 Great. Welcome. Welcome everybody. Welcome. And thank you everyone. Thank you for joining us today for this important event. My name is Susan Chomba. I'm the director of vital landscapes at WRI World Resources Institute based here in Africa. I'm also the global ambassador for the race to resilience and race to zero. I'm thrilled to be your moderator today. And really, really grateful again for taking your time to join us. The goal of today's session is to advance locally led adaptation. Around the world, we are seeing growing recognition of the importance of locally led adaptation. Today we are going to discuss what it actually looks like to ensure that finance and decision making processes are really reaching communities on the frontline and how we can learn from existing models and work together towards scaling and supporting locally led adaptation. After we hear from our distinguished speakers, we have a brief presentation on the global movement for locally led adaptation. And then we'll have to hear from four organizations who are doing actual work of locally of driving locally led adaptation on the ground. For the program, you as a participant will have the opportunity to contribute to the discussions and post questions via the chat box, as well as the environmental meter, where we'll be projecting some polls for you to be able to participate. We'll introduce that later. We'll also aim to leave some time for open queue and a question and discussion. Here you quick housekeeping notes before we kick it off. Please note this session is being recorded. We have French translation as you've heard. So in case you need to listen to the messages in French, please click on the globe icon and be able to follow the transactions in French. Kindly keep yourselves muted when you're not speaking. Thank you again for being here for this critical discussion. I have the pleasure now of introducing our first speaker, Hugh Davis, Deputy Director in the UK COP 26 unit to give us the opening remarks. Hugh, over to you. Thank you very much Susan. Good morning friends and colleagues it's a real pleasure to be here today speaking at the first of these regional dialogues on locally led adaptation. As Susan said, I'm Deputy Director in the COP26 team responsible for adaptation, resilience, loss and damage, and a range of other important issues including gender and oceans. I work across the negotiations but also on the campaigns we've been using to try and make some of these important issues more prominent and more part of our work give those issues a platform in the run up to COP26 in Glasgow. We've known this community is known for a long time that local knowledge and solutions are essential to successful adaptation and enabling inclusive locally led adaptation is a critical part of what we as a presidency are seeking to catalyze to continue through to the African presidency at COP27 and beyond. The principles for locally led adaptation provide a framework for how adaptation can be delivered more effectively. We must work together to determine how we integrate these principles into our decision making and implementation processes so that marginalized people and communities as critical agents for changes are empowered to plan for and protect their own future and that is accessible for those who need it most. All sectors of society including local and national government, businesses and civil society, multilateral development banks and climate funds must work together to share knowledge and support progress at all levels. In supporting the LDC initiative for effective adaptation of resilience program Life AR, the UK recognizes that countries and local communities are the experts in informing the decisions on how to prepare for climate change in their own context. And they should have the autonomy to make informed decisions on building their resilience. With Fiji and other partners, the UK presidency launched the task force on access to climate finance to align programmatic support behind national climate plans to improve local level at the financial flows, which we know is absolutely crucial in this area. A set of principles under the task force on access to climate finance will be developed and published on the pin and guide the new approach before COP with climate providers encouraged to sign. And we are encouraging the adaptation research community to endorse the research principles to carry out action oriented research, the response to local needs. The adaptation research Alliance is seeking to catalyze action oriented research strengthening collaboration between Southern led local universities and research institutes to enhance capacity building. Ahead of COP26 the UN General Assembly later this month and the Italian led pre-cop in October provide key opportunities for highlighting the importance of locally led adaptation and the progress which is being made by donors and the international community, including through the task force on access and Life AR. In making locally led adaptation a central priority for the COP26 presidency. We not only want to amplify the calls for greater support for locally led action, but to also address the barriers, the restrict and prevent finance flowing to the local level. We want to carry momentum into the African COP27 presidency without that station and loss and damage a priority for developing and develop countries alike. I look forward to hearing the outputs of what I'm sure will be a rich conversation today and continuing to work together to take collective action on this crucial agenda to COP26 beyond. And one last comment and I am conscious that this, this is being interpreted for French as well. I will be available from the team afterwards if that's helpful to anyone. Now back to you Susan. Thank you very much for having me here today. Kelly and thank you so much you and how wonderful to see locally led adaptation being prioritized in the upcoming COP26 and the COP26 presidency. The UK government you really highlighted key issues there around community building community autonomy and really making this a locally led community led initiative in terms of local led adaptation. We have highlighted aspects around research, finance as well as addressing other barriers, policy and other barriers for locally led adaptation. So that's brilliant. Thank you so much Hugh. I'm now pleased to introduce our keynote, another keynote speaker Mamadou Honadia. Mamadou is the advisor to the chair of the LDC group of UNFCCC and senior climate negotiator for Bukina Faso and deeply steeped in the locally led adaptation discussions. Thank you so much Mamadou and over to you. Madame I thank you very much. Good morning everyone. Greetings from Bukina Faso. My name is Mamadou as we said, I started with negotiations by trying to championing adaptation, as well as capacity building. And during the last seven, eight years, I'm working on finance. It's really my great pleasure to welcome you to this important discussions on scaling up locally led adaptation. Let me begin by thanking the adaptation action coalition, the UN high level champions and the race to resilience for presenting these dialogues in the road to COP26. I also acknowledge the organizations involved in delivering today's dialogue in the African region. Being south south north, slum and shake, whereas international and the International Institute for environment and development and the world resource Institute and other sponsors. And I only also welcome all our speakers and case study presenters who are part of today's discussions. All around the world, people, communities and countries are dealing with multiple shots from climate change, loss of nature and COVID-19 related impact. No one is immune from this crisis, but Africa regions is among the worst hurt by this impact. Our populations are particularly vulnerable to disproportionately impacted. So when this crisis hits our shores, they hit us hard. I may say very hard. Both climate change and loss of nature and COVID-19 are exerciving existing challenges, setting back sustainable development efforts. We recognize that business are usual approaches to deal with climate crisis are not working in our countries. Already even at just one degree Celsius of warming, the impact are devastating. If we cannot limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius, as agreed in Paris, the impact will rapidly increase. As I said, this countless time, but I would stress again that adaptation is critical for us, not optional. And our priority is to improve our ability to adapt to the effect of climate change and build resilience to climate shocks. There is a need to scale up adaptation finance for developing countries to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. We also need to build our local and national institutional capacity to strengthen our local and traditional knowledge and technology to adapt to adverse impact of climate change. Yes, too little climate finance flow directly to our African national and local actors. This is unacceptable. Those in the poorest countries on the frontline of climate change are not receiving the support they need to survive. If this continues, we'll fall to address the climate crisis. For example, of the GCF portfolio, 81% of the total funding is international led 81%. Clearly, things need to change. We have talked a lot. Let us go, let us go into action. More financial resources are needed for local governments, communities, enterprises and actors working at the local level to implement their own climate solution. To tackle these challenges, the LDC group have stepped forward. We launched our long-term 2050 vision at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019. This vision is for LDCs to be on climate resilient development pathway by 2030 and deliver net zero emission by 2050 to ensure our societies, economies and ecosystems products. Our vision is not an empty statement. LDC led initiative are already delivering on this vision. For example, the LDC initiative on adaptation and resilience life are aimed for 70% of climate finance to reach local level by 2030. We can also like other front runner LDCs have already started by process to formulate a long-term strategy on adaptation and resilience. We are looking forward to seeing much more support and sponsors in this area. Fortunately, we know there is a fantastic innovation taking place across Africa in delivering climate finance to the local level. UNCDF is also another example of this. And I'm looking forward to hearing from them and their journey today. And how the donors can respond to deliver more of the climate finance through these national and local approaches to get climate finance to the front lines. We will hear more about these principles for locally led adaptation shortly and I'm inspired by the momentum they are generating. These principles, including the focus in increasing resources at the local level, providing patient and predictable funding and investing in local capabilities are serious and meaningful response to the LDCs ask of the international community in our vision. I really urge you to take this principle seriously and to learn from case studies today that demonstrates this principle in action. I congratulate more than 50 organizations and governments but have signed up to a principle already. This is the time to scale up locally led effort to support adaptation and resilience. This is a critical element of our society when shocks hit. Let's get closer to COP 26. I encourage everyone to use the principles as a way to inspire and improve practices in your organization to enable local action led by the most vulnerable communities. The challenge is hard, but it's worth, it's worth it for a brighter and better future. I wish you all a fruitful discussion today, and I look forward to seeing the outcomes of our discussions. I thank you very much. So much Mamadou for such insightful remarks in your keynote address. You've reminded us again about the critical role of locally led adaptation and some of the work that the LDC team is doing including ensuring at least 70% of locally led finance or finance for locally led adaptation actually reaches the local level. You've also reminded us about the importance of the principles for locally led adaptation which we are all extremely eager to hear for those who have not heard about them and learn more about them in the next session. So thank you so much. Those were excellent and we truly truly appreciate. Now I'm going to hand over to the mentee team shortly and then come back. So mentee team please. Yeah, so thank you so much Susan. So we are going to do use try using mentee meter for this dialogue and I think Karen has just posted the link into the chat box. So you can also answer these questions by going on menti.com on your phone or your laptop whichever device you're connecting on and just popping in this eight digit code which is 58816457. So we're going to be using this throughout the dialogue, but just to kick things off into a few icebreakers just to get everyone discussing. So we're just going to ask a few questions. So if you log on to mentee, you can see these questions coming through and I think I'm going to share my screen with a swap to Karen. We can allow Karen to share her screen. She'll be able to see share these questions on from her side. All right. Can you see my screen now. And we can see the country is coming in where people are all the cities. We can see you. Yes Karen please proceed. I was just saying we can see the screen. Wonderful. So we have a wonderful diversity of countries. Sectors research, urban informality, climate change, agriculture. And the diversity of sectors that are represented here. The issues and what issues do you work on. And a lot of people working on adaptation stakeholder engagement finance. Yes. It's great to hear that most of the participants most of the people that are joining today have heard before of the principles for locally lead adaptation before 17 participants. It's changing. What is your level of experience with locally lead adaptation. Have some experience. I am here to learn. It's changing rapidly to have I have some experience. And if you can move backwards and forwards using the arrow so please feel free to go back to questions that you would like to answer later. Or do you want to add additional information we will have some open ended comments open ended questions later. So thank you everyone for joining and back to to you Susan. What are diverse mix of participants and diverse mix of experiences and. And also in terms of what's happening there people's experience with locally lead adaptation, quite impressive in terms of the number of people who are really familiar with the principle. Those who are not familiar with them. I want to hand over now to mark mark from the International Institute of environment and development. Mark please take over and we are so eager with your to hear from you on this presentation. Thank you. Thank you so much. And just before I start I did post the code in the chat again. Apologies for those asking I was trying to do it and I couldn't seem to navigate my screen but it now seems to work. So thank you so much, Susan. And thank you all for those who have joined. So I'm as Susan introduced and mark so into the International Institute for environment development. And I've been working with all 10 organizations that apart collaborating as part of this project scaling up local adaptation in collaboration with the 26 presidency, the adaptation action coalition and race to resilience. Next slide please. I'm just going to take you through a bit of a context setting on why we believe local adaptation is so important. What political changes and movements are happening as part of local adaptation which were introduced by Hugh and by Mamadou at the beginning and a bit of context for the stories that we're about to hear. Firstly, what what is local adaptation. So I think we all collectively agree that adaptation should be benefiting local communities individuals organizations with the front line of climate change we'd all agree that they're the ones who need to be benefiting most from climate from climate change adaptation. But when we're talking about local adaptation we're talking about something where we're giving more power and agency to those local organizations local actors individuals to actually lead their own adaptation to prioritize design implement monitoring evaluate the solutions that work for them and therefore more power and resources flowing to local actors and individuals and have sources that are better placed to facilitate local adaptation whether that be local civil society organizations that represent excluded people in groups and provide people centered solutions could be public sector actors such as local government authorities responsible for meeting local needs and delivering public services could be private sector organizations at the local level, both formal and informal represented small holders, local companies, cooperatives, financial institutions that are the backbone of driving economic growth in another country or region. Next slide please. So we need more local adaptation because we're dealing with this triple crisis of climate by diversity and inequality that's felt most by the poor and most excluded, and households are already spending by far the most on adapting and responding to disasters. Yet we have a situation where too little climate finance and development and humanitarian finance is flowing to local actors, for instance, we know that less than 10% of global climate from finances being dedicated local action. And we have a failure in the humanitarian community also with the grand bargain aim of 25% of humanitarian finance to flow to local responders, only being at 2.5% over the last couple of years. And the reality is that most climate adaptation finance is of poor quality, it's highly intermediated as Mamadou introduced the vast majority for instance of the green climate fund flows through international organizations. It's often therefore highly top down designing distant headquarters, often is incapable of building institutions at a national and local level. It often needs to short term projects with helicopter in solutions, with little focus on addressing the root causes or structural causes of vulnerability or addressing the long term primary that communities face. Next slide please. Fortunately, we've had a growing political movement on the need for local adaptation, as has been already introduced the least developed countries are showing global leadership, committing to deliver 70% of their climate finance to the local level by 2030 as part of their least developed countries initiative for effective adaptation of resilience. And we've had the growing political momentum around adaptations part of the global Commission on adaptation. And it had a local action track championed by commissioners Sheila Patel from Sloan and Shackwells International and Dr. Muhammad Misa from Brack International, really trying to galvanize increased political recognition and funding support for local action. More recently, the COP26 presidency, Alok Sharma, has stated the importance of local adaptation coming out of the climate and development ministerial and the G7 has welcomed the eight principles for local adaptation which I'll go through in a moment. And the race to resilience is trying to integrate local adaptation across the initiatives that it's supporting. But a company with this agenda is a clear strong ask from the most vulnerable countries, the least developed countries and particularly the small line development states to marry this agenda on increasing local adaptation but also access to finance, recognizing that increasing the access by national and local organizations to climate finance is essential for delivering better climate adaptation resilience, especially at the local level. Next slide please. So what are these eight principles that you've heard about so far. These eight principles have been developed over the past four to five years, over a whole range of research from many organizations, including IID, the World Resource Institute, ECAD, SDI, Guaro Commission and many other organizations. I think over 50 organizations collaboratively took part in them over the course of their development and he was launched at the Climate Adaptation Summit, hosted in January 2021. And these include devolving greater decision making on adaptation to the most appropriate level. Putting addressing the structural causes of inequality particularly faced by women, youth, children, disabled, displaced indigenous peoples and other marginalized ethnic groups at the heart of delivering adaptation solutions. Providing patient and predictable funding that is aligned with how to deliver adaptation, recognizing that delivering transformative change takes 10 years or more, not just a couple of years the projects are often designed around. And we need to invest in the in sustainable institutions, leaving institutional legacies at the local level. The end of the day it's local and national organizations that go into ensure adaptation takes place sustainably over time. We need to build a robust understanding of climate risk and uncertainty that builds upon champions traditional indigenous and generational knowledge that has been working around and building upon uncertain solutions for decades and millennia. We need to deliver flexible and programming and adaptation focus on learning, recognizing that adaptation is inherently a learning approach. We don't know perfect solutions from the get go. We need to design iteratively what solutions are best for different communities. We need to show, ensure transparent and accountable solutions, enabling communities to understand what adaptation is taking place in their landscape in their jurisdiction, what policies and procedures they can engage with to deliver adaptation solutions which work for them. And finally, to deliver collaborative action in investment recognizing we need to collaborate across humanitarian development and humanitarian climate investments, but also across different levels of government from national to regional to local and across the private civil society and public sectors. Next slide please at me. And as has been already introduced we have a growing number of endorsements to these principles around 55 if not all but organizations have now endorsed these principles ranging from the UK government through FCDO the foreign Commonwealth and Development Office to major climate funds like the adaptation fund or the grant by Jeff to major UN agencies like UNDP to international and the World Wildlife Federation or the United Nations Capital Development Fund and also southern based NGOs such as Canary based in the Caribbean. Huge range of organizations and we really hope you will join us on this journey and join the community of practice that is growing a meeting to understand how to deliver adaptation effectively at the local level and put more power and resources into the hands of local organizations and individuals and communities. Next slide please. So this dialogue is really focused as it's been introduced on understanding how to deliver climate finance behind local priorities into the local level. Now some of the case studies you're going to hear from later today are really focused around the concept that we already have many existing institutions and mechanisms that are ready made to deliver climate finance to the local level. We don't often need to develop entirely new approaches. We have things like decentralization driven by governments. We have society organizations that have been supporting ecosystem management and supporting the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable for decades. We have local enterprises that are supporting the economic backbone and can be supported to access and deliver more innovative solutions. So what we need to understand is what approaches we should be really channeling climate finance through doing things in a business unusual way so we can effectively manage and access finance directly to the local level, manage funding for climate change more exclusively involving local organizations and local actors especially most excluded in these decisions, provide climate informed advice, enable rapid learning and embed these within institutions that can deliver sustainable adaptation over time. Next slide please. So this dialogue series is as I said really part of understanding what these approaches are with the goal of scaling up state and non state approaches for financing and governing and delivering local adaptation. So understanding what are the pathways we can collectively work on to replicate scale up some of these approaches across the Asia Pacific, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America and this dialogue is the first in the dialogue series. And which will take you taking place all this week across other regions, and then again in October to really facilitating what all the approaches that exist facilitating learning to happen, not only within regions but across regions. And really understanding what are the really effective approaches across non state and state actors public private and civil society for delivering climate finance to the local level behind local priorities in an inclusive way is really governing adaptation effectively on the into the long term. And next slide please. So what have we been doing over the past couple of months, well, you're about to hear from four fantastic case studies but we've been collectively capturing or across the 10 organizations involved. And nearly almost 100 examples of cases that can be delivering climate finance behind the priorities of the most excluded for people at the local level. These include examples such as decent adaptive decentralization which we'll hear about today. Examples of using social protection to deliver adaptation. Example of granting mechanisms delivering grants to civil society to local government on lending and credit lines to local governments and households. Examples of indigenous people's led funding mechanisms. Women's led funding mechanisms, those involving greater youth and children, children engagement. We've collected a whole range of fantastic examples, but these are just the examples we know of across the partners involved. We will be showcasing some of those today across the African region and across the rest of this week but really, really hope this dialogue will facilitate yourselves adding to this great portfolio examples. We hope to add some further pins on this map of all the different approaches that exist across the globe for delivering climate finance for the local level so we can make a collective call to the international climate funds to donors to say that it's no longer good enough to deliver funding just through international organizations that there are a whole range of national and local organizations that can be delivering climate finance much more effectively to the local level and then effective and sustainable and inclusive way. I think that's the end. I think we have some time for some questions if there is any questions from the audience. And so again, if you go use on to menti.com, or if you want to put your questions in the chat, we can do that also. Yeah, so menti.com using the code 5881 6457 or you can take a screenshot of this QR code on the screen, or you can pop your questions in the chat if that's not working and our colleague Karen will be managing those questions that are popping up. And I think if someone could also pop in the link into the chat to allow people to observe the questions that are popping up as well that would be fantastic. So yeah, if anyone has a question, please do fire away. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I think that that has been a fantastic presentation. We all know now what are the eight principles of locally led adaptation. Thank you, Marek. Now we still have a bit of time for this session. So as Marek mentioned, we are very eager to know we can see I can see in the charts are coming fast and furious. If you have a question, a burning question, please put it in the in the chat, and we'll pick it and direct it to these speakers who've already spoken. So before we go to the case studies where we'll be diving deep on some excellent case studies in Africa. We do want to hear from you. Type your question type your comment in the chat book and we'll select one of those or a few of those to be shared with the presenters that have managed to speak so far. Brilliant. And as mentioned, we also have the Mentimeter question. So question, the question about locally led adaptation. We really, really want you to go to the Mentimeter as well and put those questions answer those questions through the Mentimeter. As we are waiting for your questions to come in the map that that Marek just showed, Marek, if you're still on that and could you please project that map. It really was quite. Yes, exactly. Thank you so much. This map is quite telling in terms of the range and examples of locally led adaptations that we see happening all over the world, but also across Africa, the African continent. So if you look at them, there are some areas where you're saying, you know, a lot of concentration of locally led adaptation. I'm sure probably there are a few others that have not been captured. But we do want to see this, you know, sort of locally led adaptations cutting across the entire continent because it's not just about some regions where you have vulnerability. I think some of the areas you can see the, the southern part of Africa, the middle part, Chad, Nigeria, Niger and those countries, not a lot happening and especially in the north. So we do want to catalyze locally led adaptation across other areas across the countries and where they've not been captured. Of course, we do want to have that captured in our geographies in on the continent. So I'm now going to move in the chat book. I'm waiting to see there's a question coming from the mentee. Karen, would you like to mention the question in the mentee Karen. Sure. The question is, will governments accept channeling funds outside of government agencies local government. And who's that question addressed to. There's no mention of who is this directed to. It's more like a general question and there's another one coming will the GCF be able to support locally led adaptation. Okay, so if, if Mamadou is still there, based on his experience with the LDC group and as well as being a negotiator from Bukina first so the question is, will government accept channeling or finances or financial flows through non governmental organizations in the African countries is an African dialogue so let's concentrate on that discussion right now. Mamadou, if you're still there. Kindly do give us your, your take on that. Hello, excuse me. Can you hear me, I have tried to switch from English to French and, and back better really, I mix up everything and really I'm lost. So I think I heard your, your question. Africa is not quite easy, because there is a boundary between the public, the private and the civil society organizations. If financial flow must go from a donor to the government, the government will use it for the public services for the public programs and projects, depending on the relationship. Between NGOs and private with the public. Maybe 5% not more than 10% could be shared with them. To me, it will be very relevant to have a specific channel for the financial flow for the international level to the local communities or to the private sector. Unless there is a sort of momentum of understanding. We can provide a sort of measures and. Oh, I call it and guide and guidance where the government must share. 8% with NGOs as a Y% with with the private sector. But definitely what I would like to say there is a lack of dialogue between the public, the civil society organization and the, on the private sector. So in the area of finance is very sensitive is very crucial. And there is a need that we, we make our own work. I mean, within LDCs this dialogue is very crucial as far as climate change is concerned. But I know actually the challenge we will be facing is to see international financial flow. From bad level to the grass root level without any involvement of the government. They will, they will wonder what's up, what's happening in the country. Because the government is one who sign and ratify the commissions. So they would like to be involved in the process. We have to see which which window we will try to activate in order to involve the government. Even if we decide what the financial flow for the international level to the grass root level should be operated. So this is what I would like to share with you. I don't know if I had very well, very well your question I thank you very much. Thank you so much mama do I think we've gotten your insights very clearly and for sure. So trying to define the clarity in terms of financial flows between different stakeholders, and especially knowing how, when it comes to, you know locally led adaptation it decentralized actions they happen at the local level so it's not just about national government is also about national and local governments and therefore thinking about the relationships and financial flows between government, private sector actors, as well as civil society organizations and local community groups is going to be crucial thank you so much we've received that. So the second question, I will direct it to mark mark will just be able to support locally led adaptation. Thanks so much Susan. So actually the idea of running part of running this dialogue is really inspired in part by the challenge that many of you will be observing at the Green Climate Fund in their facility to try and support local led adaptation which is called enhanced direct access which if with many of you that may follow the GCF you will see that it's not doing too well. So I think there are two programs that have accessed the 200 million that was set aside for enhanced access programs. And the whole idea today is to really showcase to institutions like the Green Climate Fund that there are all these approaches that could provide such opportunities to deliver products to the local level and international organizations that dominate the funds like the Green Climate Fund. I think Mamadou mentioned it's over 80% of the funding from the Green Climate Fund is currently channel through international accredited entities not national or local accredited entities. So to really say, look, you need to be supporting many of these approaches these already made to deliver climate finance behind local priorities it is no longer good enough to say that there is lacking capacity, or lack of examples that can deliver funding effectively cost effectively sustainable to the local level because we can see here. These are just the approaches we've mapped over a few months and many of you here today will be able to help fill this back even further. There are a whole lot of approaches so I would say our message is that the Green Climate Fund needs to take a note of all these approaches and work out how it can change its procedures, change its rules on international organizations and how they act to mental all of these approaches to effectively deliver climate finance to the local level and I think we will hear today from an example or a few examples that have managed to access international climate funds and maybe hear from some of the lessons of how they've managed to do so. I hope that answers a bit of that question. Thank you, Marik. And another question here before we move to the next session. Several international organizations have endorsed the principles of locally led adaptation but in reality, these international organizations compete with national and local institutions for funding and influence. How do we address this? How do we address this very, very complex challenge here of yes the international organizations competing for funding and influence with local organizations. I'm not sure who to direct this question to. I want to take it back to the IED team and WRI teams, the organizers of this event with me and please let me first of all just throw it to Christina. If you're there, kindly guide us on how to address this question and whether we can be able to think through it because I think it's critical the listeners know that complex dynamic of international organizations and local actors competing for funding and influence together at the local level. Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks, Susan, that it is a complicated question and a good one to surface on these these dialogues because there is a a tension between different organizations maybe working for the same ultimate goal but in many ways competing with each other and competing with local organizations and part of what we're trying to do with these principles is is really to divert the paradigm where it's the international organizations that in some ways direct the agenda and direct the local institutions and have a more bottom up process where local institutions are supported to bring their agendas forward whether it's the local society or local government to bring their agendas forward up to the national government and the international sphere and in fact, one of the core principles that that are articulated in the principles for locally led adaptation is building and supporting that that local capacity over the long term and leaving strong local institutions. I think as as international organizations we as WRI are committed to really looking at how we work, how we work with local partners so that we're not subverting the power and directing institutions on what to do but but actually listening and supporting. And I'm sure we won't get it right every time, because it is a learning process for us all, but I think it's really important to really surface those those issues. I'll see if other colleagues from from across the organizing team want to address that in the next minute or two that we have here, but thanks Susan. No that's absolutely brilliant Christina. I think in the interest of time, I think that was quite a comprehensive response. In the interest of time we want to move now to the case studies because we do want to see what's happening on the ground. So, and just to remind you that throughout you have access to the mentee you can answer those questions anytime. So let's get and let's get now into the case studies. Sorry, it looks like I was muted. But getting into the case study just wanted to say remember you have full access to the Mentimeter throughout continue visiting and let's get into the case study now. So, in terms for the case study number one, we are going to hear from South Africa Community Adaptation Small Grants Facility from Tammy Merrill. Please, Tammy take over. Thank you Susan so much for your introduction. All right. Good morning everybody, my name is Tammy Merrill from South South North. Today, I'm going to be talking about the Community Adaptation Small Grants Facility. It's really known as the SGF project. The SGF project implemented a grant making mechanism using enhanced direct access to climate finance. It was the first EDA project funded by the Adaptation Fund, and it provided small grants to 12 local grant recipients, 4,000 US dollars. Sorry to interrupt a bit. Is it possible to put it in slideshow? Because we are seeing the entire set of slides. Just sorry for the interruption. I was just wondering whether it's possible to fix it quickly. And if it doesn't then ignore and proceed. No, thank you for that. I believe that's going to be better now. It's perfect. Thank you. Thank you Susan for acknowledging that. The projects that we're discussing today were located in three areas in dark blue on the map, the Namakwa district of the Northern Cape province in western Cape, in the western, sorry, in the northern Cape province and the western part of South Africa. And the Mopani district in Limpopa province in the northeast. So many of these projects for South Africa include increased frequency and intensity of weather events, heavily impacting those in Mopani district, who depend on agricultural production for subsistence and livelihoods, and those in the Namakwa, whose primary livelihoods are livestock farming and fishing. Note that the Namakwa population is about 100,000 people while Mopani is about a million. These factors were determined through vulnerability assessments conducted in the region, which noted that agriculture livelihoods and settlements were not only at high risk of climate impacts, but also determined as a priority by the communities themselves. And here is the project organogram. Getting money to local grant recipients required the support of many stakeholders. The Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries was the national designated authority, while the South African National Biodiversity Institute, Sanby, was the project grant recipient and dispersed all funds. Civil society, however, played were key enablers to ensure that small grant recipients were able to receive the funding and adequately implement their respective projects. As national implementing entity, Sanby had oversight and reporting responsibilities relating directly to the adaptation fund, and they subsequently distributed funds to the executing entity south south north. Financial and technical due diligence rested with south south north, who coordinated and managed the granting process and distributed funds directly to facilitating agencies and the awarded grant recipients. Technical input and strategic direction during the grant application process and project implementation was supported by the project advisory group, which included the whole project management team and two municipalities. Facilitating agencies played a very important role, which I'll discuss in the next slide. And each of the facilitating agencies in each of the two regions developed their own technical advisory groups, and they also played a critical role in promoting locally led initiatives that were contextualized to the practical needs on the ground. In addition, this local support, particularly the support of the municipalities increased project sustainability. So why was SGF business unusual. Well, for several reasons, the project governance structure integrated many stakeholders, and this facilitated access to expertise and information, as well as support with some government processes. The beneficiaries at the community level were involved throughout the project, proof needed to be provided that all beneficiaries approved of the project design and the activities and sustainability plans were often needed to be signed off by local leaders or cooperatives. Despite this grant recipients did complain about onerous or cumbersome reporting requirement. Throughout the project. A lot of attempts were made to be responsive to local needs alternative contracting mechanisms were arranged through tripartite agreements to ensure that more community based organizations and cooperatives had access to the grant and customized training was provided, as well as additional money for interventions. And the facilitating agencies. They were a unique innovation, playing a critical role in translating the global expectations of the adaptation fund and the monies associated with it into practical measures on the ground. Some of the facilitating agencies had an existing footprint in their respective areas, understood local needs, and provided considerable capacity building. We couldn't do adaptation and isolation. We had to incorporate development as well. And we had to justify it. So, but this approach recognized and articulated the differences between adaptation and development. And while acknowledging the communities priorities holistically. There was a lot of capacity building that took place throughout the life, lifespan of the project, and not only on adaptation technology and project implementation, but also financial management and grant management. And while the formerly facilitated events, as well as informal exchanges via what's up groups formed these relationships helped facilitate cross learning, and in some cases projects added additional interventions based upon examples that they saw through these learnings. The SGF aligned with most of the principles in some way or another, the primary strengths were the devolved decision making, and the inclusion of women and indigenous peoples. And part of the eligibility criteria was to ensure that indigenous peoples were included and that women not only benefited, but were involved in the project management structures, gender and youth were disaggregated in all results. The three investment windows climate resilient livelihoods climate smart agriculture and climate proof settlement included a variety of interventions, and often those interventions were integrated to provide added value and improve sustainability. I'll quickly go through a couple of examples. In this example, the garden Tata rainwater harvesting system and rain gauge project based in the Mopani district sought to promote climate resilience through increased access to water and fodder for livestock and nutritious foods for community members. There were a number of rainwater harvesting systems and 115 homes, the rehabilitation of local dams and construction of gabions to reduce soil or erosion sought to increase access to safe water and increase community resilience. They were also benefited from this project. Another project, the biodiversity and meet cooperative land and livestock adaptation project based in the Mopani district, aim to introduce hardier indigenous livestock that were more resilient to heat and disease, collectively, and still fetched premium prices. This project focused on developing livestock management processes, including appropriate vaccinations, dipping and medication of livestock over 1000 people in the Namaqua region benefited from this project. The SDF journey was a long one that ultimately lasted over five years. What we learned is that is that a balance must be achieved between robust oversight structures and agile systems that are responsive to local needs. This requires a system that evolves with the needs of the project and ensures that beneficiaries remains central implementers and decision makers throughout responsive capacity building and applying a holistic approach is also required to ensure that EDA is not just a means, but that it facilitates the end result of resilient healthy and prosperous individuals and communities. Increased and accelerated adaptation funding is desperately needed to ensure that vulnerable vulnerable populations can not only thrive, not only survive, but thrive the impending climate crisis. Thank you. So much. Thank you so much, Tommy. What an excellent and clearly received message there. I have just one clarifying question for you, Tommy. If you were to support other organizations to replicate your local funding model or approach, what would be the key recommendations or lessons that you'd like to share. There would be many but I think I'll start with just sort of the most important. I think the first one is that that devolved decision making power. So the SGF did, I think an extraordinary job of trying to develop a governance model that devolved decision making power. Although I think the next iteration should take that another step further. So there should be mechanisms that sort of feedback to the donor, or at least the grant recipient to ensure that the voices on the ground are heard and are able and their lessons and their priorities are able to be fed back into the decision making processes so that so that the governance system and the support and the associated funding can be agile and responsive. I think that's one thing. I think that we need to ensure we have time, which is another principle. So this project was a five year project. Unfortunately, this was the first funded EDA project by the adaptation fund. It took us over two years just to get our governance structures together, the protocols in place. So by the time that the grants were awarded, they only had a year or two to implement, and it wasn't enough time adaptation takes time and ongoing support. The other thing would be capacity building capacity building is key and not just with the local organizations, we're talking, we are all learning together. So even the high level organizations at national level are also learning and need to approach it from a perspective that we're learning together. We're co creating, and we're a part of a journey together. And, and that's the capacity building at local level needs to be that not transactional but co creative. And then the final thing I'm going to say is just that, you know, local level costs need to be understood, including the in kind benefit from communities. I think we often think like oh but they live there it's fine. It actually is taking people's productive time and energy away from earning money or taking care of your kids to be involved in these community proper projects and they need to be acknowledged and and local NGOs can't absorb any costs. There's no absorptive opportunity for them just to say, Okay, well we're going to do these reports for free because the project is closed. Local CBOs have to have funding to be able to do all of the requirements of the project, including after close out audits, those kinds of things so I hope I didn't go on. Those would be some really key lessons I think we learned from our project. Incredible. Amazing. I do really, really love and resonate with those lessons having also worked with local groups on the ground. You know, local communities time is actually important and it is time that could be directed to other activities even though adaptation is for them. It's still good to recognize absolutely and you've just summarized them so well tell me I mean we could go on with this discussion, but in the interest of time let's get into the second case study thank you thank you so much that was absolutely terrific thank you. So the second case study, we are going to Kenya, my own country here, we are we are going to hear from Malik Aman, Program Manager of the National Treasury of Kenya, and Victor Orindy, Coordinator of the Adaptation Consortium. So Malik and Victor please take the stage. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. I believe the host will like to you to. Okay. Victor, if you can hear us, we are ready to proceed please. Sorry, currently I'm hearing the translation back I can't hear the presenter. Hello, can you hear me now. Excellent. Now I can hear you and we can see you Victor. Okay, thank you very much sorry for the small hiccup. I'll make this presentation on behalf of my colleague. Sorry Victor, the translation we can hear both Victor and the translation. Sorry the technical team kindly just help us fix that so that we are only hearing Victor on the channel on the English channel and only translation on the French channel. Let's try again Victor. Okay, thank you. How is it going now. I can hear you only. Can you hear me only. Okay, so I'll make this presentation on the county climate change fund mechanism that has been piloted and being rolled out in Kenya. For the benefit of all the participants, mostly those were from outside, just to say that we are organized in terms of the national level and then the next level is the county level. In Kenya we have a total of 47 counties, below the counties we have the sub counties and then the world level which is our lowest planning unit. In terms of the county climate change fund mechanism, I just want to say that this is a mechanism designed to channel climate finance to the lowest level to finance priority climate change interventions. As you can see from the diagram on the left. It's designed to attract funding from both public and private sources, national international and local sources from example the budgets. In terms of planning out to use and make a decision on the use, we have the world level committees at the lower level, which have a role of mobilizing the communities to identify and prioritize the interventions. They work together with the county level committees which I'll come to shortly to see if they meet the prayer grid criteria in terms of identifying what to invest in. The way we've employed or implemented this is that majority of the funding is dedicated to the lower level. That's the world where we have 70% of the total kitty, 20% catering for things like policy and the county level and restricting expenditure on administrative overheads. In terms of how the mechanism looks like or what consists of, it consists of four components for interrelated components that work to reinforce each other. I'll just explain this briefly. So the first component is a county fund, which is established through a county legislation used to finance priority climate change activities. As I said, it's designed to attract funding from the public that's through the budgeting process, private sector donors, etc, etc. And the key thing for us is that county governments, which is our sub national governments also allocate a percent of their development budget each year to the kitty. Typically they'll be allocating a minimum of 2% one to 2% some are now doing three, which is great. This money is used based on the grid criteria to finance those interventions related to the committees is the to the fund is the committees. We have committees at the lower level, which are actually the pillar of this mechanism at the world level, the lowest planning unit that work with communities to identify what their challenges are climate suited challenges prioritized based on the valuable budget which they know in advance to invest in a particular year and then share these or engage these with the county level committee that support them technically to ensure they meet the criteria and finance those investments. The key thing for these mechanisms that the relationship between the lower level and the higher level at the county level is more facilitating rather than vetoing what's coming from the lower level. The third component being a climate change initiative is about the focus on climate information services and other tools that help us integrate both community and other forms of knowledge. We have our agencies, the meteorological department, supporting the process of coming up with a strategy to provide tailored climate information to users at that lower level, so that this informs the assessments that committees carry out the prioritization the design and location of the investments. So this is to ensure that they deal with both current and also the future is that people are able to pick up. Don't know why it's jumped. Sorry, something happened. It's just jumped to the next slide. The other bit is about ensuring that we also track what we are doing in terms of where it started way back in 2010 and our then Ministry of Noban Kenya, which felt another glance which felt that those areas were actually being impacted and the feelings that they could not wait any longer. So therefore, the idea was to come up with something that would be tried and then integrated in the government planning system. So the work started way back in 2010 with participation of a number of agencies international and local ones. Apart from working in the initial county of Isiolo, we later after stock taking moved to additional four counties in support of a number of development partners. But the key thing for us at that particular juncture was the fact that the was the fact that the the national adaptation plan actually picked this up as a good lesson that was worth replicating. So, first forward, the fact that in our new planning cycles, counties now legislated to ensure that this is properly institutionalized. We had rounds of investment for the rounds of investments. And also we took some time to learn from our mistakes and see how best this can be taken forward, especially in our national planning change action planning processes that's going on. And of course, to date where we have Victor, sorry, sorry to interrupt, but I was hoping that you could be able to put the slides back in presentation mode. Yeah, thank you. That current slide. Excellent. Yeah, sorry about that. So what makes this sort of the business unusual though it was initiative piloted by a number of factors I think the decision to ensure that we look at the current the planning system that we had and see how best we can reform it to ensure it respond to the challenges that we're facing at that particular moment and also going forward. So instead of piloting outside the government, we worked within the government to ensure that we addresses the weaknesses with the planning at both lower level at also at the national level. Another bit is that we the committees have talked about the world level committees. These are the, the cornerstone of the pillars of this mechanism, but they're elected by community members. And they decide in terms of where to use their resources that have been allocated in a particular year. This one is giving us the opportunity to ensure that whatever is prioritized whatever is invested in actually respond to the needs of the people, the affected or most of the modules groups that are usually left out in the process. Bringing on board government agencies and Geos both international and local development partners also ensure that we harness to have invested or benefited from their different knowledge resources and capacities that I don't think would have been possible. We don't need maybe only government or only in just doing their work separately. And also, the fact that we are creating a fund mechanism that can pull funding from different sources also help us in ensuring that we have targeted and well coordinated mechanism going forward. Achievements. So as I've said over 10 years going forward, we have the 15. As of now we have 15 counties that has established the mechanism that was supposed for components, but the beauty of it is that apart from the fact that they're nationalized. We are seeing the world committees, the communities who are driving this process engaging in the wider planning and a budgeting process so they're not only influencing the climate change work, but the broader development work in the county. And of course, we have investment done with the resources that we got from the development part of the government, ranging from the infrastructure type who are likely working areas of most of them are on water, but you also have other ones like community radio for broadcasting climate information and other development information. We also have regulatory for quicker and timely diagnosis of diseases, healthy livestock. We also worked on strengthening both customer institutions that we felt were very critical in ensuring that we manage resources sustainably going forward. And of course, strategies and plans also developed. The other key thing is that this was new and therefore documenting for the benefit of those who are coming or getting into the process. We thought also was very critical. So some photos there on your right. One of the important point I want to emphasize on this particular slide is the picture on the right, the water point, where you see communities decided to turn our challenge into a solution to a benefit. This was a big rock, which was channeling rain water into the community land costing gullies and erosion, but they felt that if it was, there was an embarkment or a barrier created, it could be the water could be channeled into water tanks that can be used to supply water to homes for different uses so you see the benefit there. So how have we aligned with the, the locally led principle. So first about the pollution, which for us is critical in terms of decision here actually being made at that lower level by community representative elected by the communities. And therefore what we're seeing is that the investment are very relevant to pattern into their issues. Of course, in terms of we've also tried in the design. And also in the legislation is recognized that you need to actually ensure that the marginalized the minorities are included in the process, otherwise you don't hear their voices. So that has been done. But as you'll appreciate some of these challenges are deep seated in society in our cultures and practices and therefore it's going to take a long time before they are actually there to be adequately. So while we are doing that, I think a lot still need to be done. We've had the advantage of working on this this for some time also taking time to reflect the still learning and informed future development. And therefore I think the beauty is that we now appreciate why it's good to spend some good time and get some funding to continue doing the work that you are doing. Additionally, the fact that community what's in the kitty for a particular financial year help us in terms of participation, decision making, and therefore the only work with what they think they can do and avoid directing long list that are never acted upon. The other bit is about, as I said, it was a concert and brought together. And the key thing is that we're looking at what's going to be the differences. So how, how can they support the initiative and how can this be taken forward. We had agencies concerned with the planning playing a critical role in terms of how to reform planning process. We had both dealing with climate information among others. The other bit is about uncertainty going forward as far as climate change is concerned and you'd appreciate that with the debt challenge then you need to adopt a staggered or a stepwise process where you can start small take your lessons strengthen the institutions based on the need that is realized and then go forward. And therefore that flexibility in programming is required as you respond to these issues. Of course, there is the need to ensure that we also have inbuilt accountability mechanisms for us election of committee members are transparent. There are people who have shown good leadership policy society and therefore very much accountable. And therefore that we effectively support climate risk management. As I've said, we are using climate information, the different products, like seasonal forecast, the updates, a couple of years, but our agency, the agency is also working to provide long term projections to ensure that we inform the interventions well. The other thing is that we are also building on the strength and experiences of community or customer institutions so that we harness on their local knowledge, local practices, and also we do things in a better coordinated manner. And of course in the process we have therefore embedded tools and process that end up with that to happen that we can harness that community knowledge into the process. Of course, as we one of the things that we've noted as we work to integrate or make use of climate information is that there's a group, the ultra poor that are often left out of the process, more so because they don't belong to most of the networks that are being used to create climate information. Some of the challenges as it had been just a smooth running. The one of the challenges that we've actually seen or experience is that dealing with the political politicians or the leaders, which we have to do is challenging that they want quick and visible results so things to do with the hardware hard infrastructure makes sense to them but in certain cases communities are prioritized things to do with the strengthening governance which most people are not sometimes not happy with. So balancing that has been a challenge, but is a journey that we have to work together. Thank you so much. Victor, I'll request you to wrap up now, just so that we don't overrun the schedule. Thank you. Okay, in terms of this is my last slide, going forward. I think I said that we are now moving country, countrywide the 47 counties where this process now being led by our national treasury in support of development partners, as well as our government here. The only thing is that for most of them will get both readiness, money to prepare the ground, put the necessary institutions and mechanisms in place, then invest later. Two counties, the Nairobi and Mombasa, which are largely cities, I think are the only one excluded from the investment grants because there are a lot of other programs going on for investment. And we see this is part of mobilizing resources to our national climate fund and linking it to the county climate change fund going forward. So what Treasury is doing now is to mobilize full funds together at the national level under the national climate fund and then channeling it to the lower level. Thank you. Thank you so much, Victor. That's a brilliant, brilliant overview of another otherwise tenure lessons and programming on county climate change fund. I have a quick follow up question for you, Victor. Now, at the moment, we are experiencing hunger and starvation in some of these counties that you're talking about in this country, in Kenya. And so the question is, how has CCF been helpful and what lessons can we be able to draw to support communities when really the challenges such as lack of food and hunger and starvation become imminent? How can such a fund be able to be useful and move quickly to be able to alleviate such problems in those arid and semi arid counties as well as the coast? We are seeing news everywhere of people really starving from lack of food. Yeah, I think if you look at the counties that have CCF functional and those without, I think we see them doing better in terms of numbers affected, whether it's due to the water for livestock, water for domestic use. So I think, but we're not going to solve every problem in one or two years using the CCF. I think the beauty with it is that once we pull this together, together with the other intervention from other arms of government, then we can really deal with the different challenges and hopefully we can ensure that the numbers that are impacted or affected by these events, because leading to pharma in ETC can reduce significantly and on a more sustainable basis going forward. So we are dealing with it, but it's something that's going to be gradual, not solving one or two years, but over time with sustained investment. Thank you so much. Let me not sound like the politicians who want quick and tangible results. As you've indicated, there are some of your challenges these people want, sometimes they need for something that is visible and quick, but definitely very, very good lessons that you shared with us. Thank you, Victor. So I'm now going to move quickly to a video from Sheila Patel. Let's play that video, please, before we go to our third case study. Thank you. My name is Sheila Patel. I live and work in Mumbai with one of the affiliates of STI called Spark, Mahila Milan and an STF. SLUM or Shackwell as International is an organization set up in 1996 with a view to develop sustained organization of grassroots groups fighting against evictions to find new ways to sort their development problems and to create visibility and citizenship in the places where they live. STI provides three kinds of financing. The first one is to provide assistance and support for sustained federation building, creating conditions for women's savings groups to learn about finance and managing settlements and giving them voice. The second one is to provide grants that provide support both technical and financial to grassroots groups to experiment and explore solutions that they can produce and that they can negotiate with their cities. And the third one is for some of the country groups to work with international organizations for research for practical projects and other things. On behalf of STI, we speak about the Urban Poor Funds International, which is the capital grants that we provide to grassroots groups to do projects. But all aspects of financing that STI does is to pool resources to give communities opportunities to drive their own development. While funds for projects were given from the beginning, the concept of the Urban Poor Funds International became formalized as STI began to get specific grants for projects that it could deliver to communities. It went to build federation capacities, produce learning, peer learning, sharing and exchanges. What is interesting is that right from the beginning, every local community has seen this as seed funding to explore something new. And it's leveraged its own savings. It's leveraged subsidies that were available and announced by their municipality or government, but which they could not get for many reasons. But they also were able to get loans from banks and use some of the past projects as evidence to get more resources. The UPFI Funds show that although they are grants, poor people treat them as seed capital and whatever resources of this they can recycle, they put back into their national Urban Poor Funds and use it for other projects. The principle of this process is that the collective organization, the larger aggregation of STI supports each community and absorbs much of the reputational and organizational and project risks, which are many because poor people are not able to get development because of this huge cloud of risks that everybody sees in local development. I'm just checking whether the recording has stopped on that side as well. Checking with the technical team. That's the end. Okay. Thank you so much. That's an excellent, excellent video. I think Sheila has been here with us. So in case there's any questions, please do feel free to drop it in the chat or in the mentee and we might just be lucky to get Sheila to respond to some of those questions. Brilliant. In the interest of time, let's move to the third case study, which is the Gungano Urban Poor Fund in Zimbabwe. I'd like to welcome George Masimba and Patience Mudimu to share their work. George and Patience, please take over. Hello, everyone. Hello, George. We can hear you. We can see you. We are trying to see whether this is going to, yes, somebody is increasing the font. Excellent. Okay, so I'm going to talk on the Gungano Urban Poor Fund. The Gungano Urban Poor Fund from the Zimbabwe experience. My name is George Masimba. I work with Dialogon Shelter, which is an affiliate of the SDI. The Gungano Urban Poor Fund was set up in 1998 by Urban Poor Collectives, which are known as the Zimbabwe Homeless People's Federation. And these are grassroots collectives that are constituted into about 612 collectives at the moment, with a membership totaling about 15,000 households. The, mainly the Gungano Urban Poor Fund, it was formed as a result of the need to address issues to do with financial exclusion and deepening urban poverty that was affecting mainly urban poor communities living in informal settlements or slums. So essentially, these communities could not afford finance from your formal institutions, and also there was rising urban poverty in our country. So in order to get around these communities under the Zimbabwe Homeless People's Federation, set up their own fund, which they own and manage. The fund addresses a number of issues, which include, for example, enabling the urban poor who are living in slums to access housing, livelihoods, undertake income generating loans, enable themselves to access basic services such as water and sanitation and energy, and other important basic services. So in terms of the key features of the fund or what it aims to do, the fund is, like I said earlier, it's owned and managed by the poor. And also the fund promotes partnerships and collaboration between the urban poor and city governments. And in addition to that, the fund also seeks to establish a financing instrument that is scalable and replicable in terms of providing basic urban services to the urban poor. And also the manner in which the fund is structured or organized enables the, is such that the fund empowers the urban poor in slums by providing them with affordable loans, and also even by providing them with skills and resources to undertake income generating loans. And to date, the fund has managed to enable or to reach out to close to 15,000 households. And in terms of funding, 804,000 US dollars has been mobilized through the Gungano urban poor fund. So how is the decision making devolved in terms of the fund? The Gungano urban poor fund is anchored on the grassroots collectives that are known as savings groups. So on the basis of these saving groups, the urban poor are able to make decisions in terms of what it is they want to prioritize in their community or in their settlement. For example, it could be accessing a communal water point, it could be even construction of a communal sanitation block. So through that mechanisms, the urban poor fund enables decentralized decision making by the urban poor themselves based on what they prioritize based on their needs. Then, in addition, the fund is also decision making processes are devolved in the sense that the fund is anchored on savings groups that are women led. So largely 90% of the membership within the Federation is constituted by women. So these are women who are leading these savings groups. And on the basis of that, women make decisions about what it is that they grapple with in their communities. For example, it could be access to water, sanitation, energy issues, etc., all that. So these women who are leading savings groups in the various parts of the country in formal settlement, that then make decisions that direct with the resources from the funds then go to. The fund is also working towards enabling the urban poor in formal settlements to access a land tenure, even build incremental housing and transitional housing. And make incremental improvements in the settlements in relation to provide provision of drainage systems and sanitation. So in terms of decision making, we can say that the Gungan urban poor fund, not only creates a financial vehicle that enables communities that are in slums to access services, but also creates a very critical space for communities to make decisions in terms of providing or enabling the settlements access services that are previously not there in these communities. So how and why is the Gungan urban poor fund business unusual. In other words, how are the principles of locally led adaptation reflected in the way in which the fund operates. As I said earlier on, the funds decision making arrangements are devolved communities that are in savings groups in settlements in formal settlements are the ones that sit together make decisions in terms of what it is that they are prioritizing. And based on the needs that they identify, they can then make decision in terms of whether they are going to construct a communal sanitation block for example. And in one of the settlements where we are working communities have been able to construct or develop sanitation units in the form of ecological sanitation toilets which are your dry toilets that are functioning in areas where communities do not have access to water but because of such innovations by communities themselves they are able to access sanitation. Then secondly, the Gungan urban poor fund is also focusing on addressing a structure in inequalities. That is to say it focus it is it is been focusing on the marginalized groups, women, young people, and also even focusing on slums. And as you are away slums in many of the instances to not have access to services, because they are either not part of the mainstream city, or they are considered as illegal. So by having a fund that is focusing on these areas that traditionally would not have accessed basic services, the fund is in a way focusing on addressing structural inequalities that affect the urban poor in cities. Then thirdly, the fund also provides a flexible and readily and easily accessible finance. So, unlike our traditional formal financial institutions where it would take very long time for people to be able to access a finance assuming they even qualify to access the fund by the fact that it's located in these local communities in these slum settlements. It makes it easier for communities to quickly access resources. For example, in case of a floods, people can easily access a resources to quickly develop their drainage systems. Whereas if they were to approach formal institutions, this would take a very protracted period while people suffer from the hazards or shocks associated with some of the climate change issues that affect informal settlements. Then fourthly, the fund has also been key in terms of developing enduring structures in communities which are also supported by us as the local NGO that is working with the Federation. So essentially, the fund is providing that capacity in communities in terms of how do they manage finance. And that is very important in the sense that it then prepares the communities in terms of even managing the bigger loans that are associated with the infrastructure improvements that can be done in formal settlements. The Gunganayben poor fund has also been critical in terms of building robust understanding of climate risk and uncertainty in that it has been anchored by processes of collecting data through the enumerations that are done and dispirited by a savings groups that I talked about earlier. So that provides the information about the real issues that are affecting communities in these informal settlements in terms of the nature of the shocks, the floods, the lack of water, and even strong winds that might destroy some of the shocks that you find in these informal settlements. So there's a lot of information or there's a lot of evidence that is built around how the fund operates in such a way that there's very sufficient and solid data that informs the decision making for the fund in terms of where the resources are directed towards then embedded in the way in which the fund operates also. George, please, please wrap up now. You have one minute to wrap up so that we don't overrun the session. Thank you. Okay, so embedded in the way in which the fund also works is issues to do with flexible programming and learning through the savings groups that I talked about earlier. They've got very critical spaces through which they can reflect and learn on how they can continuously improve in that just in terms of the priorities for the fund. Then being located at the local level, the fund also has got some very key transparent accountability mechanisms that are anchored or rooted in the savings group that I talked about earlier. And lastly, in terms of the collaborative action and investment, the Gunganepin fund has been very critical in terms of enabling creating partnerships with city governments, collaborations that have been key in terms of influencing not only maximizing around issues of risk financial resources, but also influencing policies that for a very long time affect communities that are informal settlement. Then in terms of moving forward, lastly, the key issues about how do we increase finance based on the experience that these city funds have shown across the world in terms of the SDI affiliates and also improve in terms of making sure that the policy environment enables the forward to be able to bring in these services that I've talked about. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you so, so much, George. A quick follow up question. If you are to advise global climate funds and donors, what would you wish to change to shift more climate finance via a funding mechanism like yours? Sorry Kamma, can I just get the question? If you are to advise global climate funds and donors, what would you wish to change to shift more climate finance via a mechanism like yours? I think what is very key is for global donors to invest in these structures that have demonstrated capacity in terms of delivering solutions in informal settlements. So this, at least we have done a lot in terms of the experiences from the fund. This is not addressing the magnitude of the challenges that the urban poor are facing in cities. So there is need to augment, provide more resources towards these facilities that have been developed by the urban poor over the years. Thank you. Thank you so much, George. And a quick one again before you go. How is conflict in decision making managed within your, you know, your intervention within your program? Do communities vote by consensus or do they have voting rights? This is a question that was asked for all speakers, but I thought since you're speaking before I let you go, maybe you might answer that for us. How does it work in ZIM? Thank you. In terms of arriving at consensus, the manner in which decisions are made is through the savings group that are at the local level that I talked about earlier. This is where the decision making process happened. This is where the issues, the challenges that I've been talking about are at. So the fact that these are communities that are meeting regular on a routine basis, that element or that mechanisms also helps in terms of generating consensus around priorities. That is, we do want a communal water point, for example, we want a water sanitation facility here in our settlement. So working together enables or builds the needed social cohesion that helps generating much needed consensus around the priorities for the fund. Thank you. Thank you so much, George. That's again a very, very interesting case there. We'll now move to Namibia, where we have a case study on Namibia's Environment Investment Fund. Carl Mutani, is the Chief Operations Officer for EIF. Carl, please take us over through this case. Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you, Assistant. Thank you, colleagues. Let me try and share my screen. This is something I've not done before, so please bear with me, colleagues. Carl, if you're struggling to share your screen, you can share it outside. Are you able to? Yes, please. If you could ask this please, yeah. No problem. Thank you. You should be able to see that now on the screen. Okay. Good. Thank you. Thank you, colleagues. I'm going to share the evolving experiences of the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia for the benefit of those participants who do not know. Namibia is a small country, small, basically only in the size of the population, but a huge geographically big country on the southwestern coast of Namibia. Namibia, I work for the Environmental Investment Fund. Currently, the only accredited entity under GCF. We implement a portfolio of four GCF projects, all of them adaptation projects. I share our evolving experiences with respect to one of the projects called Empower to Adapt. I will need assistance to get back to the first page, please. Okay, yeah. Thank you. Our next page now. Basically, why do we consider this project as business unusual? The project brings the resources directly to the rural communities to address the local level adaptation needs. It focuses on bottom-up community-based natural resources governance, supporting locally-led approaches to identifying practical adaptation solutions, institutionalized capacity-building makes context-specific programming approaches and solutions possible, a locally-led approach in both design and development of projects, and through monitoring and evaluation. The locally-led community monitoring system, also an essential part of the project, provides feedback loop for enhanced and effective climate change planning and adaptation management. The identified project funding windows, and this is where I need to pause for a second, address critical root causes of vulnerable rural populations whose livelihoods depend directly on natural resources. Namibia is an extremely, as you may have read, an extremely arid country with about 60 to 70% of the population rural based. So, these funding windows were basically informed by vulnerability assessment, a national one that was undertaken, that identified key adaptation options for different geographic regions. And the content of these three investment windows, ecosystem-based adaptation, climate resilient agriculture, and climate-proof infrastructure were informed by this vulnerability assessment. And colleagues will probably notice quite a bit of similarity between this and the first presentation that came from South Africa. Climate change impacts, creating income-generating opportunity for women youth also contributes to addressing poverty and associated vulnerabilities, basically responding to the needs that have been identified through the national vulnerability assessment. One-based facilities that enhances accessibility to finance the local access. As I alluded to in my introduction, the funding in this case goes directly to community-based entities, which in this case are legally registered in cassetteed communal area conservancies and community forest management entities. No obligation for paying back. The difference here, why this is business unusual is that traditionally in Namibia, they were always our colleagues from the civil society sector that will be in between providing support to the city house. This project is one of the kind, at least in our perspective, that has broken away from that tradition and has invested directly into the CBOs in this case. The CBOs that received support under this project were basically in three types. In terms of capacity, they were those that were really capable of managing the resources that were provided to them themselves. They were in the middle, the ones that needed just a little bit of limited external support by support entities of their choice, and then they were very minimal, handful of them that were able to basically say, no, guys, we cannot handle this because of our limited capacity, the literacy, remote locations would like to have a civil society partner help us out of our request. So that is really what makes this one very unique. One of the reasons why this project is also very strong in our opinion is that it's not something that EIF or this GCF resources have started. This project basically capitalized on existing institutional foundations that was laid by Namibia's national CPNRM program. This program has been operating since 1990s, more than 20 years by the time this project was approved, 48 communal area conservancies registered, over 40 communal forest research registered, which has received a lot of support and institutional development over this period. So this project basically shipped in and provided support where the investments and progress that were made under the national CPNRM program were being threatened by climate change. And that is why the local level monitoring element of this project basically also brought in monitoring the impact of climate change on already ongoing monitoring efforts that focused on tourism and biodiversity. Next slide please. How does this project align to the principles of local lead adaptation? The design of the project is the first one that it is executed by the CBOs, not only executed by plant conceptualized and implemented by the CBOs, they are at the center of the implementation. This decision making contributes to ownership, increased ownership actually, at that social scalability and reliability of the project and CPNRM governance is enhanced. The delivery mechanism provides funding directly to CBOs, as I have alluded to earlier, without the need of reliance on intermediaries. Secondly, the grant-based finance is available to poor climate vulnerable communities, including the poorest populations, the marginalized groups, providing income generating opportunities and improved life needs. The facility investment windows address the needs and those needs, as I said earlier, informed by very rigorous vulnerability and assessment exercise that was undertaken by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and key stakeholders. The project provides grant-based finance, again requiring no collateral, making it accessible to the vulnerable groups, including women and youth, capacity building, and I will come back to capacity building how it became a challenge in the end. The capacity building is provided to CBOs to ensure that CBOs are equipped with the necessary skills to basically conceptualize and develop projects. The capacity building is also very important that the project emphasizes climate awareness, gender training, training on proposal, development and access to grant funding, and development of implementation of climate investment plans, and also playing an active role in monitoring and evaluation as well as meeting the reporting requirements that came with the funding. Next slide, please. In addition to providing grant. Thank you, Carl. Carl, could I kindly request to wrap up? Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Basically, maybe I'll just jump to the slide that deals with challenges. I really joined the South African colleague with the challenges that she listed, but we have our own unique challenges. The first one was the underestimation of not on our part, but on the part of the colleagues from the GCF of the need of capacity building. It was considered as non-climate change, and as a result, not adequately capitalized. That was the biggest challenge and also the expectations and dealing with the political stakeholders as the colleague from Zimbabwe has also outlined. But from that, there were also a host of opportunities in this respect. We built on an existing foundation, institutional foundation of the National CBNRM program. And then also we found ready-made institutional capacity on the ground, which we have added through this project. So basically taking the resources directly to where the needs are experienced on the ground. Thank you. Thank you so, so much, Carl. You have preempted my question in terms of some of the challenges. And so I'll not go into a follow-up question because you definitely preempted that. What I'd like to do is to just, I know we are running out of time. We are right on the hour. And so quickly, they asked the three panelists quickly to give us one last comment in half a minute, or even if possible, a quarter of a minute, 15 seconds, in terms of what you would like us to take as a key takeaway message today. So with the panelists starting from South Africa, Tami, and then Kenya, and Namibia, and please, let's just get your key, unmute yourself, put yourself on the video, and just like the way you presented, give us your last key takeaway shot, the parting shot. Thank you. Good morning, Susan. I'll be brief. I think that my departing comments that I haven't yet said is that I think we're keen to work with donors and international aid institutions to sort out the best way to ensure funding gets to the most vulnerable people and has the greatest impact. I think key in that discussion is really looking at risk because we need to ensure that the communities don't bear the brunt of the administrative and sometimes onerous requirements to receive grants. And so we need to work out systems and ways of working together to ensure that the money does get to where it needs to go and has the greatest impact. And then finally, we just to underscore I think the primary message here which is, we desperately need additional accelerated increased funding for adaptation. We are not at a point as we understand particularly after the last IPCC report, mitigation options will not alone be able to address the challenges that are going to be faced, particularly in Africa. And so I'll just end with that call to action. Thank you. Next time we quickly over to you, George. And I'm looking whether Victor is going to unmute himself and put himself on video. So George quickly in half in 15 seconds. Thank you, Susan. Any parting short, I think the urban poor funds that are SDI have shown that the urban poor in informal settlements over the years have developed very effective funds with robust systems that can be scaled up only if more resources are put into these funds. Thank you. Thank you, George Victor. Thank you. Just to echo some of the comments that you would need a patient predictable and of course of higher, you know, higher scale of funding to ensure that we can deal with some of these challenges that demands are huge. And we are going to solve them overnight. So we need that predictability that consistency. And at such a scale that we can deal with these challenges on a more sustainable basis. Thank you Victor and call your parting short. My parting short would be basically I would echo the, the sentiments from South Africa about the transaction cost at the local level, the, in our case the GCF limit on 5%, 8% is really not very helpful so creative thinking is required for locally finding co financing opportunities to support this gap. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Carl. And everyone, I want to thank everyone, our participants, our speakers, our keynote address, the organizers of this session. I mean, extremely good questions, extremely rich discussion and crucial on locally led adaptation and how we can make sure that local communities and partners on the frontline of climate impacts have access to finance decision making power to invest in their own adaptation priorities and build their own resilience. Unfortunately, our time is up for today, but the conversation certainly continues. We hope you can join our next dialogue where we will have the opportunity to further drill down into what's needed and what can we can do together to scale up finance and support locally led adaptation, as well as address some of the amazing questions that we received today, and we were not able to answer for lots in the Mentimeter in the chat. We do recognize them, we'll take them and we'll factor them into the next dialogue. We have a quick zoom poll which will invite you to complete. We do hope that you are interested to continue on this journey with us. Thank you to our speakers once more, our panelists, and to all of you, our participants for really an engaging session. We hope to see you again on October 12 for the second regional dialogue on scaling up locally led adaptation in Africa. Until then, Godspeed. See you soon. Thank you so much everyone. Bye bye.