Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) is not merely a participatory ideal, but a driver of evidence and impacts that top-down climate research and implementation often fail to achieve, according to evidence shared in this Thematic Summary by the CLARE programme. 

The summary, Moving to impact: benefits of locally led adaptation, puts forth CLARE research evidence that demonstrates incorporating the knowledge and agency of the full range of beneficiaries of climate action produces better outcomes and triggers action that results in real-world resilience.  

CLARE projects have documented clear outcomes where research grounded in the knowledge and the needs of beneficiaries at different scales has improved early action, informed water governance, reached groups often missed by standard systems, and influenced public policy.  

These outcomes have all resulted in more sustainable, systemic resilience for the cities, regions or countries where the projects were situated. 

Evidence supporting locally led adaptation 

Evidence presented in this brief demonstrates that locally led approaches improve adaptation implementation not only because they are more participatory, but because they produce better and more actionable evidence. 

Taken together, these CLARE insights show that LLA strengthens resilience by making evidence more credible, decisions more grounded, and action more likely to be used, trusted and sustained. 

• Local knowledge improves the usefulness of risk information: Adaptation works better when local experience is treated as credible evidence and local actors frame the partnership. 

• Community priorities shape effective urban adaptation choices: Effective urban resilience draws on lived experience as a valid form of evidence and involves dialogue between the state and its most vulnerable citizens. 

• Investing in local capabilities improves groundwater governance: When local actors can generate part of the evidence base themselves, they are more likely to understand, use and engage in decisions. 

• Inclusive early warning systems reach those often missed: Inclusion matters not only for fairness, but because early warning systems work best when they are designed around the people most likely to need and use them. 

• Documenting lived experiences of migration as an adaptive strategy: Instead of assuming that mobility is a problem to be prevented, policymakers can use locally grounded evidence to design realistic and equitable adaptation pathways.