IFRC Highlights Urgency of Locally-Led Climate Adaptation

“Everyone everywhere will have to adapt to climate change”, this is the central finding of a recent International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) brief co-authored with the Climate Centre.

The paper underscores the critical importance of locally led climate adaptation (LLA) in reducing the vulnerabilities of communities on the frontline of climate impacts. These vulnerabilities are often intensified by poverty, social exclusion, and humanitarian crises.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC) brief, “Scaling up locally led adaptation: A humanitarian perspective and lessons learned“, launched at a COP30 side event, calls for climate adaptation to be designed and driven by local communities. The IFRC stresses that climate funding must not only reach local communities but also be managed by them. Yet UNEP’s Adaptation Gap Report 2023 shows that less than 17% of climate finance currently reaches the local level.

While the most recent round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted in 2025 demonstrates growing recognition of LLA, with around 20% directly referencing it, funding remains limited. An analysis of climate finance between 2016 and 2023 found that less than 0.5% of reported climate funding was explicitly allocated to locally-led climate adaptation actions.

IFRC’s Climate Action Journey: Supporting Local Leadership

In response to these gaps, the IFRC launched the “Climate Action Journey” (CAJ) initiative in 2023 to help Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies systematically build climate capacity. The IFRC applies LLA through a humanitarian lens by integrating climate risks into programmes and operations, and by facilitating locally led processes within communities.

The brief outlines early lessons from the CAJ and provides recommendations to scale up LLA to strengthen resilience in climate-vulnerable regions.

To date, the CAJ has:

• been rolled out in 45 countries
• hosted 35 climate working groups
• guided 25 climate strategies
• conducted 25 community vulnerability and capacity assessments through an LLA lens
• produced 25 local adaptation and resilience plans
• reached 25,000 people
• facilitated 30 new government partnerships on climate

The initiative is grounded in the eight principles of LLA, first adopted by the Global Commission on Adaptation in 2021 and endorsed by the IFRC. These principles emphasise inclusive and equitable adaptation, direct access to finance, strengthened local governance, flexible management, transparency, and cross-sector collaboration.

Scaling up LLA for faster, fairer adaptation

The IFRC argues that only through genuine local leadership will adaptation deliver benefits at the speed and scale required to protect communities facing “make-or-break” climate scenarios. Without LLA, adaptation risks remaining detached from the realities of those most at risk.

A new version of the IFRC network’s combined LLA and CAJ approach is currently under development. This updated approach aims to simplify tools and language, strengthen community agency, streamline national processes, and enhance local leadership skills, including financial management.

“The IFRC network is seeking to apply locally led approaches as a default,” the brief concludes. “This includes investing more at local level with a 75 per cent target, shifting more decision-making to local level, and supporting community priorities across timespans to account for both current and future risks” (Everyone everywhere, 2025).