The Local Adaptation Champions highlight and reward innovative, inspiring and scalable locally-led efforts to tackle climate change and build resilience among vulnerable communities.

The 2023 Award categories are:

• Training: This category includes innovations and initiatives that support a continuous and iterative learning process for local communities, governments and organisations. These innovations and initiatives should be based on the established needs of participants and enable inclusive local decision-making that is sustained beyond project cycles, for example by leaving an institutional legacy; facilitating skills for soft technical and institutional attributes (such as collaborative leadership, trust and network governance); and/or enabling local actors to autonomously increase their capacities and share skills over time.Examples are the institutionalisation of adaptive capacity in local organisations; support for peer-to-peer learning; and support for local experts and champions.
• Business Adaptation Solutions: This category is for small and large companies that have supported the leadership of local communities and governments in adaptation efforts; helped address the structural inequalities faced by women, youth, children, the disabled, displaced people, indigenous peoples and marginalised ethnic groups that make them more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change; and/or developed and made easily available adaptation solutions or technologies that address local climate-related vulnerabilities.
• Women in Leadership: This category is for local, national or global women leaders who design, advocate and/or lead climate adaptation and resilience efforts in and for local communities. Nominations are invited from, or on behalf of, women leaders at local, national or global level who have led in the design or implementation of proven climate-building efforts
• resilience - particularly of the most vulnerable - within communities.
• Innovation in Revolving Finance: This category is for organisations, projects, initiatives or programmes that use innovative models that provide flexible, long-term, patient and/or predictable funding for adaptation at the local level. Funding must be made available in a way that enables and supports local determination of climate challenges, priorities and solutions.

Eligibility

• Open to any individual, organisation or group of partners around the world who have implemented or are in the process of implementing climate change adaptation/resilience interventions.
• The intervention addresses the impacts of climate change or intentionally builds resilience against the impacts of climate change over time.
• The solution is aimed at the most vulnerable communities, sectors of society and individuals suffering from climate impacts.
• The solutions are locally led and demonstrate how to implement at least one of the eight Locally Led Adaptation Principles in practice.
• The intervention has been or is being implemented and the results are demonstrable.
• The entry falls into one of four categories.

Benefits

• 20 nominees will benefit from the publicity surrounding their nomination for the award.
• Four winners will receive a cash prize of 15,000 euros and will be invited to an awards ceremony at COP000 in Dubai, which will take place from 28 November to 30 December 12.

Winners will be required to provide a spending proposal for how they intend to use the prize money and report on their progress up to one year after the prize has been disbursed. DAI Global will support the monitoring of the activities listed in the spending proposal through video calls, digital surveys and requests for photo and video materials.

Selection process

Applications will be ranked according to a points-based system based on five main criteria:

• Effectiveness and impact on the community.
• Scalability and replication achieved (or potential for).
• Deconcentration of decision-making, particularly by the most vulnerable.
• Gender and social inclusion.
• Expected use of the prize money.

The first 20 shortlisted candidates (5 from each category) will be nominated for the Awards and asked to provide additional information to support their application. Subsequently, a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) will analyse the shortlisted candidates in their respective categories. TAG will select two candidates per category, and a High Level Jury will make the final selection of the winners.

Application

The application form contains a series of questions and spaces for uploading files. Make sure you answer all the questions and provide them:

• A written description of the project/initiative or solution in story format.
• A short video: an interview with the participants, a presentation of the intervention and footage of the intervention.
• Photos, infographics or other visual material to support your story.

Deadline: 31 August 2023

Click HERE to sign up