In our last newsletter of 2016: slum dwellers and indigenous peoples' rights, local adaptation to climate change, and indigenous knowledge increasing crop yields.

December 2016

Ward diaries: crucial evidence for planning in Mumbai's slums

'Ward diaries' collected by members of Slum/Shack Dwellers International, show how slum residents and their organisations are best placed to produce data on their daily needs for water, housing, toilets or waste collection.

Jockin Arputham, president of Slum/Shack Dwellers International and founder of the National Slum Dwellers Federation in India, explains how this data is helping to provide vital services where they are needed most.

News and blogs

IIED at the biodiversity COP in Cancun

The highest governing body for the Convention on Biological Diversity is holding its annual meeting (COP13) in Cancun, Mexico, in December.

IIED has organised events with partners highlighting work on mainstreaming biodiversity, forest conservation and rural livelihood initiatives, and equity in conservation.

Using community by‑laws to protect indigenous and rural land rights

Indigenous peoples and rural communities who rely on customary tenure systems to access their lands face numerous threats, from climate change to large-scale agricultural investments.

A recent IIED webinar examined how community by-laws can help secure customary land rights to build community unity, improve local land governance, and strengthen claims to traditional lands.

Spotlight on... Funding local adaptation in Kenya: nationally vs. locally managed funds

International funding is available through mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to enable those countries most affected by climate change to access finance for low carbon climate resilient development. However, the criteria for accessing these funds are strict and projects must demonstrate clear potential for creating real impact on the ground.

In this guest blog, John Nyangena, a policy analyst at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, discusses the pros and cons of both nationally and locally managed climate funds, and how four Kenyan county governments are implementing them.

Indigenous people use own knowledge to boost food yields despite climate change, research finds

Latest findings from research by IIED and partners show how indigenous people are using traditional knowledge to counter growing threats to food security in the face of climate change.

Evidence from the Smallholder for resilience (SIFOR) project, presented at a side event at the UN climate conference (COP22), shows how new innovations based on traditional knowledge and crops of indigenous communities in Peru, China, India and Kenya, are not only helping to maintain yields but actually increasing production.

New publications this month

Social learning approaches have the potential to help solve complex problems such as climate change and food insecurity.

'Solving ‘wicked’ problems: can social learning catalyse adaptive responses to climate change?' incorporates evidence from five initiatives employing social learning approaches in response to such problems using the Climate Change & Social Learning initiative’s monitoring and evaluation framework.

First published in October 2015 in English, 'Coffee and carbon offsets for smallholders: can carbon financing promote cleaner coffee in Nicaragua?' looks at the ongoing PASCAFEN-CamBio2 project to understand the potential of carbon-offset funding for smallholder agriculture in coffee-producing landscapes.

The project is based on the principle that small-scale farmers deliver important services to the environment that can have major significance for national climate change strategies. The project report is now available in Spanish.

The urban setting poses unique challenges for humanitarian disaster response, however policy and practice of how to bridge local and international actors lacks a systematic approach.

'Local and international collaboration in urban humanitarian responses: Perspectives from the Philippines, Colombia and South Sudan' looks at urban-specific challenges to local and international collaboration. Recommendations to improve partnerships are made, which have emerged from case studies involving interviews with local stakeholders carried out in three distinct urban disaster contexts.

Briefings

Urban humanitarian response: why local and international collaboration matters

Realising the SDGs by reflecting on the way(s) we reason, plan and act: the importance of evaluative thinking

Addressing the specific challenges of transit migration for local organisations

Beyond trade deals: charting a post-Brexit course for UK investment treaties

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