 Good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening. Welcome to our session on listening to the grass roots. As you come in, please put your name, organization and your country, the country from which you're dialing in on the chat. Feel free during the course of our session today to type your responses and your reactions to what you're hearing your takeaways and your questions in the chat. This session is about listening to the grass roots and it's one of two sessions in the responsive policy stream that SDI, the slum dwellers international network and the viral commission have jointly organized. The viral commission is a global network. We see ourselves as a social change movement. We are focused on the empowerment and leadership of grassroots women in building more sustainable resilient communities. And slum dwellers international is also a global network and social movement that focuses on the urban poor who are leading and organizing around the issues of their communities. So welcome. For those of you who are just coming in, please put your name, organization and country in the chat. We will not be using closed captioning today. Now will be, will we use any mentor. So please feel free to put your responses and your questions into the chat. My name is Suranjana Gupta. I'm from the viral commission. And today's session is focused on listening to the grassroots. Who are the grassroots and why do we want to listen to them. I think that as to social movements focused on grassroots leadership. We believe that it's essential for other actors to work with partner with and listen to the voices and, and actually assimilate and understand grassroots organizations. And one of the things we like to do is get people to hear directly from grassroots leaders who are working on the ground every day to transform the reality of the urban and rural poor. So, we have a very interesting panel lined up for you today. I can see that people are still coming in. We have. Wow, we already have 56 people. We have people from Kakomega in Kenya, and we have somebody from Melbourne in Australia, and we have someone from Germany from Washington DC from Rwanda from Australia. And, wow, we have a huge variety of people who are from indigenous people organizations, I can see Ted Teba there, I can see the Royal Horticultural Society, I see people from SDI. So, wow, we have people who we know and those we don't who are joining our session welcome everyone. And so our session on listening to grassroots today also draws our attention to the idea that it's not only important to look at the practical or the concrete or the technical aspects of adaptation and resilience building. But for poor people and marginalized communities, it is also essential to understand the the learning processes it's important to understand how they are trying to influence and change and transform the social systems the social processes the economic processes and the political processes the power relationships between grassroots organizations and decision makers. We're going to hear from a fantastic panel of grassroots leaders they're all seasoned grassroots leaders. We have Bisola Akim Muiwa from SDI Nigeria, we have Pauline Karuki from rural women's network. She's a farmer who's working in Kenya. We have Sonia Rodrigo from the homeless people's federation and we have Josephine Castillo or Jocas who's a leader and founder of a nationwide community based network called Dampa. And last but not least you have a fantastic facilitator who I'll introduce to you in a minute. After I check if she's arrived is yet. And in the meantime, let's just put up the zoom protocols please. So those of you, that's our panel, you can see. And can we get the slide for the zoom protocols and zoom etiquette. I'm stopping my video because I think my voice is my internet is not very good today. So there you are, you have your zoom protocols. Please know that the meeting is being recorded and parts of it will be made available on website different organizations and if you have any objections please convey this to us on private chat you can speak to one of our volunteers, Mourna and Pranita are our volunteers. They, they're also providing us with technical support if you have any problems, please contact them. In order to improve your network and your found and visual please close all non essential applications on your device, especially sky. Please mute your microphone when you are not speaking and to panelists who we would like to see your faces. If your network allows and you have strong connectivity. If the if it interferes with your connectivity then please turn your video off, but otherwise please show your video show us your face while you're speaking. And please use the chat box for any comments and questions that you have panelists you're also welcome to answer and respond to questions that might come in on the chat. And again, if you face any technical issues, please notify Lynn Mourna in the chat box. She's a volunteer Lynn and Pranita supporting us there are volunteers. Also, let me thank IID are who we are doing this in collaboration with let me also thank our partner SDI and GRP the global resilience partnership for supporting our team to participate. And I think before we start is Violet here. Hello, can someone tell me if our facilitator is here and yeah she just connected. Yeah, she just. All right, so you have a terrific facilitator here today she's a seasoned grassroots leader, Violet Shavuotsi. Hello. Hello, I'm going to, I'm just about to introduce you and. Hello, am I clear now. Hello. Yes, you're clear. Can you hear me. Thank you so much and I'm sorry. Yes, I do hear you very well. Violet give me a minute to give everybody your excellent credentials as a leader. So Violet Shavuotsi is somebody who, who is the founder of an organization called Shibuya Community Health Workers. It's an association of community health workers that she set up in 1999. Also the chair of the viral commission's governing council. So she she's a brilliant leader very charismatic leader you're going to really enjoy. She's going to provide some of her insights and remarks coming from her own experience on resilience building in Kakamega County where she's based she's also working in Homa Bay and the lake area of Kenya. And with that it's over to you Violet. Thank you. Thank you so much everyone. Let me remove my specs. Thank you. And I really am humbled with that introduction. So Angela leader in organizing organization and most important for today's session. I am a grassroots woman leader that has really been working on issues of climate change for a long time and demonstrating how the collective power of grassroots women can actually be a vehicle to address the negative implications of climate change and build resilient communities. So I really value these and want to contribute to this session. And I'm really happy for the participants that are turning up for this session, especially those that signed up. And we also have very strong speakers on the session that will be will be speaking to you. Using their own experience on how they have been addressing climate change through different tools and solutions they have provided on the terminal for just one minute check if we can continue. Is there a problem. Yes Violet we can hear you if you face any difficulty with the network you can turn off your video. Okay, for now, I'm clear isn't it. Yeah, it's better to switch off your video. Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Am I clear now. I have. Thank you so much, Anisha, on how this presentation is going to be, which I want Solangina to quickly take us through this order. Then I'll start with bringing the speakers. Solangina. Okay, so the first just to give you an overview of the whole session. We'll start with jokers from Philippines and then go to the solar from Nigeria. Special guest Margaret Arnold from the World Bank may also want to comment after the two speakers. And after that we'll go to Pauline Kayuki from Kenya, and then to Sonya Rodrigo from the Philippines. And following that Margaret Arnold and Violet will have a small provide their remarks and after that I'll come back to do the Q&A. Is that okay. Yes, thank you so much for that. So I will straight away good to go to the I also really want to welcome Margaret Arnold for sparing your time to be with us today. So I want to start with jokers and you can also put jokers. And actually you can put jokers bio to serve on time on the on the screen as we continue joker. Yeah. Hello. A pleasant day to everybody. My name is Josephine Castile or jokers. I'm a grassroots leader organizer and the program manager of a grassroots women led organization called them back. What founded in 1995 67 local grassroots women organization nationwide. I'm a change and disaster. We do resilience building of our communities by organizing. Jokers you are muted. Jokers. Jokers you're on mute. Oh, sorry, sorry. Sorry. Hello. A pleasant day to everybody. Continue. Thank you. I'm a grassroots leader and organizer and the program manager of a grassroots women led organization called them or solidarity oppressed Filipino people founded in 1995 with 67 active local grassroots organization member nationwide and we are a member of wire commission and I'm one of the members. Due to climate change and disaster. We used to do resilience building on our grassroots communities by organizing grassroots communities, giving capacity building, doing community savings. We do leadership with different state stakeholders doing communal gardens. And we do risk mapping where we mobilize our grassroots communities and barangay officials. In order to, in order to. Sorry. We do risk mapping to mobilize our grassroots communities and barangay officials and then to participate in each one has a distinct role and we bring knowledge as grassroots we bring knowledge to our community because without us. Everything will be concrete outcome of whatever projects that our government or private institution want to implement in our communities. So, by doing this, we build a partnership from the local to national level, and one of our examples, because we are empowered. Through empowerment of our grassroots women, we build political clout. And by building political clout, we can influence local and national projects and programs of our government, as well as UN agencies. One of the basic samples that we do was the partnership in the national agency called Department of Social Welfare and Development and the World Bank Projects. We call it Kalahi seeds. Kalahi seeds means the seeds is comprehensive integrated development for social services. And our priority issues that come out during risk mapping like farm to market roads. So, it's the same of our river and creeks and water and water irrigations in which these priority issues were given to us, and was prioritized by the government by the national government at the local government were in our grassroots women were leading these programs on these projects, and we were all involved in all the process from consultation, planning, designing implementation and monitoring. So, through this partnership, our projects that was done and was implemented and it helped a lot by building resilience to our communities. And especially our grassroots women, our farmers can now deliver their foods that they produce from the farm going to the market, because of the farm to market roads that has built through these Kalahi seeds projects. So, as a grassroots women, all I can see is that we decide that our, that government, private institution, union agencies, funders will trust our capacity to manage resources in build as partners and agent in building resilience. For grassroots communities, municipalities, cities, countries, globally. Thank you. Thank you so much Jokas for that wonderful presentation. And you have really keep started us very well to start seeing the role of grassroots women and their contribution in organizing communities around implications of climate change. And issues of disaster. So, I will call upon be solar as our next speaker, and just to remind the speakers that you have five to six minutes. So try and keep time and initial is helping on time we don't want to cut you. Thank you. Hi everyone. My name is be solar. I'd like to go on audio presentation due to the environment and network issues. We're not forced to have a better presentation. My name is be solar. I'm a member of Nigeria. A movement of a band for our dignity and development. I'm also a co-coordinators of UT media team. New York City TV, active in over 36 countries. Together we are not slum dwellers internationally. Today, our leaders are sitting on the ranch table, cracking their brains about one development. From the discussion to the implementation, which are involving us. In the month of December 2019 to this agenda 2020, over 24 communities were demolished. Make it as above people, women and children boneless, regardless of their responsibilities and obligations under the various international treaties to protect the rights to shelter of all citizens. In which they are signatory to. Just as the month of March 2020, in which we started our lockdown. Communities still face threat to eviction, while others are even evicted. Which expose them to the risk of the pandemic. Our problems on climate change is made worse than due to lack of social infrastructure, such as DNA system. Lack of proper disposal of waste, like plastic and other environmentally harmful waste. Which affect the way we dispose of our waste. Couple with this rising sea level, historical storm and heavy rain, which cause flooding. In our only two years in the 90s class that she promised me federation, through our community health educator. We are able to create awareness on how to properly dispose our environmental harmful waste. And also promote the use of green energy through our federation go green team. Not as climate change warriors and beauty climate warriors in our community to promote the use and benefit green energy. Just as we have our KYC TV, which is a youth based media outfit to contain a short documentary. In the others to create awareness around climate change, adaptation and other challenges. That has been faced by our bumper like eviction. Yes, we also have our profilers who play vital roles by capturing and documentary our data for advocacy making. Working with Nigeria policy and advocacy team. In order for us to have our data in place against a vision and to be able to identify the risk on climate change. Here my way forward. Despite the fact that we face the loss during this year at the face of the COVID-19. I'm very sure that COVID-19 ensures how much we need each other. We need orders and we need support from all donors agency, private sector, international bodies and government agencies. To prioritize engaging grassroots movement like ours. We should prioritize inclusion of grassroots movement from planning to the implementation of a bumper development. Yes, we have our data from community needs profile mapping and enumeration as the basis of making these plans support us in our efforts to upgrade our communities. In each to do a bridge. Start with access to their services, such as portable water and sanitation. We are able to mark out this because this are some of the challenges that will face in our various communities. We call on support and we hope that we see the support that we hope for. In order for us to have the green and the beautiful place that we all hope for. Thank you all and stay safe. God bless. Sorry I was on mute. Thank you so much, Bisola. Thank you for that very good example of how grassroots women are living in informal settlements. Our championing activities that enable to collect data. And we have always heard about community data driven process, which is more informative and more arbitrary. I think this is the unique part of this presentation on how you have been able to mobilize the community in being able to collect data which has helped to improve basic service delivery. Such as water and sanitation. Thank you for that very good example. So now I'm going to invite. Margaret. This is a virtual meeting so I don't know what to do to bring Margaret in a very good way as grass roots are we have usually done. So I'm going to start with a little bit of really singing before you start speaking, but I just want to acknowledge Margaret is the senior social development specialist in the World Bank. And she has been with us listening to us most of the time, which has been very important always the how we shape and message around the role of classes women. Thank you so much Margaret welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I hope everyone can hear me okay. Can you hear me violet. Yes, I do hear you very well. Great. Thank you violet I can feel the warmth introduction through the video so thank you for that. It's really a pleasure and honor for me to be here with everyone today. I don't want to speak that long now because I want to hear from the other two grassroots women leaders, but maybe I'll just say a quick word about Syranjan opposed the question at the beginning of the session of why we should listen to the grassroots. And I think you heard very much why already from jokas and be so love from their great presentations. Number one is that grassroots leaders are, are, you know, communities are organized and should not be, you know, just sort of analyzed and as part of a problem to solve or, or, you know, consulted as beneficiaries of a project or experience of a project. But they are not only stakeholders, but their knowledge holders and experts. They have a lot of knowledge based on their lived experience communities have seen the change changes happening in their communities due to climate change. So they are. partners and should be treated as equal partners. And I think the other reason was really demonstrated by a visa law and that communities are, you know, multitasking when it comes to risk there's not. It's about sea level rise other impacts of climate change pollution, this structural persistent poverty. There's a lot of and now the COVID pandemic, there's, you know, we can just take one particular hazard and address that. But we definitely have to multitask when it comes to risk and communities can do that because they're doing it on a daily basis. So, at the World Bank we are have been learning this for many years and are intensifying our efforts to do this we have a new environmental and social framework that has a much stronger focus on doing stronger stakeholder engagement and engaging in a meaningful way developing partnerships with communities. And we have mechanisms like community driven development programs that you heard from joke us in a number of countries we do quite a bit of of our lending and grants for these type of mechanisms that you know we work with national governments right so our lending and our grants go through national governments, but community driven development programs. So directly down to the local level there's mechanisms and principles in place where the needle is pushed towards citizen control of the of the program so as you heard from joke us, they typically go down in the form of block grants to communities and elected community committee can make the decisions or a civil society or grassroots organization can be involved so they're making the decisions on how to invest that money, and they're implementing it and monitoring it. So, these can be very effective ways to engage communities in meaningful ways. We also support devolution and decentralization program so that's another way. And in all of these mechanisms we're trying to engage communities in meaningful ways as part as equal partners at the table. So I'll stop there for now and looking forward to hearing from from Sonya and and Pauline. Thank you. Thanks Violet back to you. Thank you so much, Margaret. Thank you a lot. And now I will want us to go to Pauline karaoke, who is going to speak from the perspective of grasses women farmers. And before we hear from Pauline karaoke, we will have an issue us show us a quick video of Pauline's work. An issue, please. I think instead of hearing from her because her connectivity is very poor. We're going to play the video. Yeah, because her connectivity is not so good, but she's here to answer questions. Okay, good. My name is Pauline karaoke. I'm a farmer from Kenya, and the director of women network, which is a platform for those small who the agriculture producers. We also members of commission, which is a global movement for grass root women for community based adaptation to climate change focus on women. Women's mohawk agriculture process feed the communities, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. When many institutions closed, the eating institution did not close. Unfortunately, the women production efforts are seriously hampered by climate change. Most disasters in Kenya are related to climate related, including floods, drought, hunger, fires, etc. Boosted mitigation naturally falls on the hearts of women. The grass root women's mohawk producers are very aware of the solutions needed to address the serious adaptation at the community level. They know what works. The impact on the environment as a livelihood support system like agriculture has put them on the receiving end as times and seasons become unpredictable. Climate adaptation is local. The grass root women have have it have it taken among themselves to address the climate change mitigation adaptation mechanisms. The efforts of rural women network grass root readers is to lead the communities to embracing climate smart initiatives. The women are now trained and practicing the result of the climate awareness and actions has contributed to the realisation of both tangible and intangible benefits that have contributed to increase the resilience of local communities. They have the skills they have been trained on zero-tiered which involves minimum tiered permanent soil cover using crop residue and crop rotation. This increases agriculture productivity, reduced farming, labour requirements and improved soil fertility. The women have established farm forests after building their capacity in environmental conservation. They have set up tree narcissists and agroforestry and narcissists. Kitchen gardens, the women food and nutrition security, the women are now growing their own vegetables in the story gardens using rain water. They have harvest and kitchen waste for manure. Water harvesting in water ponds and terracing, harvesting run of water. They grow vegetables in the trench and the portrait of wine-seed fodder on the terrace. They have identified suitable seeds for the weather. The outcome is early-lard preparation which facilitates timely planting and early crop maturity resulting in food availability even when the seasons are short. This has enhanced household food security, abated to eat balanced meals, enough vegetables to do the seasons since they are not rain-fed. It's been raised by traditional family and take over the production of traditional women crops in order to expand their own income. The intervention to sustain the benefits of the climate action as grass root women compete to work in the community, to nominate champions who can acknowledge on climate adaptation. The mission of urbanisation and awareness creation demands a foundation of resilience building. The local grass root women leadership continues to play an important role of enhancing the capacity of the communities. Sustainable community-based solutions to climate change require multi-sector, multi-level and multi-institutional approaches. Communities are required to develop their own home-grown institutions for awareness, information and local climate smart actions. Communities will require the local leadership for coordination of actions. The climate action requires resources. Policy and registration agenda requires partnership with the sub-national, national, regional and international governments for coherence and global connectivity recommendations. Most of the time the experiences of grass root women in reducing the negative impact of climate change are not considered because they are rarely represented at the planning and decision-making process. Their voices at the decision-making table sometimes get drowned because they are the minority. Most of the time women don't make decisions on farming activities taking place on the land. Only 1% of women in Kenya own land and 5% is in joint ownership. Women are represented in local leadership and county governments which may be a hydrant when it comes to getting support for their priorities, especially in climate change, disaster action and environmental protection. Sensitize the communities on the advantage of helping women making decisions on land. Positioning these women in various decision-making committees affording them the platform and opportunities through or before interventions that will directly or indirectly address disaster preparedness and management. Bringing resources where it matters. We empower women but we do not empower them with resources for them to be drivers of change in development. A vehicle cannot get to its destination without fuel. We should not give women lip service. Let us have them at the table, not as passive reasoners, but as equals shaping the conversation. It is said, you are a worker if you can animate your work. As we animate the grassroots women work on adaptation, let us start by ensuring their resources reach them. If you want their 2-year audit report of their finances, where do you expect the audit finances to have come from? They give their time, their resources and their labor and they don't want it at all. I thank you CBF 14 organizers for putting the people most vulnerable to climate change at the center of the conversation. Thank you. Thank you so much. That is a very good presentation from Pauline. Thank you Pauline that you are able to capture your voice when you didn't know about this network connection. Thank you. So I think we have heard very clearly from Pauline on the role of women farmers and she has started with examples of how grassroots women in rural communities and Periapan are using the opportunity of being farmers to advance our work in climate change, medication and adaptation. And this is actually a very good example of the activities that the grassroots women are involved in who work with Pauline and how these activities provide sustainable solutions on the issue of climate change. And including addressing many other priorities like enhancing food security at family level and women economic empowerment. This is a very important things that should be coming out of the CPF 14 on how grassroots women solutions do not respond to one alternative. They respond to multiple solutions. They provide multiple solutions that even respond to multiple addressing things that are related to multiple sustainable development goals. So with that, I will want to bring Sonia Frederico from Philippine also to give us her experience. Good evening everyone. My name is Sonia Frederico. I'm a community leader and a founding member of the Homeless People's Federation Philippines. A member affiliated with SDI and we have a membership of at least 50,000 families comprised of 102 local community associations all over the country. I started to involve myself in the community organizing and became one of the active community leaders because we are confronted with the court order depiction way back in 1994. It is very frustrating during the time when our local government was so powerless and lacks political will when it comes to stopping court order depictions. Because of that we started with the community savings with aim of buying land on our own without any assistance from the government. We did this on the self-help process in silence keeping in mind that government cannot help us so we have to do it on our own. We also tried to link and liberate our community savings money with the government housing agencies to be able to buy land only to see that the deal collapsed at the last moment because of politics. In the early 2000s our mayor, the new elected mayor, he heard about what we have done and he was impressed of what we have done and he said that we are not there to demand things but rather collectively developing and presenting solutions to our problems. And that started the collaboration and doors were open to the federation for us as one of the stakeholders and eventually partners in the city. Then in 2008, my city was hit by a devastating typhoon, Typhoon Frank. The international name is Feng Chen. Many people died and thousands lost their housing and possessions. Most of them were informal settlers living on the riverbanks and also on shoreline communities. Before that disaster, the mayor with help from the Japanese Development Agency had started a big flood protection project that had in besides resettlement to nearby land and the local government had set aside through land banking. But people had been reluctant to move their livelihoods and social networks were linked to the river and the city center and there were enough resources to build new housing and all the needed infrastructure in the resettlement site. But the disaster changed their views. We started to, that's the time when we started to organize them and we were able to create many alliances with the local government, national agencies, international NGOs and the private sector. First we built some temporary housing for those most in need and then step by step we built a whole community with decent housing for families affected by the disaster. We have collaborated with universities and foundations and our own network of young community architects to find cost effective and innovative ways to build houses. And we also use sustainable materials and learn to build the housing with the interlocking compressed earth blocks and using cement bamboo frames. These houses can withstand typhoon winds and is also in line with the Philippines building code. And they say that these houses emits 80% less greenhouse gases than conventional materials being used. Today, representatives of the Homeless People's Federation were in seats in the various local government committees. Our views are asked when it comes to flood protection, land use planning, city-childer plan and well investment plan, local economic development and other development issues in the city. Of course everything is political and the question of constant negotiation. Change is slow, incremental and difficult and there are never enough resources to achieve everything that needs to be done. I told you my story at my CPS, one example to share with you that transformation is possible and how it can be achieved. This through collaboration and partnership with organized communities and ready resources at hand. The communities have the organizing skills, community resources through savings, has updated community information and has proactive solutions and ideas that can be supported. The organizations that are member, our member networks as the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, SLAMDULARS International have enabled people to organize and to learn. People are driving, people are in center development by generating their own finance, their own information, by collectively negotiating for land and housing and by linking these processes with other scale stakeholders. As CPS, we did not just focus on large scale physical infrastructure to reduce the stress clubbing brought about by climate change, but invest our resources in developing people's awareness and skills so people can anticipate and prepare for disasters and are much more capable to handle the repercussions, reducing people's economic and social vulnerabilities, with savings, with credit opportunities and diversified income. In Ilo Ilo, Typhoon Frank or Feng Shen, in 2008 was a disaster but also an opportunity for transformative change, but it shouldn't take such a terrible disaster to move people into action to provide safe housing. At the same time, we say that disaster shouldn't prevent us from still being the owners of our own life. We actually don't call it resilience, we call it survival. On technology, a good example of technology is data gathering that supports people's claims and our SDI Snow Your City initiative is a great example that combines digitized open source technology with community mapping processes for communities involved. We also have a lot of talk about climate change finance but what is generated mainly stays with bigger institutions and cannot be accessed by network organization like ours. We did finance that is not just market oriented but that allows people to, like us to have the same in our development, finance that reaches the ground for localized concrete action. Bids the gap rather than increase the divide and enables inequality in all aspects, health, education, employment, housing and link between local communities protecting environment. Look at what we have achieved already, we are not the enemy, what we need is space and opportunity. You can trust us, enable us and engage us and together we will tackle climate change issue because we communities, the people are ready to partner and for our own development and be ready for a change. The question is, are you ready also? Otherwise, as Jochen of our SDI founder from India used to say, join us or risk being left behind. Thank you very much and good day, good evening, good afternoon, so thank you very much. Thank you so much Sonya, that is a very good presentation and from your presentation I have actually had a lot about partnership and the solutions for housing on creating more houses that are really resilient and that are really resilient. And I'm also hearing how the partnership helps you as grassroots women and communities to be able to engage in government planning process and always we have said what meaningful partnership should translate to. This is a very good presentation from you, thank you so much. I will quickly give a small impression of my work in Shibuya community health workers. Shibuya is one of the grassroots organizations that work in Wairu commission, we are members of Wairu commission. And we were faced with challenges of long spells of drought, different climatic condition when time comes that we are supposed to be planning. At this time there would be no rain, the usual pattern that we knew. During harvest time there would be a lot of rain and food would be rotting. So in one of the meetings that I attended in Philippine, I'm happy that two Filipinos have spoken here, I learned about these community resilience activities that were happening in our movement as Wairu commission. And when I went back home, we actually began doing activities that enable grassroots women to map the risk in climate change and even in disasters in areas that were brought to landslides in Kakamega. We actually did a very big vulnerability mining in mining areas and we were able to share this with government. But one of the things that I would be proud of to say that we as Shibuya has achieved is that we have been able to link climate change activities to show how they relate to women land rights. Because when women do not have land rights, then they cannot be able to do resilient practices on a farm that they are sure is not going to be their land for some time. Or usually when they start improving and doing activities like soil rehabilitation and management, mulching to be able to do sustainable agricultural activities, vegetative crops cover. Then they lose this land. Then they don't have actually the ego to continue doing these activities. When we did mapping and it revealed how women land rights was a big issue in our community related to climate change, medication and adaptation. We were able to begin doing work plans with government and we are happy that we also looked at other alternatives of women accessing land like land leasing. That we were able to engage community in a consultative process of how land leasing could happen in a more effective way that can enable women farmers to participate actively in farming. And we have been actually able to document how the number of women that have risen to start doing farming, how food security has improved at family level. Families that were eating one meal in a day have increased to three meals in a day. We are also documenting the acreage of land that has been degraded. So this land is actually land that you can grow food crops in any time, whether it's raining season or it is a drought season, these lands have improved. And this is just what I wanted to share a little bit to show how grasses women are work really is able to help us to see even other forgotten elements that are not usually addressed in climate change. We even have a slogan that we are using like women land rights pathway to economic change. But as we look at these things we look at all aspects of land, land degradation. We look at access to farm inputs. We look at access to market. We look at sustainability of household. We look at basic service delivery. And I think even how women are participating in decision making on the things they grow because women have been farming forever, but they are not able to actually utilize the farm produce or participate in planning around the land because land does not belong to them. And this with all this we cannot address climate change if all these things are not addressed as a whole in a holistic and a comprehensive manner. So this is why I said this subject is very important to us to reexamine the role of grasses women to actually when I listen to all the speakers that have been speaking today. How most of the work that is done in development world positions grasses women as projects as vulnerable. For sure the word vulnerable kills me when I hear it because I have seen grasses women really becoming change agents, bringing solutions that communities learn from bringing solutions. All the solutions we are hearing here today are solutions that can be replicated in other communities. How our peer learning activities have facilitated us to learn more from each other. This is not something that you do when you are vulnerable and helpless crying at home. But the challenge here is how do we also ensure that these grasses women work and that was well said in Pauline's presentation and in the presentation that I had from Sonya also and from Fadrico. How do we ensure that grass women work can continue to be supported can be long term projects that can be able to teach the world on how to address climate change in a very different way and a comprehensive manner. Thank you so much. So I will give this again to Margaret. Am I giving to Margaret or you Suranjana. Yeah, actually it's time maybe Margaret will have some comments now. Thank you. Okay, well thank you again and my thanks to Pauline and Sonya for those great presentations. I would I've just been watching the questions in the chat. And I know Claire asked one about what are the enabling the enabling factors that helped these relationships. And Vincent is asking about, you know what happens when governments are impeding access and it's politically sensitive. And I think I would turn that back to the panelists and ask the question around, how did you start building these relationships I mean what I have observed is, you know, that said so much of this, we have to start building trust somewhere and that's trust between communities and their local and national authorities and also trust on behalf of governments that they can trust communities and work with communities and engage them as partners. And that takes a really, really long time. I mean, as many of you know, I mean I've been working with Ruth and why row for, you know, more than the 25 years I've been at the World Bank on those relationships have taken, and I've seen the evolution in the, in the countries you're working in. So I would be interested to hear from the panelists around how you built those relationships how long it took, because they do take time. And I think, you know, that's one of the things that that concerns me so much because with everything we have going on in the world we're running out of time. So I need to do this more quickly. So I, if I can turn it back to any of the panelists that want to address that I'd be interested to hear your responses. Thank you so much Margaret. Yeah, so right now. Okay, so Margaret has posed an important question, it's come up several times in the, in different ways in the chat. And the idea about what, what is it about your work that allows policymakers and financial institutions to and and national governments to, to want to collaborate with you to give you resources. How do the how do you establish that you are a partner and a stakeholder in this process. So, can I give you each a couple of minutes at least maybe three minutes to give us your thoughts on how do you, how do you build trust and partnerships between yourselves as grassroots organizations and movements and big institutions, whether that's the government or the World Bank or some other institution that you have partnered with, give us a sense of what does it take. What, what do you think impresses them and how long does it take to get to that stage. Can I, can I come to Sonya first. Yeah, that's that's a very good question. Thank you so much. I think with the experience of the Federation, it took us almost around five years to be able to gain the trust of the just the city government only I mean the local local government. What the Federation did is that, as I mentioned in my presentation, we started to organize ourselves with just, you know, through our own resources, because at that time when you go to government empty handed, they will just say you're just here to demand something you just want to get money from all of us. So we did the different, shall we say, strategy. So when we had the savings at hand and then we, we do the buying of land on our own because government doesn't say we don't have money for you to, for us to help you to buy land. So that's the time when they realize that all these people are not, you know, I'm not just beggars and that just asking something from the government. They have something in their hand they have the resources, however small it is but they have, they're trying to leverage resources. Another also important strategy that we do is that if you want to negotiate with government and if you want to engage government, we have to establish numbers, meaning to say we don't focus only on the membership on our membership alone, establish network, even with your other networks of, for example, like in the city of the grassroots, even though you differ in opinions but in, in some ways you come to agree in the issues of land in the issues of shelter in the issues of livelihood. So that's how we started with the, with the collaboration and form networks in the city. So with numbers, of course government cannot just say no to all of us. And the other one is that we equip ourselves with policy also we cannot just go there and just stand and you know, we have the basis of how they should, we should engage with them so we equip ourselves with the laws around the engaging government, what are our rights, what are our, you know, the dose and dose of a partnership, we don't go beyond the illegal way of, you know, advocacy. So, so with that we can tell government and you know according to the Urban Development Housing Act, the grassroots communities have the right to be part of the decision making process of the city, something like that. So that's one of the examples that we have done to ensure that government will not shy away from all of us. It's difficult, especially if the, for example, like the mayor, the local chief executive doesn't like you. They will always find ways not to engage with you. They will always find ways not to go into, for example, the accreditation within the city. So it will just be a fly by night community organization that is not being recognized by the government, but it requires a lot of negotiation. Okay. Yeah, it's, it's difficult, but we were able to do that. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you, Sonia. I mean, Sonia is offering several, several kind of things she's talking about. Once she talked about the idea of being organized, having large numbers, building coalitions and partnering even with networks that you may not always agree on everything with, but finding some common ground. And she also talked about having communities having their own savings to off and being part of a solution that they, they bring to governments when they're not just complaining they're actually offering them a solution so a lot of a lot of different things there. And of course, earlier also we heard of both Bessola and Sonia as well as Joka speak about the mapping work that they do and how they bring this very, very local information that often governments do not have to do their discussion. So they have, they have to create this whole basket of things that they can leverage with their governments and other decision makers. Okay, what about Pauline? Would you, would you like to answer this question of what does it take to build trust with institutional actors? Are you there? And can you, are you able to? I am here. What is it take to build trust and partner with decision makers and influence them? And how long does it take to do that? Thank you so much, Sragina. Maybe at this junkyard request and measure to put up some of the photos that we had. As I explained my point, it is possible to build that partnership. It is possible to build that trust because first of all it's important to appreciate that women already initiate the measures by themselves without any outside influence. If you look at this photo you are seeing the terrain there and the women deciding now we are going to come up and have our kitchen gardens and provide for our family. So they have already initiated something. They don't just sit and wait for support from elsewhere. Most of the groups that we are working with, they start by savings, they do their savings, they buy energy, they buy seeds, they buy all the farm equipment that they need. So for partnership to materialize, we have to look at the history. What is that that these women are doing or these partners are doing so that we can come and build on what is existing. I am happy I've seen this very recent is here because we work with him in another session this morning. And we are looking at the argument that the donors may not be able to work with these small organizations unless they federate into some umbrella organizations that has been happening. And my advice was, and I still repeat it, let us look at what can work, let us be innovative and create an umbrella and see how we can support these women. When we talk about the government, sometimes puberty is business to leadership depending on which leadership that we have. If you look at these women, they are improving their massive women, they are buying iron sheets and improving their rules. They are widows in the first place, they are widows. They have come together, they want to improve the rules and how they stay in water and we have introduced the story gardens for food and nutrition security. So let us look at what what is going to work and computing trust. These are women who have already taken care of their sources. They are going to take care of your sources as well, because they know for money, they know value for knowledge. Let us empower them so that they are able also to engage the government to get those positions. We empower them with the knowledge to be able to demand their position in the society. Thank you. Thank you, Pauline. So you're also talking about your practices, you're talking about the savings as part of sort of trying to show what actually works. Jokas, are you there? Jokas? Yes, I'm here. Hi. So, I wanted to ask you as well, because you've done so much work with local governments and municipalities. I think one of the questions is that one thing I know you've done is that you have a lot of members from Dampa actually sitting inside the barangays. How has that helped you and how in general also could you answer the question about how do you build trust and how do you build, I see another question that says how do you build the kind of legitimacy that governments need in order to partner with you. So how do you build legitimacy and trust, but also what about the people in the barangays and how do you work with them? Okay. So thank you very much, Rangina and Margaret Arnold. In building trust, it's not an easy task. It's not an easy work. You need to be well organized, you need to be intact, and you need to show that you are empowered, that you are capacitated. And trust factors is a big impact to us, and through these factors it can build political clout. Important thing is even you advocate or whatever, you do alliances, you do networking, you do allies building, and you do advocacy. And that first you need to form or to build a political clout so that you can influence from the local to national level. In building political clout it's like you're building a house or whatever, so it's not as easy as that. It's very important that you need to involve, you always need to involve the government officials, so especially in the local level, so that they will learn from you and you will learn from them. It's very important that a dual learning. It's not only a learning from one, from other side, but it's a dual trust and dual learning. If you build this too, then it's very easy that you can influence because like in our part, we build partnership and that's why we have a water comparative know which is almost 12 years existing. We build partnership, that's why we have some people and we build political clout, we have our grassroots women who are in the position as a barangay captain, barangay council, barangay administrative officer, and we are a part of a municipal development council. So that means that you have built already your credibility, so you must also build your credibility and your capacity so that it's very easy, the government or whoever, private institution or even UN agencies will trust on you if you are capacitated, you have and you build credibility, you know, credibility is very important. You know how to manage resources and you have numbers, important also is numbers. How many numbers do you have? Tell us. As of now, because we have 67 active, that means active, it's not only 67, but we have 67 active members, so we have more or less 25,000 families members. No, it's a nationwide, 25,000 families, it's a family, it's not individual, but if you say individual then you can make it almost 100,000. So you have numbers and your leaders are capacitated and they are credible, you know, that's how you build trust. It's almost, yeah, it takes years. Okay, thank you. I just want to go to the panelists and ask them the scale at which they work. Violet, could you give us a sense of the scale at which you work? Because people often think that grassroots organizations and their movements are quite small. Violet? Hello. Yeah, tell us. Yes. Violet, tell us the scale at which you work. How many people? Yes. For us right now, we have 119 groups of grassroots women that are involved in climate change activities. We have those that are involved in 15 of these groups are basically involved in forest conservation activities, so they live along the forest. And each of our groups has between 20 to 30 members, so they are relatively big groups. We have those that are doing soil rehabilitation and management activities. We have those that are doing other sustainable agricultural activities like mulching, whatever, all those activities related to. And then we have those that are involved in irrigative agriculture, especially those that come along the Lake Victoria. So I would just say, right now we are in three, working very strongly in three counties of Kenya. That is Kisumu, four counties, Kakamega, Homa Bay, Siaya, and Bungoma County. That is where we are working. And out of these groups, all these groups are also involved in activities related to land governance or women land rights or land inheritance, depending on the key issue that is affecting them. Where we have land that is not being used, we encourage women to lease land so they are involved in land leasing activities, therefore influencing how land governance should address land leasing activities. So we are relatively big in the work. And we have said, I will talk about the demonstration plots that we have said, sustainable, like sustainable agricultural demonstration plots. We have 40 senders of sustainable agricultural demonstration plots. And Pauline is here, she can actually agree when they were here, they visited out of this, they visited 16 of the same sustainable agricultural demonstration plots. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Pauline, give us a sense of your numbers and also tell us what you, what these, this exchange that you did with the violence organization, how has it changed the way or how has it impacted the work that you're doing. Okay, Rural Women Network has 2067 groups, sorry, not groups households. We work mainly with women, so these are not necessarily women headed, but we work with those households. We have 140 women who have embraced the climate smart agriculture. And others are also doing different things like savings and other activities. We're coming to the exchange with the Violet group Shibuya, without a lot, especially on conservation agriculture, zero tillage and conserving the water sources. You know, sometimes because of climate change, most of our people fetch their water from the river. These rivers are drying up. The women there, the Shibuya women have done a lot of water work conserving these springs for the women to be able to access the water. We also experienced the women making energy stocks, where they are going to save our forest so that they don't have to clear and ban Chaco for their use at home. Most of us are using that type of fuel. So when we have energy saving because and the point is also to access the sort of cost that probably also from the Chaco fuel. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, let me go to Margaret. Margaret, I wanted to ask you there seems there's a lot of exciting stuff going on in the chat which is like almost too much for me to manage actually. I'm seeing that there's one concern that people have that, you know, people, at least at the grassroots level, organized groups of women who are doing this work really don't want to be labeled vulnerable. And this is a term that isn't, is not empowering. It's a disempowering term it kind of marginalizes them from decision making processes and they're perceived in a particular way and they're not, they don't want to be called that but then there's a question of what other word could be used. But also from you Margaret, I wanted to understand that from an institutional point of view. How, how do you see the contributions what is the unique contributions of organized grassroots organizations and movements. Is it, and is it really different from local NGOs and local government because right now we have a lot of work going on we are talking a lot about locally led adaptation. And some people feel it's good enough if you're working with local governments, you don't have to look then at community driven processes as much different people sort of choose different actors. Is it all the same does it matter what is the uniqueness and the difference what from your point of view as an institution what do you see is the difference between grassroots organizations and movements and other actors who are present at the local level. Thanks so much. Well, I'm the first issue of the terminology and using vulnerability. I also dislike using the word vulnerable. I think we, I think more and more we're talking about how, how exclusion and marginalization increases risk right people maybe people aren't vulnerable but they can have increased face increased risk because of social political marginalization or exclusion right so then you can. It's not you know inherent in the people it's the situation and you need to address the situation so. And I think you know people are talking about do we call people collaborators partners I think I, I tend to use the word partners in in projects. But I think, you know, there's different contexts, for instance, talking about the issue of West Bank in Gaza where it may be sensitive. So I think you have to, you know, ask people what they want how they want to be framed and termed and and use appropriate terminology. And the contribution of grassroots, I think I would say that it's, you know, it goes back to what what you said in the meeting and what I said that that their knowledge holders and they have resources. I really like something that Pauline said earlier which was that, you know, empowerment, let's do empowerment with resources because I don't think that we international institutions and governments quantify much we never talk about. Well, not never but rarely do we talk about what communities, what grassroots communities bring in terms of resources their knowledge, their time, their labor. Right, Pauline said these don't get audited and quantified and I think it was important to, and oftentimes they're bringing financial resources as well. So we need to understand that and recognize it. And then I think, you know, there's times where we think of just, you know, we just talk about local communities or civil society as if it were some, some heterogeneous, some, you know, homogenous group and it's, it's certainly not, even within a small community, it's very heterogeneous and there's power dynamics so we need to be do really careful engagement to conversations and learning and listening around what the power dynamics are so that we're making sure that all voices are heard and valued in decision making. So I think, you know, the contribution of grassroots is that these are, you know, the people living, working, understanding what's happening in a community that, you know, the government or an agency is trying to provide support to and partner with. So we need to understand all those dynamics. There was one other question I think in the somewhere in the chat that came up that sparked a thought for me in terms of what the role of international NGOs can be or an organization like mine and the World Bank around facilitating these partnerships these relationships and helping to build the trust and legitimacy. And I think from my point of view. These groups can can help facilitate that process by some of the things that we've done in the bank is, you know, in using our wheel often talk about our convening power right we're having meetings with government we can open the door to have grassroots leader in those meetings so we try to do that when we're designing projects for example so bring them to the table as partners. We've also done things like engaging grassroots organizations at you know, as consultants to document their own practices to document grassroots practices that can then be shared disseminated and and the learning can be integrated into the design of programs. We've done things like engage grassroots leaders in trainings for development staff or government so just in, you know, sort of what is the expression walking the talk and and engaging them as as as experts and consultants to so that those relationships and legitimacy and credibility are are built over time. Thank you. Thanks for that Margaret. Yes, we. We've seen you invite grassroots leaders to the World Bank to share their expertise and experience with World Bank staff on when you were also a far back is when you were in the hazard management unit at the World Bank I remember that. And thanks. We have we have Celine who's saying even the term grassroots is kind of hard to translate. Yes. I should have actually sort of given a sort of a definition of what do we mean by the grassroots and who they are. And I think what we mean is many people talk about grassroots as people's organizations or grassroots organizations are really those who are living and working in impoverished rural urban, very urban settlements and who are whose lives are characterized by their sort of lack of access to basic services unstable incomes food insecurity livelihoods insecurity and of course the lack of voices and decision making, which is why we're putting such an emphasis on grassroots leaders speaking directly to other actors and talking about the work that they do. So, I see that we have about six minutes left. So, I'm going to ask everybody for a minute or two of just closing remarks and this time I'm going to start with the solar the solar are you there can you. Can you unmute. So, any closing comments that you want to make if you want to either answer any of the questions that came before or just make take a couple of minutes to make any closing comments that you'd like to leave us with. Is she there. Okay, maybe, should we come back to her. Hi everyone. Oh yeah, okay good. Yes, go ahead the solar. Hello, can everyone here. Yes. Yeah, so I have a bitch. Yes. Can you hear me now. Yes. I was a big trouble with my next one but at least I could catch up with a question like how do we relate to model partners, like, although maybe done as a government agency. We shall. Like, I have a five years relationship that they got to talk about agency. Sorry, I think we can't hear you be solar. Bring them. Sorry, I think can we be solar can can we go to the next person and then come back to you. Can, can we can we please go to Sonya please. Sonya, the solar will come back to you if we can hear you please put your comments in the chat. Thank you, but sorry about that folks we're having a lot of technical issues but as you can imagine, not everyone has good access to internet. Sonya can can we hear yours. Yes, thank you so much. Thank you very much for making as part of this good conversation with everybody. I would like to thank fire commission IED and all the organizers for what have been part of this conversation. And for me, I think it's, it's, I would like to say that there's a lot of local actions that has been done by the communities on the ground as you have your cashier and Pauline the solar and, and, and all of the speakers. And for now we need, we need support also from all the people that has some technical know how. So, it's more of how they can support this grassroots communities in the context of continue to enable us to be able to, you know, to bring this kind of partnership with government open doors for us is like Margaret is saying when World Bank is enabling that, that kind of partnership for all, for all the community so thank you everyone and I, I hope that all of you will continue to support grassroots communities in whatever way and whatever form that you can, that you can have. Thank you everyone. Thank you so much Sonia Pauline. Any last closing remarks. Thank you so much. I want to thank everybody and before I do that, let me respond to something Margaret to that about the resources reaching the, the grassroots communities. I'm in one of the World Bank project in my country as an expert in the value chain, and some of these most of these projects are both room generated. And when you come to the ground you find the things are not working as they are appearing on the paper. So sometimes it's very important to have consultation with the recipient community to understand what works and after you fold the project and leave, you are sure that you have a solid foundation. And secondly, in most of these projects you find that there is something called women as a cross cutting issue women are not a cross cutting issue. They are the main issue. So we want to deal with your issues as women are not among the venerable and marginalized or cross cutting. Finally, I want to thank everybody or the presenters or the people who participated because without those people will not be talking to anybody just be talking to ourselves. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Huh. Thank you. Hello. Hello. Hello, everybody. So, for me. you will have more trust with each other. And thank you very much to Virocommission, EID and the other conveners of this conference. Thank you very much. Thank you. Can we check if Bisola is able to speak? Bisola, do you have good connectivity? Bisola? Sorry, I think she's hi everyone. Can you hear me now? Yes, you have one minute before you cut out again to make your remarks, closing remarks. Thank you. I want to appreciate the listeners as I put it in mind to correct the grassroots movement at the face of our struggle. I will say at this point we will continue to put on the hope and the face of our resilience and keep on putting on the organizing powers of ours in order for us to overcome challenges and face that we are passing through. At this point I would like to leave a comment of Noda who will only help us to see the transformation and the green future that we all go for. Thank you everyone. Stay safe. Thank you so much. Let me come to Violet. Violet, any final remarks to send us off with? Yes, thank you. Most of the comments I'm seeing are accepting that it is important to put grassroots women on the forefront and compliment their efforts as partners. And I think I really like that because that is a very good tone of what this session is supposed to bring. So I really want to agree with everyone that we need to focus more on strengthening the existing groups of grassroots women that are involved in climate change adaptation but also use the peer relationships that they have to expand these practices and reach out to more groups because we are available and our knowledge sharing platforms are really flexible for learning from one community to the other. Thank you so much. Thank you. Margaret, any last words to leave us with? Oh, I don't want to have the last word but I'll just say thank you. Thank you so much to all the presenters. I mean I'm very inspired and I learned very much from all the presentations and I know that there's so many people online in the session doing the painstaking and time-consuming work to build these relationships. I think it's really important to keep organizing. Like Joca said, numbers are important and Sonia said it as well. Numbers are important and yeah so keep organizing and thank you again for letting me be a part of this. I appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you so much panelists and I'm going to give you a couple of the takeaways that people are talking about in the chat box. There's Karen Wong. She says my takeaway is the power of self-organization to redress power asymmetries and build resilience to multiple risks having human agency and dignity at the core. Karen Wong from IIED. I think Claire from IIED also talked about the resources. I can't see her thing anymore but she talked about the resources that the grassroots bring to addressing to resilience building, the work that they do, the solutions they bring, the money they put in. I can see Heather McGrath from CJRF. She's talking about the multifunctional solutions that build power and the strength in numbers and this means learning to trust and collaborate and she's also talking about economic empowerment that builds confidence and strong voice and she's also highlighted the women and their land rights issues. This has been a really rich session notwithstanding all the technical problems we've been having. Thank you so much to the audience for staying on and thank you to all the panelists for pushing through despite your problems. I'm going to sort of reiterate some of the things that I took down. One was the idea of counting the grassroots contributions. This came out several times. The fact that grassroots have smart solutions that are addressing multiple different kinds of shocks and stresses as they try to advance development. So they're talking about looking at solutions and strategies for multiple things. Not just one thing they're not working in silos. They've talked about the importance of organizing, building numbers so that they have power that cannot be ignored. Margaret talked about the convening power of big institutions and global institutions. Again, this is also another opportunity for convening us. So I'm going to have to listen to this whole discussion again to get all the points that have been really interesting to listen to. So with that, let me thank all of you and please do join us tomorrow at our session on impacting policies because we'll continue this discussion there and we'll just have more people talking from a policy perspective. So thanks a lot everyone. Thank you IID. Thank you to our panelists. Thanks Margaret and thank you to GRP for sponsoring our team to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Well done. Thank you. Well done.