The collective action agenda for water: Locally-led adaptation and multilevel governance

This blog was written by Jarita Kassen, Communications Officer at ICLEI Africa.

Global climate and environment conventions are highly state-centric, but the impacts of a changed climate are felt locally, with city and regional governments being the frontline responders to climate-related disasters such as droughts and floods. 

At the Water for Climate Pavilion at COP29 on 19 November,  the importance of locally-led initiatives and multilevel governance approaches in implementing effective water management was in the spotlight.

In the keynote presentation, Karlene Maywald, South Australian Water Ambassador, highlighted the need to focus on the people. “Switching the focus from infrastructure to people is the solution,” she said. “People are at the heart of locally-led adaptation, meaning we must include communities from the beginning, right through to implementation. Communities have intimate knowledge of water resources and challenges.” 

Ms. Maywald also shared opportunities for improving multilevel governance in water services:

• Establish platforms for dialogue across levels of governance (e.g. national-local coordination).
• Leverage climate finance to support locally-led adaptation projects.
• Build collaborative networks between government, the private sector and civil society to share knowledge and resources.
• Promote policy coherence to align local needs with national and regional policies.

In the political panel, leaders shared their experiences of multilevel governance systems to address water resilience. Insights included:

• The need to build capacity in communities to empower them to take a leading role in project development and implementation 
• Catchment management requires working across local jurisdictions. There is a lot of planning and strategy but on-the-ground delivery is a challenge. If we work together across all levels of government delivery will be more effective. 
• After disaster strikes, often new systems are born in a panic. Our challenge is to harness these systems and transform them into intentional, impactful solutions. 
• Keep it simple: Pick a project and bring everyone to the table. 

In the technical panel, experts shared insights around financing adaptation at the local level:

• Trust is key to bringing communities to the table. With locally-led adaptation projects, we need to think of the communities in the full ecosystem of the project. They need decision-making power throughout the project from concept to implementation. 
• Beyond funding, the private sector can be part of the collaborative action because they share the risk. 
• There is a need to enhance accountability to ensure funding reaches the local level. Blended finance is a good option.
• We need to consider the perceived risk with directing funding to the local level. 

This session showed that there is a need to advocate for real, actionable support for local adaptation efforts. We can’t let these conversations end here—today must be the start of renewed efforts to strengthen local-global linkages in our climate strategies. 

Local governments play a critical role in responding to the needs of the community they serve, and locally-led adaptation efforts need long-term political leadership and financial commitment to adapt to the changed climate.

Watch the full session here.