Strengthening Capabilities: Insights from LIFE-AR countries

The Strengthening Capabilities principle focuses on:

• Developing LDC climate expertise by investing in climate training, teaching and research;
• Integrating technical and indigenous climate knowledge into climate planning and decision-making;
• Sharing LDCs’ climate experience and knowledge on the world stage to inform the international community’s efforts to build climate resilience
• Learning and exchanging knowledge.

At the global level, the LDC Vision of strengthened capabilities focuses on learning from, collaborating with and guiding fellow LDCs, and LDCs sharing their experience on the global stage, to become centres of excellence and support the international community’s climate-resilience building efforts.

In practice, this means participating countries engaging in LIFE-AR governance, deploying LDC experts to advise and share knowledge and learning between countries and hold one another accountable.

At the national level, the capabilities principle includes:

• strengthening national capabilities by using national and local staff within governments, CSOs and academia in order to internalize learning, strengthen understanding and retain the knowledge generated within the country;
• identifying national capacity gaps and needs, and
• working with national academic institutions under the umbrella of LUCCC to provide training and develop curricula to strengthen national climate knowledge and understanding.

Other examples at the national level include integrating technical and indigenous knowledge into LIFE-AR planning and decision-making, using a ‘Training of trainers’ approach to strengthen existing sub-national structures and developing strong MEL systems to inform adaptive management across the initiative.

At the local level, it is about engaging local communities to participate in LIFE-AR decision making and identify their local climate risks and adaptation and resilience needs, strengthening their capabilities to prioritize and participate in managing the implementation, monitoring, evaluation and learning from the investments.

LIFE-AR’s three-level approach is contributing to strengthening the structures, systems and people to ensure sustainability and enable future scaling.

Across all three levels, LIFE-AR puts a strong emphasis on experiential learning, or “learning from doing”. This process contributes to strengthening capabilities and is enabled by both the MEL system and dedicated learning events and structures, such as peer-peer learning events and communities of practice. During the Establishment Phase, Uganda ensured intentional experiential and peer-to-peer learning across Working Groups (WGs), Steering Committee and Task Team on locally led adaptation (LLA) and MEL by scheduling regular reflection sessions and actively integrating lessons learned into future planning. This deliberate approach to learning strengthened capabilities, facilitated information sharing and enriched the MEL deliverables.

In that context, countries participating in LIFE-AR decided that Communities of Practice (CoPs) would be valuable to strengthen national and local capabilities and capacities, and support other commitments under the Capabilities Offer. Countries addressed their learning needs through in-person peer learning and exchange events, with other forms of peer learning also flourishing, including MEL and GESI working groups, bilateral peer-to-peer country visits, in-country participatory learning processes and annual peer-to-peer global learning events.

LIFE-AR encourages LDCs to take a “Business Unusual” approach by devoting time to review and develop the systems and strengthen the capabilities needed to design and implement the delivery mechanism, before investments are made.

The initial six pilot countries took two to three years to design the delivery mechanism, adjusting the timeline and planning activities to accommodate their individual national contexts and capacity strengthening needs.

In Ethiopia, as part of efforts to strengthen capabilities, the Ethiopia LIFE-AR team conducted a series of continuous consultation workshops at both woreda and kebele levels involving the national taskforce, woreda officials, woreda technical task force and grassroots community representatives. These workshops aimed to synthesize investment priorities, refine the LIFE-AR delivery mechanism and develop the 10-year Climate-Smart Development Plan.

By taking a BU approach, countries have strengthened capabilities at both national and local level. LIFE-AR’s Establishment Phase was led by national government ministries in country, and implementation of the activities was carried out by national and local staff of governments, CSOs and academia, thereby allowing the strengthening of national capabilities. For example, in Burkina Faso, the Technical Working Group established to implement LIFE-AR at the national level is comprised of technical staff from ministries who carried out the required studies and reports of the Establishment Phase. This strengthened the national team’s capabilities and enabled their direct engagement with the source materials.

This ensured that the learning and knowledge generated remains with the existing national staff from participating national and local governments, NGOs and communities and that local, context-specific knowledge is integrated into the initiative.

Similarly, LIFE-AR’s MEL system takes a BU approach to develop MEL frameworks and indicators which contribute to national reporting and reporting on global frameworks, thereby strengthening national climate reporting capabilities.

Taking a BU approach to strengthen national capacities for the long-term ensures that the initiative will leave behind a legacy of stronger national and local institutions capable of managing future climate challenges independently.

LIFE-AR has helped to show LDC leadership on vision setting in the international space. The initiative supports countries to share their evidence and learning from others in key international events such as the UNFCCC COPs and to convene during relevant international fora focusing on LLA, such as D&C Days or the CBA conferences.

LIFE-AR facilitates the exchange of good practice, advice and experience of what works and what doesn’t by organizing platform level peer learning events and sharing knowledge and learning via the LIFE-AR Board. Bi-lateral learning is also facilitated: national and local level stakeholders in LIFE-AR Uganda undertook a Learning Visit to Kenya in May 2023 to learn from Kenya’s Decentralized Climate Finance Mechanism, which led to the revision of the design of the institutions implementing the DCF in Uganda. In turn, countries such as Bhutan and Malawi have learned from Uganda’s experience by participating in similar exchanges, strengthening capabilities and enabled sharing of lessons across LDCs.

In the Establishment Phase, countries undertook capacity needs assessments to identify specific areas of need, such as climate-smart development planning and financial management support to communities, cooperatives and SMEs in Ethiopia.

In Malawi, a series of trainings were carried out including:

• district and sub-district awareness trainings on LIFE-AR and the delivery mechanism,
• training village development committees in climate change and the participatory climate vulnerability and resilience assessment (CRVA) process,
• training to establish or strengthen the MEL system at the district and village levels, and
• training on financial and procurement processes.

Each country developed tailored training to meet their specific gaps, needs and audience of their country context. For example, in Ethiopia, the team developed a capacity strengthening training manual and implementation plan. Training and validation workshops with the National LIFE-AR taskforce, woreda officials, woreda technical task force and grassroots community representatives were conducted in the capital and the pilot area. This capacity strengthening enabled local stakeholders to take ownership of the design and selection of preferred investment components.

Working with existing staff has constraints as well as benefits. For example, the rotation of district government staff, or government restructuring at national level, leads to significant pauses in work on LIFE-AR. Short-term, single-year funding commitments from development partners further exacerbates this issue risking high turnover and loss of institutional memory. To address this, alternate LIFE-AR national, MEL and GESI focal points have been added to ensure a smoother transition.

LIFE-AR’s Community of Practice approach is designed to ensure the capturing of institutional memory from the initiative and enable those who have moved to different roles to continue to contribute their institutional memory and learning to the discussions. Another mechanism has been Uganda’s effective “LIFE-AR Training of Trainers” programme, which was designed to strengthen capacity across levels on understanding of climate change, community participation, planning and LIFE-AR.