The Global Center on Adaptation Local Adaptation Champions Awards spotlight and reward innovative, exemplary, inspiring, and scalable locally led efforts that address the impacts of climate change and build effective climate resilience among the most vulnerable communities, sections of society, and individuals who are at the frontlines of the greatest existential threat faced by humankind.
The awards program is designed to showcase diverse adaptation practices that address various climate-related challenges, such as extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and shifting agricultural patterns. By celebrating these local champions, the GCA aims to promote a bottom-up approach to climate adaptation, emphasizing the importance of locally-driven solutions that are often more context-specific and sustainable. These initiatives often include community-led projects, traditional knowledge integration, innovative agricultural practices, and disaster risk reduction strategies.
Winners of the Local Adaptation Champions Awards receive not only recognition but also financial support and opportunities for capacity building. This enables them to scale up their efforts and share their methodologies with other communities facing similar challenges. The awards also provide a platform for networking and knowledge exchange, allowing recipients to connect with policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders in the global adaptation community.
The Local Adaptation Champions Awards are part of the GCA’s broader mission to accelerate adaptation action and support vulnerable communities worldwide. By highlighting successful local adaptation initiatives, the GCA seeks to inspire greater investment in community-based adaptation and encourage the replication of effective strategies in different contexts. The awards also aim to raise awareness about the critical role that local actors play in the global climate adaptation landscape.
The 2024 Award Categories:
Water Security: This category recognizes local, community-based initiatives that address water-related challenges and enhance local adaptation capacity through efficient water drainage, channeling, use, or conservation. The solutions must be locally designed, accessible and tailored to the needs of the most vulnerable groups in the community, ensuring equitable management of water resources for all.
Food Security: This category recognizes local, community-led initiatives that support the design, mainstreaming, and adoption of climate-smart food production systems that are designed by and for smallholder producers and vulnerable communities along the supply chain. Initiatives in this category should demonstrate how they contribute to ensuring continuous, equitable and sustainable access to diverse, nutritious foods for poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged groups.
Urban Adaptation Solutions: This category recognizes locally led initiatives for adaptation to climate change in urban areas. Successful initiatives engage and benefit vulnerable urban neighborhoods, community leaders and city governments through collaborative design, integration into city adaptation plans, and a long-term vision to continuously increase adaptive capacity over time.
Local Entrepreneurship: This category recognizes local, community-based businesses that:
Benefits
- 20 nominees will benefit from publicity around their nomination for the Awards.
- Four winners will receive a cash prize of €15,000 and be invited to an Award Ceremony at COP28 in Dubai, which will take place from 11 to 22 November 2024.
- Winners will be required to provide a spending proposal of how they intend to use the cash prize and to report on their progress up to one year after the disbursement of the prize. DAI Global will support the monitoring of the activities listed in the spending proposal, through video calls, digital surveys, and requests for photos and video materials.
Requirements For The Global Center on Adaptation Local Adaptation Champions Awards
Only applications that meet all five of the following criteria will be considered for the 2024 competition:
- The intervention is being implemented and results are demonstrable.
- The intervention addresses adaptation to climate change impact or builds resilience against climate impacts.
- The intervention aims at the most vulnerable communities, sections of society, and individuals experiencing climate impacts.
- The intervention is locally led, adhering to one or more Principles of Locally Led Adaptation.
Selection Process
Selection Process
Applications will be ranked according to a points-based system based on five main criteria:
- Effectiveness and community impact.
- Scalability and achieved (or potential for) replication.
- Devolution of decision-making, particularly by the most vulnerable.
- Gender and social inclusion.
- Expected use of Award money.
The first top 20 shortlisted applicants (5 from each category) will be nominated for the Awards and requested to provide additional information to support their entry.
Thereafter, a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) will review the shortlisted candidates in their respective categories. The TAG will select two candidates per category, and a High-level Jury will make the final selection of winners.
Method of Application
Visit The Official Website to Apply
Application Deadline: August 11, 2024.
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