Locally led adaptation (LLA) has recently gained importance against top-down planning practices that often exclude the lived realities and priorities of local communities and create injustices at the local level. The promise of LLA is that adaptation would be defined, prioritised, designed, monitored, and evaluated by local communities themselves, enabling a shift in power to local stakeholders, resulting in more effective adaptation interventions. Critical reflections on the intersections of power and justice in LLA are, however, lacking. This article offers a nuanced understanding of the power and justice considerations required to make LLA useful for local communities and institutions, and to resolve the tensions between LLA and other development priorities. It also contributes to a further refinement of LLA methodologies and practices to better realise its promises. Ultimately, we argue that the utility of the LLA framing in promoting climate justice and empowering local actors needs to be tested empirically.

The majority of developing countries have indicated capacity building as a condition for implementing their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. This is in the context of shortfalls in past initiatives on capacity building under different bilateral and multilateral agencies including bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which can be largely attributed to their short-term, ad-hoc, supply-driven, and project-based nature. Article 11 of the Paris Agreement points to a potentially new paradigm for capacity building. Based on a review of literature on past experience, as well as analysis of countries’ capacity building perspectives in the NDCs, this paper attempts to draw lessons for better capacity building for NDC implementation. The paper aims at answering the questions: What are the capacity building needs expressed in the NDCs? Where are the matches and mismatches with past efforts, and what kind of capacity building can address the current needs? We propose a capacity building framework that addresses climate change as a long term problem. We suggest that universities in developing countries should serve as central hubs for a sustainable, institution-based capacity building system, supported by strengthened partnerships and long term financing. Finally, we suggest that, for the next round of NDCs, developing countries should be more explicit and specific in their demands and approaches to capacity building. Key policy insights

Ecosystems provide climate-change adaptation opportunities including ecosystem services, adaptation benefits and livelihood improvement especially for natural resource dependent communities. To con...

Climate change impacts threaten sustainable development efforts. The magnitude of the impacts, however, varies with the socio-ecological characteristics of locations. This is the reason there is consensus on the necessity for climate change adaptive capacity building that is country driven, and based on, and responsive to, local needs. However, information on context specific capacity building needs in developing countries is not readily available. The objective of this study was to establish location specific awareness, training, educational research and technology capacity building needs for climate change adaptation among smallholder farmers in Uganda. Semi-structured questionnaires were used with 465 households from five agro-ecological zones, selected based on the level of vulnerability of agricultural systems to the main climate variation and change hazards. Results reveal substantial capacity building needs in all the zones. The majority of the farmers needed capacity building for interventions on soil-water conservation practices for adapting to drought and unpredictable rainfall. For all zones, education, research, and technology were perceived as key needs. However, the needs varied among zones. These results demonstrate the importance of context specificity in adaptation efforts. The study provides agro-ecological and social system specific information for climate change adaptation planning and policy interventions for effective capacity building.