would start by saying that during this pandemic, the government of Kenya, as in most countries, with advice from the World Health Organization, has been forced to put in a few measures and restrictions, restrictions such as social distancing, restrictions like having masks, having to put on masks when you're going for gatherings, banning on public gatherings. And you realize that this coupled with the erratic changes in climate has changed a lot of things for us. Realizing that women are the core people in the farming sector in developing countries, this has really had a lot of impact on them. In times of crisis such as the COVID-19, resources start becoming strained, institutional capacities also become limited, women and girls face disproportionate impacts that are more pronounced in circumstances of fragility and emergencies. Responding to the pandemic is not about just rectifying longstanding inequalities, but also about building resilient world in the interests of everyone with women at the center of everything. You realize that women are the heaviest burden bearers, yet they are the least producers in the affecting of the climate. However, we can achieve this when we identify several challenges. Some of the challenges that I have identified in Kenya, during this pandemic, you realize there was the lockdown and families had to stay home. An increase in gender-based violence has been realized in the country. Women have to work extra hard, child labor is becoming a norm, which is affecting us on the ground as women and children. Men have to stay home now and when they stay home, the women have to really try and look for food and all that. In the event of not getting food, you realize that there is a lot of commotion within the house and gender-based violence is getting on the increase. Another challenge that we are realizing is that people are losing their livelihoods. Millions of people have lost their jobs and people have to rush back to the community where they came from to try and make up for the loss of economy. So when the economy is lost, then it means there is no household income and it means that our women have to really struggle hard in terms of food security and given that the climate is also changing, the food situation in the household becomes a major challenge. We also realize that with the lockdown, our schools were closed and most of our students had to be at home. So the burden of feeding children has also gone higher with the kind of challenges that we are facing. One of the key challenges that is destroying food security is you realize in Kenya there has been floods and the floods have really affected our families. People have lost their homes, people have lost their livelihoods, farms have been flooded as the lake is reclaiming its position. That's a destroying the environment. The lockdowns have also consequently contributed to temporary cessation and women who run small businesses are actually losing their business because for example in the Mosai community in Kenya they survive on selling beads and because there is lockdown and they cannot meet, then it means that their livelihoods are already destroyed and the small businesses cannot run. We have also seen the demand for washing hands. We have to wash our hands using clean water and in the country so far we have not had a good access to safe clean water. So we are also struggling with the fact that we need to look for safe water and provide water for hand washing and curb the spread of the virus. So this is also a key challenge to our women. It has also increased the pressure of child marriages. You realize that when the students are at home like in the pastoralist communities our livestock is a symbol of status so they are losing cattle and they have to compel their young daughters to get their hands in marriage so that they can get more cattle to come in whilst the cattle are dying because of the floods and the erratic effects of climate change. Last, another issue is that most African women depend on rain-fed livestock livelihood systems like farming and livestock production therefore any shift in climate patterns as a significant impact on the women and any change in the situation like what COVID has brought around makes it very difficult for our women. So these are some of the very few pronounced challenges that we are seeing on the ground. Now what are communities doing to come up with solutions that are locally based? We must realize that indigenous knowledge is a very key factor in combating climate change and it is important that in anything that we do we try and hear the voices of the grassroots communities. So some of the actions that are innovative actions that are being taken are things like having community dialogues with communities, talking with them to hear what they have to say, hear what they understand with climate change and trying to fit it in with the scientific version of climate change so that we are able to integrate both systems the indigenous and the current so that we are able to respond effectively to climate change. Some of our communities also are trying to have adaptations to measures that use very little water so that we use scarce resources. For example, in food production we are encouraging vertical kitchen gardens or by intensive farming that do use very little water yet can produce enough food for our communities. We are trying to encourage our communities to harvest water in every best possible way that they can get clean water and be able to use it to combat the pandemic and at the same time produce food. We are also trying to help our communities adapt to the flood situation. Realism and their floods the only way that the government can be able to help these families is to bring them to higher grounds. But the floods have been here with us for years so is there something that can be done so that we get rid of the floods? I believe there's something that can be done if we have good policies which listen to our local communities because they are the first affected when the floods come. So if we involve them in things that they understand I want to believe that our communities will be able to respond to the flood situation and the issue of floods could be something in history. We are also trying seeing women and communities coming us up with forestry practices. We are encouraging our communities to plant trees and by helping them plant trees we're helping them to establish nurseries of indigenous trees that they can easily take care of and be able to plant them in their fields to be able to start mitigating the impacts of climate change. We are also trying to see how we can do advocacy so that policies that are made at the government level are policies that resonate with what communities are thinking about. It is important that we listen to the voices of the community because they also have ideas. Remember they have been in existence for many years and they had ways of studying the climate. They had ways of responding to it. So it's important that even as we get the information from the the meteorological department it's important that we also look at the indigenous knowledge and integrate these things so that we are able to work with the communities as a team. We need to do strong advocacy. I see civil society organizations even us at our organization we want to involve the community in the push for better policies and implementation of policies are good policies like the government of Kenya in May launched the green in Kenya initiative. Do we involve our communities in the green in Kenya initiative? Let us not keep it at the national level. Let us bring it to the ground where we have the people who are affected. Get them to understand what it means to green the economy and involve them in greening the economy. As we involve them in greening the economy I want to believe we are going to start on the right footing because they will be involved. They are the ones who are most affected. They will do it because they understand it. This is going to encourage ownership, it's going to encourage sustainability and it's going to encourage replication. We do not want policies that stick at the top level of the government yet is not being rolled down to the ground. So we must encourage our communities to develop a voice that can be heard and we are doing this in compared through what we are calling community conversations. These are simple community dialogues that help communities to identify a problem, be able to gather data about that problem, come up with local-led solutions, then mobilize their local resources before they wait for other resources to come on the ground. So as other resources trickle down they are already starting the process and by the time the resources are coming here they are able to fit it into where it really requires to be fitted and they are avoiding issues of replication of and duplication of resources by civil society organizations. We have seen this create a great impact in our communities as the people understand what they are doing and they understand what they really need to do and we want them to build voices that can be heard and heard by the authorities and we are not leaving women behind because they are the center of this. Finally, I would like to say that it is important that our governments introduce climate change in mainstream education because the young understand these things better than the old. They understand the sciences of climate change, they understand the sciences that are involved in mitigating climate change. So if we begin early with them and start instilling this in them, I want to believe they are going to be very good ambassadors for climate change and we'll be able to help their parents also at home to be able to mitigate the impacts of climate change. I want to say they are better in understanding the science so let us use them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much Rosemary for that. Incredibly insightful and concrete reflections on what's happening on the ground on how the impacts of the pandemic, the economic crisis, the climate crisis are deeply gendered, very different impacts on men and women and we need to understand that but also that very concrete reflection on the importance of indigenous knowledge, some of the innovations that you're experimenting with on the ground but also the importance to engage at the policy level and in education. So incredibly useful. Sheila, I'd like to turn to you a fairly similar question. You're working a little bit more in the urban environment in India, in South Asia, in Africa. Some of the challenges that you see, some of the innovations that excite you the most. First of all, Manish, you presented us the global picture with, you know, millions and you know, it's the typical way by which the World Bank and international organization stock in this broad brushway and then Rosemary took us right down to the granular and I think that is the magic of what all of us have to do is to bring the global and the broad brush to the local and the granular and I think the biggest challenge that we face in the CBA is where do these two meet or do they don't meet at all. This is the third CBA that I'm attending and it's strange to be looking at my own face on the screen because I'm usually much more comfortable looking into the faces of people who are listening to me to get a sense of what's clicking and not clicking. So this is strange but these are COVID times and we're learning new tricks. One of the biggest challenges I feel that all of us who are working as local activists and have now explored the amazing opportunity of aggregating globally as we have as Shackdwellers International is that gradually we are being represented in different global institutional decision making and so my role in the Global Commission for Adaptation has actually been to bring in the power of social movements and to bring their voices and their challenges into the climate space where none of them felt that they were a part of I mean except for indigenous groups and some communities most of us felt we were operating in different spheres and only this adaptation space has actually shown us that the challenges and the problems and the seemingly unescapable vulnerabilities that communities face both urban rural in all forms in all forms of vulnerability are deeply deeply connected to climate and therefore I think our biggest challenge is that you have all these so many different global targets mainly the STGs and climate change we have to stop looking at them one at a time because many things that we do can be attributed to serve many ends and so one of the challenges I feel we all at CBA have to do is that when people talk about monitoring and assessments and attributions those of us who specialize in monitoring have to look at ways by which these kind of attributions are considered acceptable and mainstreamed the other major challenge that we as STI have faced is that whatever Rosemary said we are facing in the 500 plus cities that we are working in our governments are not yet equipped our cities are not yet equipped to address huge huge challenges that the urban and rural poor are facing vis-à-vis food security health and co-morbidity challenges the problems of being locked into small and difficult spaces the absence of digitalization that gives some of us the kind of space to communicate and the huge uncertainties by which we are all looking at the future we all started with COVID as if it was a two three month crisis that we would go back to normal and we both we all realize that that's not the case and therefore a very important part of what all of us are trying to do in STI are to look at ways by which we first of all pronounce and demand acknowledgement of sustainably mobilized grassroots networks that begin to share their representation both locally nationally and globally and to seek the space that Rosemary spoke so eloquently about in all those spaces so that we are part of creating the solutions and not constantly treated as beneficiaries consumers targets you know as if you are inanimate objects on which things are going to be thrown at so this transformation is very important and a part of what I hope we do in CBA is to create these new partnerships that amplify these voices which we have on the ground powerful strong deeply committed voices of community representatives from aggregated networks that work with other institutional arrangements that have been more conventionally in the CBA to invade these hallowed spaces of decision making of finance allocations to say work with us don't throw things at us don't pretend that the money that you have put aside is actually going to reach us or give excuses of why it can't reach us because of this that and the other and therefore I think a very important challenge in the CBA is how do we construct these negotiations and dialogues with not only our duty bearers but also with people who are destroying our forests creating huge carbon footprints doing all the things that through nature-based solutions and other forms of adaptation we are all struggling in our own way to bring changes the other thing which I get constantly in our group discussions within SDI is that the aid architecture is not equipped to deal with these kind of crisis all the support that is seemingly set out to assist grassroots groups to address presently COVID and probably later climate change is so structured that it has nothing to do with the kinds of challenges and problems that people face and therefore this hit and miss process has to change how do we create those conversations how do we produce these kinds of negotiations how do we explore spaces where we are in direct confrontation with many others because we think we are on the opposite ends we have to coexist on this planet and how do we do that many of us are struggling with that we don't have the answer and we need to know that one of the most amazing things that the global commission has helped me articulate is the power of social movements across all the different aspects I operate in cities but there are farmers there are people working on oceans there are people working on indigenous groups trying to protect their tribal traditions and share their knowledge with the world all of whom are huge numbers but remain below the radar so to speak in this process and so one of our challenges I think within the local action track and which we want to share with the CBA groups is how do we showcase these in ways that are powerful and sustainable and finally one of the biggest challenges that the COVID crisis has shown us is the huge migration I know in India we saw this I think more than anywhere else but every country has seen a lot of urban migrants who came to work in cities or whose families had just begun to settle in cities desperately migrate back to their kinship groups in rural areas and what we found while we were exploring their challenges is that their identity has no portability first of all they don't have identity in cities and then those who do have identities they are locked in a particular geography beyond which they can get no entitlements so we know that climate change is going to produce so many shocks that it is going to produce a lot of migration before the resilience options kick in and therefore a very important element that we all have to acknowledge is how do we deal with this there is no data there is some data about international migration but there's not much knowledge and not much documentation or statistical analysis of these urban rural transitions and therefore one of the new pasts of the architecture we have to develop is to look at the urban and rural geographies as a continuum in which people's movements will continue all the time the world has taught us not only silos but it has separated the urban and the rural and one of those people who are saying we need to do much more work on urban issues and adaptation than cba has used before but now i'm coming to a point where we're saying that these two geographies have to be seen on a continuum and we have to look at all the movements that people will have to continue to make in order to survive climate challenges or pandemics or immediate destruction of their lives and livelihoods before the kind of overall resilience that we are all looking for will be taken up the final point that i want to make before which i will close is that this cba has brought all like-minded people together it's also taught us how to operate on a digital platform and i hope all of us who are organizers will work on this through the year so that by the time we go to different other climate programs we will take with us the issues that we raise and try and negotiate bring change produce transformation that we can report in that and so we don't come to the next cba again talking about similar challenges that we speak today so i wish you all a terrific terrific week and i'm already in conversations with many of you so thank you thank you very much shila so many so many important insights the challenge of migration and the rural urban the need to move beyond the rural urban divide the challenge of the eight architecture the current eight architecture system is broken but perhaps most importantly i love the you know work with us don't throw things at us approach because i think that does capture kind of the essence of the challenge here is how do we actually bring shift genuinely beyond the rhetoric genuinely from a notion of beneficiaries to empowered partners i think the rhetoric may have changed but the reality hasn't and how do we do that and are there where are the entry points to do that in the coming year i think is a very important question for all of us musa i want to turn to you you've you've been working to support local communities and institutions since the inception of brak and and even before that what have you learned about some of the best ways to unlock local capabilities to confront more complex crises thank you manish and thanks all of my fellow panelists and friends who joined in this cba opening forum today it's an honor that i could be present here even from distance and and can share my own learning and feelings about this whole event i want to start also by thanking the organizers of this forum or making this great event happen at a time when all of us are occupied with this pandemic which has been affecting everybody's life throughout the planet in one form or other and to some extent refocusing attention in a way that social distancing and other public health measures are almost taking us away from each other in many ways so it's time to really come together again and say while we are for science but we are also as human being and as societies we are together and so it's a great forum to begin with and remind us that whole issue now going back to your question i would not repeat some of the great comment that both rosemary and and shila has mentioned i think they covered a large part of it and since you have asked me to focus the learning of brak and a little bit personal let me highlight few points without repeating that might be helpful and i begin with the last point that manish you were mentioning um as summarizing shila patel's point that how do we really make sure that these communities where the main power and energy remain how do we really work with them as partnered as opposed to consider continue to consider them as beneficiaries and count them as targets one of the things we learned as brak that genuinely believe in the power of the knowledge that those communities have believe and feel that the power of the leadership that they can provide and they do provide with or without our knowledge in changing their society in managing their lives act knowledge that and respect that and ability to do that require a special mindset require special approaches and required to be humbled and really go and sit with them and learn from them and that's why i think the beginning can happen the moment we recognize that yes it is not the communities who are our beneficiaries rather it's the communities who can help us learn from them teach us what are the strengths that human communities can bring to address issues which is diverse from communities to communities not uniform not one thing that fits across then our learning ability and learning agility to go and sit with communities would be a critical critical power that we can use in order to begin this journey in this regard i would like to mention that sometime we often focus on this whole issue of knowledge that you see on the surface rosemary upper and both shila for mentioned about the indigenous knowledge that people have but the amount of tacit knowledge that people have that would not be expressed unless you really gain confidence of those people unless you build trust of the people with whom you are unless you really go and we give them the confidence that yes you are here to learn from them genuinely and figure out a way how the knowledge of multiple communities can create a higher value unless we do that then tacit knowledge would remain tacit so one of the learning from brack has been to facilitate bringing out tacit knowledge from the communities and help communities to consolidate those and console those those knowledges from multiple communities so you literally build a coalition of knowledge bearers and create help create higher value and that is where we think one of the role we can play at this time when we are struggling and we ourselves are connected by technology as brack we have been finding you can use technology even simple technology to tap to this indigenous knowledge to tap to this tacit knowledge and interconnect knowledge as brack we work not only in Bangladesh we work in 12 different countries in Asia and Africa directly but also through our partners in around another dozens of countries where we don't have our physical country office but we are connected we have been testing during this COVID-19 time which we try to take as an also not only an issue to suffer from but also an opportunity to really rebuild we have been testing some mobile-based technologies from distant methodologies by which you can tap local knowledge we can interconnect knowledge and technology can be a knowledge tapping mechanism knowledge coalition building mechanism to really create that tacit knowledge come into higher level of value creating power so I would say that is one of the thing I would definitely share second knowledge I'll share that we learn is that issue related to collectivization when it comes to empowerment facilitating empowerment of local communities who do have power but in many cases latent hidden how do we really help take that out and we one thing we learned as global community all of us here will recognize has been collectivization we do know that that has been one of the approaches development communities we have used throughout the last 40 50 years that collect help collectivize bring people together so that when they're in collective that the inner power comes out and collective power is the biggest part in promoting social development we must use that philosophy but during this COVID-19 time we realized and learned and we have been learning even earlier that you may not be able to collective bring people in collective all the time so are there alternative ways of still promoting collectives when you are maintaining this social distancing when you are supposed to make sure that people are still safe and we have presently discovered it is possible ask local communities that how that can be done how can local collectivization still be done while ensuring the safety security and the social distancing can be maintained and we are presently surprised how local communities came up with ideas of they themselves come up with ideas sitting at distances yet connecting with each other they themselves come up with connecting through through local leaders and and and use local leaders to really get things done in a way which is safer but you still promote collectivization and we have been learning that can be done this is not different only in COVID time we have been finding even in pre-COVID period when for example we are more and more realizing that in 1970s 1980s when we were bringing women groups women into groups and saying okay let them speak with each other and create their collective leadership that situation were there when many of the women were more focused on households in communities especially in Asia and some part of Africa we have seen we were watching over time that as women were getting involved in more and more small businesses and other activities that time to come to collectives in any way were constrained so this COVID was just uncutting this whole issue that it's not easy to come to collectives or do collectivization but also you're finding out that you need to figure out alternative ways of really being people into collective so that collective power can still be there in order to really maximize communities ability to lead local changes as we talk about community based adaptation where locally led approach is the key where nature based solution come from this locally based solutions then we see that we have to really look for alternative ways of doing it and it's not just technology it's also coming to its own guidance can help learn about how to go for it quickly few other things we had mentioned we have been learning center however you define center has a special role in facilitating local community based leadership but often that special role of center is miss or misunderstood sometimes center plays a role which cause more harm than good and here I'll go back to the phrase do no harm sometimes center feels that we have the responsibility to come with solution we have been seeing that in this lockdown time the way lockdown was imposed as if we forgotten that there's a principle of community based leadership in the world for last 40 years the lockdown was critical but it came as an imposed from top but that was not the approach which is the most effective one it works to some extent but you see how people then go out of home despite the fact that they were at risk what is most important that centers role is to more listen to facilitate to support and really figure out how people can gain confidence as opposed to impose as opposed to implant solution figuring out this central role which is more empowering rather than disempowering is a critical role that we need to be master of today here we are talking about talking in a group who could be considered as part of centers all the many of us have grounding in our ground but how do we make sure that the center role is empowering rather than causing harm and that is something we learned as brak that we need to continually master continuously champion get better at so that we can really promote the solution one other in this solution I would mention there are tools there are models there are methodologies and existence and there are innovative approaches in brak we have tried various innovation it's an ongoing learning innovation is about ongoing learning learn about it test it learn from it you will make mistake but again adjust it and in this one last point I'd mention there's no alternative of coalition of learning that coalition of learners and coalition of learning may or more we become global that is better because then we can collectively get better in this whole thing last issue is what we are watching nowadays with little bit uncertainty that in the last 30 40 years humanitarian and development sector was quite a lot getting support from global north financially as well as also some lab based knowledge which are helpful vaccines are helpful similar tools are helpful we see now this covid-19 created a situation where both global north is struggling global south is struggling in this situation the whole repolarization happening how within all these we continue to promote community based leadership and community based adaptation to one of the global challenge which is this climate change challenge which might I was worried at that at one time in early April May of this year that is climate change going to going to be sidelined because covid is becoming so big it's our responsibility make sure that we bring those together help see the interface between those two and bring local communities in the leadership role together with the leadership role that rest of the global community can play and we collectively create higher value I'm really very pleased that I could be here and we could be here we are part of the ecosystem BRAC alone cannot deal with it sdi alone cannot deal with it no organization alone can deal with it our problem is bigger bigger than any of us therefore our collectivization at the macro level and micro level and connecting micro and macro where we remain locally grounded yet globally impactful using knowledge and advocacy as the tool would remain our strength if you can play right and it's time to play right thank you very much thank you thank you moosa that was all three of you just incredibly kind of inspiring opening remarks as we as we kick off this conference so thank you so many important themes insights from your time indigenous knowledge and tacit knowledge the power of collectivization or collective action I found in particular your critique of the role of the center and how it should do no harm and rather empower facilitate exactly what this conference needs to focus on and also resonates well with an exchange that Fiona and rosemary have been having on the chat box so incredibly important things we want to now actually open up this conversation to all of you we have a few minty meter questions and I'm going to turn it over to Christina who's going to explain the next the next part of this opening session thanks that's right and for those of you who have been to cba's before you'll know that it's it's an opportunity to sit down together to chat to connect to get a different perspective get new ideas get inspired by by the work that that others are doing and so we want to bring as much as possible that that interactive that that recharge that you can get from cba and exchange you can get from cba into into this year's conference while while being virtual and so what we want to do is go to mentimeter and we have a couple of polls so get on your smartphone or open up another window on your browser and go to menti.com it's www.menti.com and enter in the code that you see on the screen there five eight six six nine nine seven and you'll see a couple of questions there that we want to answer and I'll explain the cartoon really quickly this is part of that spirit of of having a laugh having a groan having a a giggle these are cartoons that came out of a session last week on climate red where we discussed some of the proposed principles for locally led action these are principles that are being developed co-developed with with all of you and there's a session this Thursday to continue that co-development process that really grew out of the last cba meeting and discussions with sdi and firu commission and climate justice resilience fund iid icad black brach um and and various others so you can see the the continuity and the evolution of thought and these cartoons just help bring to light some of the the challenges and tensions that we face if you can go to the next slide please um so the first question um building off of the the discussion we were just having about coven uh and the climate crisis is the coven pandemic and the economic crisis that's come uh as a result of it is it going to accelerate or impede locally led action um on the one hand you can might say it's bringing more attention to the issue that we need strong local institutions to respond to to be there when we need them and in order to be there when we need them they need to be strengthened on the other hand it you know these local institutions are in communities as we've heard are dealing with lots of different threats and constraints um so the effects might be positive might be negative right now the poll looks like it's head in head between accelerating or impeding action a few votes for no effect we'll let that go another minute longer but it it looks like the the the global sense here is that we don't know whether it will hurt or help local action uh that were were torn in our opinions on that all right interesting interesting results i want to maybe go to the next slide to the next question now they're dead even 44 45 uh again drawing in one of the cartoons there and the next question um is open-ended um it's on what are the barriers that you think need to be tackled to make the most progress on locally led adaptation action so this is your opportunity to type something short um you know we don't have time for master theses here but um type in what you think are the key barriers trust interesting patriarchy sexism interesting these these themes have already come up in discussion flexible finance white charity post-colonial relationships power governance good governance transparency underestimating local knowledge that thing certainly came up in the discussions funding or lack thereof relevance that's an interesting one maybe we're putting forward irrelevant solutions power imbalance trust between the communities type in something even if you've already seen it um just to to emphasize the point if we see multiple of the same things the same barriers that will that'll give us information as well empowerment interest and willingness of those with power and money to listen and act arrogance of privileged uh professionalism um very interesting cba is is living up to its its reputation of of saying things how they are and being frank and and honest capitalism power imbalance finance interesting all right we'll give that just another second or two so if you want to to type in your answer please do um top down mentality another on finance that's certainly a theme and a theme in this year's cba centers inappropriate role power a lot of a lot of common themes here understanding again finance coming up western power power echoed again i think i see accountability there access to funds great technology transfer and finance for feasibility studies so just getting started having the resources to get started tribalism governance excellent great i think we'll go to the third question the third and last question sam you don't mind and there will be ample opportunities to interact through the chat box through the huva app so this is this is not the only opportunity so the third question is is a poll um we want you to vote on what are the top priorities for community of practice on locally led adaptation for the next decade where do you think we as a community of practice should be focusing our efforts what what should we be doing um and if you if there's an answer that isn't reflected there um feel free to type it into the chat box um so that we we capture that um uh there's oh now everything is neck and neck 25 percent terms of identifying funding up now fostering connection between donors cso's and grassroots representatives is is in the lead next is developing innovative financing models along close to raising the profile of of funding for locally led action and identifying funding and again if you think there's another priority that should be there that should be discussed please feel free to put that in the chat box because we we want to hear your thoughts and and don't want to constrict the the conversation to these four choices so still fostering connections between donors cso's and grassroots representatives is is in the lead there's a lot of desire for that which is great to see all right well i hope that was useful and and and for us it was a good way to gauge where where people are minds are at and what the thinking is and what the issues are for for further discussion um throughout the rest of the conference um what i do want to say is if people have questions for the panelists we might not have time to get to them during this opening session but again feel free to put it in the chat box the chat box will remain active and um the panelists will have the ability to go in and provide answers to your questions or continue the discussion there so so this is not the the end of the opportunity to ask questions and and have a dialogue together manish back back to you for a few more great um thank you thank you very much christina very very interesting um we we wanted to actually see if i could uh get our panelists to reflect on on what they saw through the mentimeter exercise um i was particularly struck by that first question regarding whether the pandemic is is an opportunity or a risk and kind of and i i think the concern is it could be a risk but it leveraged well perhaps it's an opportunity but i wonder um rosemary maybe we'll go in the same order rosemary sheila and musa we only have one or two minutes for each of you so just any quick reflections on the mentimeter and any quick um uh final um final insights you'd like to share but we have about six minutes for the three of you because i would like to get five seven minutes to saline to help provide some closing remarks um sheila i'm sorry rosemary rosemary would you like to uh sorry rosemary thank you um i think uh looking at uh what has been uh shown on the screen i might take i think uh in terms of the economic crisis uh we are not really sure which direction it will go but i think the direction it goes depends on how we handle everything sorry okay i think uh in terms of the economic crisis it will go either way depending on how well we handle the situation because if we put in proper measures and empower communities well then it may not really affect the economy so much but if we do not respond in the right way then we may be headed for a crisis because remember i said earlier that uh many of us have lost livelihoods in kenya millions of people have lost their jobs meaning that the economy is already affected but if we come in with measures that can bring back the livelihoods of our people come back with measures that can be easily implemented then we may not affect the economy so much i'm looking at a grassroots community where we have lost livelihoods because of the floods and the crops are no longer there and we come in with the measures where we are leveraging the woman to be able to get some income or some kind of learning facility to help the women rebuild their businesses then we will be rebuilding the economy at the same time we will be working on mitigating the impacts of climate change i'm looking at a very interesting point that has come out about power and governance i'm a strong believer that communities have the power and i'm a strong believer who believes that we should not do things top bottom approach we should not make our communities feel like they have to beg for services because it is their basic right to have those services so what we need to do for our communities is to empower them to know the capacities that they have and how they fit into the system excellent yes and i also believe i believe that if actors can work well with communities and bring out the power that is in communities we are we are not going to start grumbling for resources we are going to use our resources is very well for the benefit of our communities and i want to emphasize that it is very important that we respect our communities i'm a community person and i believe in communities being respected and i want to believe we are agree with mohammed more than anything else that communities have the power we just need to bring out the knowledge in them bring out the potential in them make them understand what is going on and communities will always respond in a positive manner once they respond in a positive manner they are going to create voices that can be heard not just voices voices that can be heard by the authorities so that's my quick reflection thank you so much rosemary and apologies i i just sheila so we have maybe a minute each i just want to leave salim with some time to provide some closing reflections but that was really powerful rosemary thank you sheila well i'm happy to give all my time to her she's so good at it i believe in all the things that she says but i am deeply deeply pessimistic about the present global leadership and the architecture of finance that is managed globally to give any to bother at all with what's happening on the ground our governments are behaving very responsibly most of the resources even taken for covet are not coming to poor people so i i don't give that equal weightage i'm deeply deeply disappointed and i think we are all going to be left for communities to do their usual survival and to to keep getting depleted of their energies and their resources because of the indifference of the global institutions and our national institutions obsessed with gdp and nothing else sheila thank you and and your your um you know i raised at the very beginning that while we're having this conversation there's this financing for development conversation happening and there's almost and i've been involved in that and there's no no real peace around locally that action so one of the questions salim i'm going to have for you when you we come to you is your prime minister is going to have an opportunity to speak on the 29th of september uh at the head of state finance for development summit can we make a big plea for rethinking the entire architecture of how finance should be structured in ways that genuinely create partnerships with local communities so just just to pop there lusa yeah no thank you i want to start by thanking those who voted in this mentimeter it's very rewarding to see how we all are thinking it's a good sample size um what are some of my tech from this whole mentimeter appalling uh number one it's becoming very clear that uh i am that we are not not sure where the where the uh where are the confidence in this whole if we are from the uncertainty uh uncertain world we are in that's why you see some of us feel that maybe covid-19 will accelerate local action some of us feel maybe it will impede because we are not sure that put the onus on us whose direction would push this whole journey towards would we really make sure that we have more optimism or will will remain silent it's it's opposite wish it's time for us to act two or three other words i will take out from the mentimeter polling one was trust i think building trust at a time when social distancing is remaining away is a public health requirement and a norm we value that how do you really build trust within this this is important another point is this whole issue of fostering need for fostering connections fostering relationship between different groups not only between donors community-based organization and grassroots movements but also with each and every communities and here we have a role to play if we do that right then i think we can play this bigger role of turning uncertainty to more certain i would end by saying it's our time to really re-emphasize on this locally led action even more there's no time better than this when you needed this and this required all of us to act together and let's do that thank you thank you very much musa um this is such a rich conversation salim um who i think needs no introduction in this uh in this form um but uh we really would love to turn to you now um and offer some um some final uh reflections on this opening session uh salim over to you great thank you very much manish thanks to the wonderful speakers rosemary shila and musa one can listen to them for hours i think and for a very rich discussion i'm not going to pick up on the conversation that we've had we will have several days to do that i'll just zoom out a little bit in terms of where we are now and how far we've come recalling that i started this series of cba conferences 15 years ago in 2005 and we are still continuing i'm very glad to see that my colleagues in iid are still continuing it since even though i left and now it's up to them and the current situation as several people have already pointed out is a new normal or an opportunity for a new normal where i think we need to up our game very considerably the first way in which i feel that we might think of doing this is the fact that we have now gone online this is also one on one side of difficulty because we're not having face-to-face discussions which used to be the key element of our networking events in the past meeting people in fact it was meeting over lunch dinner and and breakfast which was more important than listening to people in the formal sessions and we're missing that the second opportunity though is that we can now link across the world and community-based adaptation is not a local level issue in developing countries only it's everywhere even in the richest countries there's a big dichotomy between local communities and their own masters and rulers at the national level and so we have an opportunity to link up globally across the various grassroots level community actions in the context of climate change adaptation in particular which is now happening everywhere the climate change impacts are happening everywhere climate change adaptation is a necessity in every single country in the world rich or poor doesn't really matter anymore and that is a really new situation that is a new opportunity for us as a global community so what i would like us to think about is in the in the very short the medium and the longer term the very short term being the next few days we will hopefully be able to spend time with each other not just listening to each other but engaging with each other and and my colleagues in iid have come up with various platforms that enable us to do that i i really do hope that we can all use this opportunity to engage talk to each other build up this community of practice on cba even bigger than it has been in the past and so by the time we finish this particular set of meetings over the next four or five days on the five themes that we have it's not just that we've done some good networking and have some good ideas but we have a way to take it forward as a community of practice i really do want us to think deeply about how do we take this community of practice further forward and then in the in the medium term we've already heard about the upcoming global summit on adaptation which will take place on the 25th of january originally supposed to have been a one-day event in amsterdam in october it's now because of the covid-19 uh still a one-day event but postponed to 25th of january and it's no longer just one event in amsterdam but a series of anchor events around the world one of which will be here in Dhaka where i'm speaking from now where the government of Bangladesh will be hosting one of these anchor events whose very focus will be on locally led adaptation it'll be the global event on locally led adaptation hosted by the prime minister of Bangladesh and to answer your question Manish she is very much a champion of this just a few days ago she launched the regional south asia office of the global center on adaptation here in Dhaka together with mr banki moon who is the chair of the gca and the prime minister of the netherlands as well and so we are hoping that the gca center in Dhaka will become one of these leading centers on locally led adaptation and prime minister Bangladesh is very much committed to having Bangladesh be a global leader but also share that knowledge and experience with other countries particularly south south countries and in particular under the leadership of the global the climate vulnerable forum which is nearly 50 of the most vulnerable countries which she now chairs for the next two years so an opportunity for her to use her leadership position to take that issue forward and then in the final context of the us the community of parties of practice on community-based adaptation locally led adaptation how do we keep our conversations going continuing and in in fact i will be hosting just prior to the summit the four days prior to the summit from the 21st to the 24th of january the next gavashana conference gavashana for those of you who don't know is a bungalow word for research and it's a platform of universities and research institutes that have been working on adaptation in Bangladesh for many years we do a big annual conference last year last time last january we launched the locally led adaptation track of the global commission there and next year january 21 to 24 we will have a much more in-depth discussion so the cba conference outcomes we hope to take to gavashana in january and continue this conversation so what i i want is to not finish when we finish the closing session of cba but to continue and find ways to continue this dialogue and use the fact that we now all live in a zoom or a internet virtual world to our advantage to link up across time zones and across geographies in a way that perhaps in the past we would have to fly to places to be able to do that let's no longer fly but let's keep connected and so to me that really is the big challenge i would like to invite everybody who's listening to this opening event over the next four days to think about it and come up with ways of taking that forward which i would be very interested in following up taking forward into what i call the next 10-year journey to make sure that locally led adaptation plays a very significant part in the global response to climate change where the vulnerable communities are given their due recognition as we've just heard from all the excellent speakers today what we what we've heard is lots of lessons lots of ways to do it forward what we haven't seen is those lessons being taken up and learned so let's hope that we can make that happen over the next 10 years thank you i'll stop there and back to money thank you um thank you very much salim both both for those are remarks that kind of lay out um the days the weeks and the months ahead but but also for your foresight salim uh in imagining uh the community-based adaptation conference and helping really advance this agenda for decades so thank you salim and um everyone um want to also thank uh our our terrific panelists rosemary shila and musa for such inspiring uh and challenging um remarks uh as we open this week's worth of discussions um i i just think this this point about how the how the current pandemic the crisis the economic crisis the climate crisis how we how we change that from a risk to an opportunity how we challenge and confront the center to really to really redefine how we think about economic structures how we think about societal structures in ways that create genuine empowered partnerships is at the heart of what we must do in the coming in the coming months ahead there's a small window to get a outsized change because of how fluid the world is today let's take our advantage of it let's work together and make the most of it to realize the ambitions of what all of us so care so deeply about so with that please join me i know we can't verbally do it but a really warm round of applause uh to to all of our speakers into all of you for joining for us uh say it in the chat box uh clap visually um viscerally figuratively in whatever way you can thank you to everyone and um back to someone who will tell us what happens next thanks manish i'm going to jump in now um my name's sam green i'm with iid i'm going to give a few housekeeping announcements and just explain very briefly how you can engage with cba some people will already be experts at this stage but this is aimed at anybody who is looking at the hoover platform uh and feeling particularly confused so this will only take a very short while and aims to give you an opportunity to see what's going on and how you can engage if you visit the hoover platform you'll see this overview page now the first port of call if you're confused about how to do anything is to visit this how to section uh that's going to give you videos on how to contribute where you can find more information and that should be your first port of call a second port of call is the ask the organizers section in the community boards there you'll see other guidance updates and news um about what's going on in the conference if you're interested in finding out more about the program please don't forget to visit the agenda and you must try to sign up if you visit the chat box on the session that you are interested in in the agenda you will see a sign-up form please use the sign-up forms to let us know that you are coming to that session and if you cannot come to the session that you have signed up for for any reason please please let us know so that we can move your place in the session to somebody who's on the waiting list the community boards are extremely active there are already over a thousand messages exchanged and if you don't like what you see you can start your own community board if you're having a particularly interesting discussion on a particular topic in the community section let us know and we can facilitate a meet-up that's a virtual call where you can discuss the topic in more detail so please do get in touch if you found a niche topic that you would like to have a round table discussion on finally in the market and at place you'll find you can interact with participants talking about specific projects and more marketplace stalls are being entered all the time and there's also a film competition you can find it in the marketplace and you can vote for the winner in the poll section the enter the the participant entering the winning film will get free access to cba 15 next year so it's quite the prize recordings from sessions and rapporteurs notes will be made available to participants as soon as they're ready please do tweet using the hashtag cba 14 from any of your sessions and if you do have any problems contact the team at cba conference at iied.org i want to thank again all of the presenters and speakers today for really powerful contributions and we are really very much looking forward to the next few days and the discussions that we're going to have on the platform together and as salim has just said i'm beyond so thank you very much thank you for joining us at this opening plenary and i'm looking forward to seeing you all over the next few days