 So welcome to the third podcast in our series, exploring locally led adaptation, taking locally led adaptation global. My name is Barak Sohns, a researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development. And I'm in the unenviable position of taking over from our previous host, Aditya Bahadur, who's taken me through the last two podcasts in this series. So wish me a bit of luck. So you're joining me for a more conversational podcast, exploring the role that global climate policy plays in supporting locally led adaptation. So we're connecting the global to local level action. A bit of background, at the January climate adaptation summit, more than 40 major international and local organizations publicly endorsed eight principles for locally led adaptation. These set out good practice for shifting the way climate finance is delivered. And adaptation action is supported, including increasing devolved decision making, better addressing structural inequalities, providing more patient and predictable funding to local actors, investing in local institutions and their capabilities, building a robust understanding of climate risk that draws on local knowledge, traditional and indigenous knowledge, enabling flexible programming and learning, ensuring transparency and collaborative action. Now the shift to locally led adaptation action is gaining momentum. Over 50 organizations have now endorsed these eight principles, and they have recently gained support from the UK COP26 presidency and the G7 finance ministers. There is real momentum growing behind this action up to COP26. So today's discussion places a firm eye on COP26 in Glasgow in November, exploring the role that global climate policy is and should play in shifting towards more locally led adaptation. Global climate policy obviously includes the UN Convention on Climate Change itself, the Paris Agreement, which are all incredibly important for setting global climate ambition and providing a framework for adequate finance, technical and capacity building assistance to the developing countries that need it most. Today, we're incredibly lucky to be joined by four amazingly diverse guests to discuss the role that climate policy has and should play in supporting more locally led adaptation on the ground. Our first guest is Ayesha Constable, who is in the National Adaptation Plan Coordinator within Antigua and Barbuda's Department of Environment within the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment. Ayesha, welcome. Thank you very much, Merrick, and thank you for the opportunity to share on the work that we're doing around adaptation in the Ministry of Health, Wellness and Environment in Antigua and Barbuda. And as much as it's a government entity, we are certainly advocates for locally led adaptation. Fantastic, Ayesha. And our second guest is Eileen Marionette Cunningham, who's a member of CADB, the Centre for Autonomy and Development of Indigenous Peoples in Nicaragua, and is the Developing Countries Active Observer for the Green Climate Fund. Eileen, welcome. Thank you, Merrick, for your invitation for this podcast. I think it's a great opportunity to share with all of you what Indigenous people have been doing around the globe about adaptation. Actually, I'm also a part of a local Indigenous WOMA organization in the border of Nicaragua and Honduras, that is one Kittagini organization, and we have a lot of experience in adaptation in our region. Thank you. Eileen Marionette, fantastic. Thank you very much. Our third guest is Joshua Ampinson, who is Executive Director for the Green Africa Youth Organization and a Youth Fellow at the Global Centre on Adaptation. Joshua, welcome. Thank you very much, Merrick. I'm happy to be here. Yes, I'm Joshua. And for the past couple of years, I've been focusing on youth engagement in climate adaptation at the local and international level, supporting private sector organizations, and also national policies in terms of how young people would be better engaged in climate adaptation. Welcome, Joshua. It's a pleasure to be joined by Mamadou Nadia, a former negotiator for Bikini Faso in the UNIFCCC, and a former advisor to the Prime Minister's office on the Green Climate Fund. Mamadou has been an expert in finance, adaptation, capacity building, national adaptation planning, and loss and damage. It's a pleasure, Mamadou, to be joined by you today. Thank you, sir. You rightly introduced myself. I would add that I'm actually operating as the LDC chair advisor, member of the LDS group, and I'm also an independent expert at the national and international level. Thank you, Mamadou. So, to our first question to the panel, Ayesha, why do you think local adaptation is so important? In my own experiences, I find that local communities are certainly on the front lines of climate change, not just as victims, I must add, but as power agents who are shaping the outcomes of climate change processes and are using indigenous knowledge and the resources available to them to enhance their own resilience. And so it's important that any process that seeks to address what happens at the local level engages local communities and local groups. Also, as we know, climate change, as much as it's a global phenomenon, has very unique impacts at the local level, which are shaped by local circumstances and not just physical circumstances, but also issues related to the economic situation, other social issues at the local levels. And so to take one-size-fits-all approach to adaptation planning is to exclude inadvertently some of these unique realities that are happening and shaping responses in our communities at the local level. And again, in that respect, wanting to ensure the principles of justice and equity and inclusiveness in all the work that we do around climate change means also giving space to these communities and groups that are otherwise excluded from this process. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Ayesha. And Eileen, you, as you mentioned, you work with indigenous organizations, including women's-led indigenous groups. From your context, why is local-led adaptation so important to achieve climate resilience societies? The reality is adaptation is really not a new concept for indigenous people. We have seen around the globe that indigenous people have been adapting to the environment for centuries. And I think that now the problem is that this is coming so rapidly. So local-led adaptation is so important for indigenous people. And Ayesha just says not only for indigenous, I think it's for a different ethnic around the world, because this current situation and our territories are the reflection of this climate impact that is not only affecting our resources or territories or lands, it's also affecting our way of life or livelihood. So what we have seen around is that this climate change is undermining our livelihood, but also the policies and action that are not including indigenous people or local community to address the climate change. We are left behind, are left aside of all this negotiation. And indigenous people think it's important to be part of the adaptation process of the adaptation action, because we have a lot of knowledge. Ayesha also already said about this. Indigenous people have a specific knowledge, a specific action that maybe the state can take into account that can be part of policies and scale up in global space. And we also think it's important in all this adaptation process that the effective participation of the actors should be in place. Most of the action that adaptation for climate change are taking place in our lands and territories. And how is indigenous people left aside if this is like that? So for us it's really important, because it's our lands, it's not only a space where we live, it has the basis of our culture, the basis of our survival as indigenous people. Thank you so much. Mamadi. Locally led adaptation is very important, because since the beginning of the negotiations, developing countries, including Burkina Faso, advocated that we are always impacted, affected by climate change. The first reaction we have to add is really to first adapt and secondly think how we can mitigate the emissions. So since the beginning of the negotiations, my country knew that adaptation is very crucial, very important for us. So locally led adaptation is very important because it will identify vulnerable people, vulnerable regions that are impacted by climate change. So talking about locally led adaptation means that we have to make distinctions between those living for us at the capital and those who are suffering at the grass root level, I mean the communities and villages. So to me actually, if we would like to address the issue of adaptation, let's go at the grass root level. Let's go to the communities where people are really working under a sort of, I would call it, or living with difficulties without any substantial means in order to survive. So actually, when we talk about food security, we think first to local communities. So to me, locally led adaptation is very crucial in that context. Thank you Mamadou. Joshua, you have represented but also mentored young people in increasing their representation in global and local climate processes. From the perspective of youth engagement and youth representation, why do you think locally led adaptation is so important? Thank you very much, Marek. When it comes to locally led climate adaptation, the essence of it, and I'm going to draw back to one of the principles of locally led action, which is understanding risk and uncertainty, because the climate issue is huge and their vulnerability differs from one place to the other and even from one individual to other. It becomes very essential that within local communities, young people particularly are more interested to see what are the future holds for them, what can they do to support in terms of adaptation and building resilience and facilitating how they can work together with different stakeholders to strengthen the resilience of their communities as well as be able to protect their own future and reduce their risk as well. So that becomes very essential. The international level could do policies and could set certain agendas, but it's going to come down to actions that are taken locally to protect livelihoods and from the perspective of young people to ensure that there is intergenerational equity, that young people have a future, that they deserve. Thank you so much, Joshua. And you've touched upon the role of global climate policy. You're being engaged and interacting with global climate policy in slightly different ways. Ayesha in the planning process for climate change that was enacted under the Cancun adaptation framework in national adaptation plans. And Eileen, you obviously are representative for civil society organizations in one of the main financial mechanisms of the Green Climate Fund to support developing countries in their climate action. Joshua, you have both represented and supported youth engagement in global climate forums, including a conference of the parties for the UNFCCC. Firstly, Ayesha, these global climate policy frameworks, why are they so important for influencing what happens on the ground in terms of adaptation? These frameworks, they set the tone for what happens at every level of climate governance. The Paris Agreement, the UNFCCC, they determine what the priorities are globally. They help to shape the priorities that funding entities eventually adopt. They also help to set the framework within which governments operate and within which entities such as the Green Climate Fund operate. So they play a significant role in setting the foundation for planning and climate governance globally. I suppose that in doing that, however, the gap there is in making the connection between what is happening at that highest level of decision making and what is happening in terms of climate impacts at the local levels. And so sometimes there's a disconnect. However, if frameworks such as these global frameworks set the right precedent, that connection becomes very important in terms of establishing whatever parameters in which climate change happens and climate change planning takes place. And in a big way as well, the global policies determine what national governments and regional governments do around climate change implementation and governance. So it is important that these frameworks be in place to ensure a very streamlined approach. But it is also important that we identify the entry points in all these frameworks for the integration of considerations that are unique to local communities and find ways to give local communities an opportunity to shape these processes so that they're not just on the receiving end of whatever is determined at the COP, but the decisions and the outcomes of those processes are tailored to meet their unique challenges. And I believe that Eileen said it very well in terms of it's not just a matter of how do local communities benefit from these decision making processes, but how does the broader framework of planning benefit from the knowledge and the experience that local communities have honed and harnessed over the years by virtue of having done this for centuries just for their survival. That's really interesting to hear about how climate policy in your opinion gets sets the tone for what I guess what support is provided, but also sets the tone for climate action on the ground. Eileen, from your perspective, how does global climate policy actually interact with the constituencies that you support for their adaptation on the ground? As Aisha already said, these global policies should be the guideline for action in our national level. And what we see is that one of the main challenges is that the lack of funding to implement the adaptation policy arrives in many cases. And without this stable financial flow, it will affect this implementation and national level. And about all, we have a clear guideline for implementation with the participation of local stakeholders as indigenous people, we will be having incipient action that will not achieve a resolution for the current climate problem. So for us it's important that these policies that are defined for the implementation of the adaptation process understand that these schemes are not only unidirectional. We have seen for decades that most of these actions came from top down to our communities, to our territories. And I think that that is a moment to change this idea. And as I say, there is a serious experience and process that we can show that also can be scaled up at national and international, at global level. And I think this process can be enriched with the action from the local level. For indigenous people, we talk about complementarity. And I think this can also can apply in this case, because if we don't change this top down scheme, the complementarity cannot be done. And with the inclusion of the bottom up vision, we will see that we can work together, we can work with a collective vision and not individually or with this idea of overlapping ideas. I think indigenous people in adaptation issues, we also are talking about the importance of work together, to work together with all their different stakeholders. We think in this process, it's important all the alliance to work and have a good outcome. We see in the UNFCCC, the local community and the indigenous people platform that is a supportive institution, especially because the link that we want to establish with the organizational base and the issues of adaptation to climate change. So I think we have a great opportunity to include other stakeholders in this process. And also I think activities, program and project action should be carried out with the local level, with the grassroots level organization. Because the impact of adaptation, you can only measure at local level. And adaptation should be planted and should be a result of a political decision in our countries. So it's important to have this consensus effort and planning to achieve certain objective and should result in some changes in institutional changes, in behavior changes and adjustment of technology in our countries. So for us, it's so important, the global policy, because this can bring changes at the local level also. But we really think it's important to have a dialogue. We say for indigenous people, it's a dialogue of knowledge. So that is something that we want to raise in this issue. Thank you, Eileen. Could you give us an example of how global climate policy specifically can support local-led adaptation, whether it be in its support of frameworks for finance, technical assistance or capacity building? So how global climate policy can actually affect the support for local-led adaptation on the ground? Global climate policy can bring many assets, many supports to locally-led adaptation. The examples I can provide from my experience is when we negotiated the national adaptation programs of actions, the global climate policy frameworks has been called upon to assist vulnerable countries, mainly seeds and LDCs, to cope with climate change. And the process helped us to formulate some guidelines on how we can address the nappas. So based on that, all least developed countries had the opportunity to design their national adaptation plan of actions. At this stage, 98 or 99 percent of LDCs have formulated their nappas, and among them, around 70 percent of them have been funded by Jeff because within the nappas we have been invited to make a list of priority actions that could help us to cope with climate change but at the grassroot level. So this is one example of how the global climate policy could promote locally-led adaptation. Thank you Mamadou. So Joshua, why do you think global climate policy is so important for influencing climate action on the ground, including the representation and engagement with young people? Thanks very much. When I think of global policies and at the international level when policies are adopted, how it filters down to local action and particularly engagement of young people, it's basically the ambition and the hopes of new policies. So when there's a lot of concern, a lot of anxiety around, particularly when it comes to climate change and the uncertainty of the future that is ahead of us and why adaptation is very important, when we have policies at the international level that sets very high ambitions, it's really get everyone up on their toes to act. And I think that is very, very important. When global policies are not ambitious enough, I think governments and of course decision makers and actors are relying on that to say, I've done my fair share of it, I've contributed an extra amount of money, I've put strategies in place as it is demanded by this global policy. And if those policies are very, very ambitious, then a lot of young people can write on that to also not just advocate for what they think they need, but also what globally has a consensus on to say that, okay, the Paris Agreement calls for XYZ and this is what I'm going to push my local government to do. And as an individual, I'm going to also use this policy to guide my actions because not everyone will be on top of the science, on top of the technical details. But when you get global policies adopted and they are being communicated in the most simple way for everyone to know that, okay, for the next five years, for the next 10 years, for the next 20 years, this is what we're going to collectively as a group try to do. It really helps others who are not really on the same page to be able to use those key words and key messages to take action. The other bit of that is just adaptation in general. I mean, adaptation, if you look at adaptation pathways, we need to look at all variety, variety of options we have in addressing floods and addressing droughts, addressing heat waves, cyclones, and when you have all these options, it becomes important that we are able to look at best practices over the years and see how to improve on those and also then facilitate knowledge exchange, which is a main pillar of adaptation. And that becomes essential in global policy because then global policy will rely on what different countries are doing, pull all of that together to be able to draw a path and say that, okay, after a year of experiencing these hazards and these impacts of climate change, it is essential that we prioritize these key efforts. So if you look at the specifically, if you look at the funding gap for adaptation and at the global level, this is a huge topic. This is allowing every young person to be able to say that we need equal amount of funding coming to adaptation. This amount goes mitigation and even in some contexts, we need more money for adaptation than mitigation because mitigation receive a lot more funds over the past years. The global consensus on this or the global policy direction could then put more sort of ambitions behind why adaptation needs to be prioritized. If I look at previous years, a lot of advocacy from young people have been on mitigation because it came easier because a lot of global conversations were on mitigation, compensation of carbon offset and carbon markets. So a lot of young people were also advocating along these lines, reducing our footprint. But now that there is sort of focus on adaptation and resilience towards a global event like COP, a lot of young people also sort of getting more information about it and advocating around that. And I see this to be very, very essential in terms of getting the global conversation to set a certain agenda and it's filtering down to local communities and every young person being able to leverage on that to advocate at the local level. Thank you, Joshua. Now you touched on the COP, the conference of the parties that this year will take place in Glasgow in the United Kingdom in November and it's I guess one of the key moments to reflect on the ambition that was set by the Paris Agreement. Now you've all mentioned some incredibly important topics of why global climate policy impacts on adaptation on the ground, whether that be providing the strategy to bring people together, setting the right ambition and tone providing adequate finance both to do what is needed but also to address historical injustices but also to provide accountability. Briefly, what could you touch upon what we would like to see happen? What could global climate policy be doing better to actually impact and support local adaptation on the ground? Ayesha, do you want to touch on that? I suppose that the current efforts, though commendable, are not foolproof and they certainly have not addressed all the challenges that exist and they have not supported in every single way all that needs to be done to ensure the integration of local level concerns and the concerns of marginalised and vulnerable groups fully. Eileen mentioned the Indigenous People's Platform of the UNFCCC and there are other mechanisms and clauses that make reference to these considerations in terms of vulnerable peoples and relevant issues concerning these communities but what we have seen is that even in those instances where these frameworks are put in place, there are loopholes and there are instances where they don't get due consideration at the national level. I'd like to thank thankfully that in the case of Antigone Barbuta and with the work that the GOE is doing, we subscribe wholeheartedly to these principles but also in wanting to ensure that we don't just do it in principle but in practice and so there are different opportunities created for local level input for engaging stakeholders at every level in every aspect of the decision making and in some instances we even go beyond the recommendations from these policy frameworks bearing in mind or understanding of the local context and the need to fully integrate those unique concerns. One of the challenges I find with the current framework espoused by the UNFCCC for instance and with the funding mechanism which is the GCF is that in many instances there is such a focus on playing by specific rules in streamlining the processes and operations through accredited entities in the case of the GCF which usually must have in place some very strict fiduciary mechanisms so that communities on the ground are unable to tap into these opportunities because they can't meet those checkboxes. The NAP for Antigone Barbuta the National Adaptation Plan which we are currently developing isn't in fact funded by the UNFCCC or rather the GCF. The NAP is funded by the GCF and what we have sought to do recognizing that it does not effectively allow for local communities and community groups and these unregistered unestablished entities to access this funding on their own is we are being that bridge we're making that link to these communities through or initiatives and so we've created through the different processes that support the implementation of the NAP opportunities for different communities to participate in this process to share their experiences to you know offer their guidance in terms of what the local level issues are and also to shape the outcomes of the process. So I suppose in in kind of summing that up that the main challenge that I would observe in my line of work and from where I sit in this space is the lack of mechanisms through these global policies to render direct benefits to local communities and so the challenge then becomes or the onus is then on entities that do have access to these opportunities and mechanisms to ensure that we create space and opportunities for these communities to be involved in this process that we recognize your issues report on their issues and create you know systems and processes that allow for free and fair participation in all the work that we're doing and and hopefully by doing that and over time it sends a message and establishes a principle that can at another point in time possibly be adopted by these global frameworks we don't want to act as gatekeepers really we want therefore there to be systems that allow for that you know shifting of power to these local communities so they can on their own effectively participate and and lead in in their own right. Thank you Aisha. So Aisha's mentioned I guess a real need to address the access challenges that currently exist that are provided by the convention in many cases the Green Climate Fund which is the world's largest climate fund. Eileen you represent civil society organizations as an active observer on the Green Climate Fund Board. What do you think the Green Climate Fund is the main financial mechanism of the convention and the Paris Agreement could be doing better to address challenges in supporting local adaptation? The Green Climate Fund can do so much of things differently and do better in so much issues. I think I echo what Aisha said the Green Climate Fund is really not a friendly structure doesn't have a friendly structure for local communities to have access to funds and the Green Climate Fund have a safeguarding place have the Indigenous people policy in place so that's supposed to be a really robust policies in place in the Green Climate Fund but what we see is that is still focused on financial and business as usual even if they talk about paradigm chief more participation in the guide in the principle guideline of the Green Climate Fund it say that should be a very transparent and with equal participation at national level of women, youth, Indigenous people and other stakeholders but the reality is that Green Climate Fund is still behind all these these processes and in this case I think it's important that the Green Climate Fund look the process at national level guide the national designate authority to work with other stakeholders because when you go to this international process your government representatives are always open to talk with you but when you came back to the countries you just find closed doors so it's important the Green Climate Fund the secretariat the board members work in this so that the these local communities these Indigenous people that is so difficult for Indigenous people and local community to follow up all this process can have a space at national level I think that is really important I think of course the Green Climate Fund have been doing some baby steps to better some situation but there's still a lot of situation that can be get better inside that's why we are working there that's why Indigenous people are follow up all these the CSOs organization are really active in the process of follow up this and we we think a better GCF can can be can be in play thanks Eileen I should you want to come back on that yeah I would Eileen has made some very good points and I think it's evident that there are some systemic limitations you know in terms of the the GCF as a funding mechanism but the reality is that there are there is room rather for governments to work with with local communities and it might not be outright stipulated in some instances and in others it is but it leaves room sometimes with national governments to do as they please really to whether or not they're feeling inclined to work with local communities or whether or not they believe that working with a local community might slow down the process and they're hurrying to make submissions to the GCF or another funding entity and checking off these boxes and and doing that due process would inadvertently add more time and and take more resources for them to engage but the reality is or the the recommendation rather is that we find ways to lobby our governments to make room for local communities and Indigenous communities in the case of Eileen to ensure that their voices are represented and not leave it to them to you know determine whether or not they want to or feel inclined to work with us in a particular occasion because the fact is that even with the limits in some of these global policies local governments national governments do have it within their remit to take the opportunity and include local communities thanks Ayesha Eileen I think it's important this part because the green cam iPhone have this readiness program and Indigenous people have always said that the readiness is not only just to prepare the country to receive funds from the green climate fund it's also to prepare local stakeholders Indigenous people so it's important that the government including this readiness process Indigenous people women youth and other stakeholders local communities and I think as I just say the lobby at national level is really important issue when we talk about green climate fund I know it's difficult in some cases but if you advocacy it's difficult always so it's a process and can be done in a time so it's important this and I think we have seen in different part of the of the globe that at national level if you advocate with your national designate authority you're going to have some changes you're going to have opportunities to to to participate in the process we have seen in Latin America this Nicaragua by example took part of their readiness to make this a dialogue with Indigenous people with accredited entities with private sector I think it was really a good example how the readiness and how things can change that in the green climate fund and this set really a ton for other dialogue at national level now Colombia have a participation of Indigenous people and one of the project that was approved in last November so I think it's important also that about the the national advocacy with the with your national with your national designated authority thank you thank you Eileen and over to Joshua you've been as I as we mentioned you've been supporting youth activism on climate change and engagement in both global and local climate processes including in Ghana what I guess is your experience of of the youth being and children being able to actually being recognized as an important stakeholder in climate finance processes obviously we we now have at the green climate fund the world's one of the world's largest NGO international NGOs save the children have been accredited to the to the green climate fund which may open up opportunities but what's your experiences from your perspective you know I've been listening to the conversation it's very interesting on both sides to start with the question my the first thing that comes to my head is accessibility to whom and facilitated by who there's always going to be a level of accessibility institutions are going to restructure to give room for to ensure that the upgrading but we should recognize that when it comes to adaptation there is structural inequalities and this need to be paid attention to and sort of supporting traditional structures to take care of the needs of groups that have not has that have not had the opportunity to tap into resources traditionally is not going to necessarily work so on a personal note from my side and from from the networks I represent and for majority of young people and here I talk about the it's a question of scale so the fact that there might be opportunity for one entity or two entities at a global level to be able to engage somewhere it doesn't cut it it doesn't really fix it yet we need institutions to to significantly transform one example is the adaptation fund I mean I've been engaging with the adaptation fund for for quite some time now after the the 2019 report on the the youth and climate adaptation the adapt for our future report we started conversation around climate finance for young people and innovative finance and scheme what could this look like so there was a fund which was then launched by adaptation fund together with with ctcn in Copenhagen and with UNDP to make it possible that you could apply to the fund without going through your your NDE a national designated entity because it's not always the case that young people and certain categories or certain group of people can reach the the NDE at a country level and then be able to discuss a project and have the NDE endorse it and go to take it forward to a GCF or or the adaptation fund so we really need to open up the space and to make it possible that groups that are facing the qualities in the accessibility to funding could have a direct link to how to assess these funds we're done necessarily having to go through a sort of different levels of governance or structures by these institutions it makes it limiting it makes it much more difficult and even most importantly there should be a quota there should be a quota within GCF within AF within all the multilateral funds and the and the banks to say that okay within a year this is how much of the funds that goes to you focus that goes to say indigenous focus that goes to this really acknowledging that there are specific groups that you need to highlight that they need direct access to this money and you putting in conscious effort to make sure that they get the money I mean even even putting the structural inequality as per the side globally currently I mean as we talk adaptation finance is not reaching the most vulnerable right if you look at the world disaster report the the 2020 report it states very clearly that top most vulnerable country 20 countries are not the ones receiving the highest per person funding when it comes to disasters so that is even a bigger question then if you want to zoom in into specific groups that are likely not to have influence in accessibility to these funds it's even become a bit more critical so I know that these institutions are really doing their best and putting in effort it's just that more could be done so I agree with Aisha more could be done from my side I think direct assesses needed supporting Aileen on the aspect of the GCF and sort of the structures I think these structures need to evolve much faster it needs to evolve way much faster because the issue at hand is critical it keeps the speed of the climate impact on societies it's way faster than the speed of how institutions are evolving so this is sort of the speed we need to go in terms of institutions transforming to enhance accessibility to funding by everybody thank you so much Joshua so I'm hearing very strong messages from all of you about what needs to change and what needs to happen for the global system to better support climate action on the ground and local adaptation that it's about one of the big issues is accessibility to finance about supporting more direct access to that finance but also importantly better democratization of climate finance so ensuring that youth indigenous peoples and non-state actors alongside public sector institutions can access this finance more directly to actually finance the solutions that they've as Aileen put it so clearly at the beginning they've been implementing for decades on the ground longer than decades so that's very very clear with a firm eye on COP26 in November that's coming up could I just to wrap up can I ask you all just to give me what's your one big thing you would like to see coming out of COP26 to really make progress on the issue these issues Aisha over to you first I think for us as a small island developing state I would be completely remiss to not say that it's raising the profile of adaptation we see that as a major priority and based on my work in that field I also recognize that a small percentage of what has been allocated to adaptation in terms of funding has come to sit and so we want to see that rectified and we want to see the resources allocated for adaptation planning to go to the countries that are most in need and also we want to see any opportunity to integrate local adaptation in that process exploited thanks fantastic thanks Aisha Aileen what's your one big thing for COP26 I think for indigenous people it's also important the issues of the really implementation of the platform of local communities and indigenous people that is the opportunity that we have to be interlocutors in this global negotiation but we think here is important to have a greater dynamics related to financial access and resource for the operational of this a platform of local communities indigenous people and in this issue it's also important the to promote platform a regional level we have we work in indigenous people issues with seven social cultural regions so we think it's important to have in every one of this region a platform that can bring all this knowledge traditional knowledge of indigenous people or or knowledge for adaptation to the natural environment to the UNFCCC fantastic what kind of outcomes would you be looking for I know that the UK government is trying to set up a task force a task force on access to climate finance I really would make a plea to the UK government that this initiative should not end with the term of office of UK's as co-president because adaptation access to climate finance are very very key in the UNFCCC processes so I would really invite the UK government to accept this challenge to champion adaptation and climate finance beyond its term of office and certainly through UK some additional developed countries will join and Joshua the floor is yours for the final big idea for COP26 really a tough one but your one big outcome you'd like to see thank you my my big one would be increased share of young people as part of the national delegation to COP26 building the capacity of young people making them negotiators bringing them to COP and allowing them to put their needs and their priorities forward at the international decision making table that's it fantastic Joshua so I'm hearing really big again let's see if these outcomes come but it's youth engagement in these international climate negotiations it's these regional dialogues that are feeding into the UNFCCC representing the voices of indigenous peoples and it's getting the allocation of climate adaptation finance much better aligned with the real vulnerabilities on the ground particularly for small and developing states and the least developed countries and ensuring local adaptation principles are integrated into these agendas that's fantastic thank you it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you on these issues