LOCAL CLIMATE ADAPTIVE LIVING FACILITY (LOCAL)
The Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) serves as a mechanism to integrate climate change adaption into local governments’ planning and budgeting systems, increase awareness of and response to climate change at the local level, and increase the amount of finance available to local governments for climate change adaption.
Local authorities of least developed countries (LDCs) are uniquely positioned to identify the climate change adaptation responses that best meet local needs. Further, they typically have the mandate to undertake the small- to medium-sized adaptation investments needed to build climate resilience. Yet they frequently lack the resources to do so especially to do so in a way aligned with established decision-making processes and public planning and budgeting cycles.
How We Are Helping?
LoCAL combines performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs), which ensure programming and verification of climate change expenditures at the local level, with technical and capacity-building support. It is designed to re-enforce existing national and sub-national financial and fiscal delivery systems, and it uses the demonstration effect to trigger further flows for local adaptation — including national fiscal transfers and global climate finance for local authorities — through their central governments.
LoCAL aims to promote climate change–resilient communities and economies by increasing financing for and investment in climate change adaptation at the local level in LDCs. LoCAL operates through three phases.
Phase I – Piloting consists of initial scoping, followed by testing in two to four local governments. Phase I countries include Ghana, Lao PDR, Mali, Mozambique,Nepal, Niger, Tanzania and Tuvalu.
Phase II – Learning takes place in 5–10 local governments in a country. It involves collecting lessons and demonstrating the mechanism’s effectiveness at a larger scale. Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan and Cambodia are in Phase II.
Phase III – Scaling-Up is full national roll-out of LoCAL based on previous phases’ results and lessons. LoCAL gradually is extended to all local governments, with domestic or international climate finance, and becomes the national system for channelling adaptation finance to the local level. Benin, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal are preparing for Phase III.
What We Will Do Next?
The original LoCAL countries are preparing for a full national roll-out. In Bhutan, LoCAL will be rolled out to 100 local governments as part of a national scale-up. In Cambodia, LoCAL is now working with 61 communes within 8 districts. In Benin, LoCAL is being expanded to six communes in the northern region of the country.
LoCAL appeals to many LDCs as it offers a proven and scalable mechanism to channel climate finance effectively and transparently to the people most in need. A dozen of local governments from three countries in Africa (Lesotho and Uganda) and the Pacific (Vanuatu) are interested and preparing to make use of the mechanism, thereby enabling another 1.2 million poor people to benefit from this new type of access to climate finance and the adaptation investments.
