Their body, their challenges and their prescription

[Rituu B. Nanda]

More than 130 organizations and governments have endorsed the Principles for Locally Led Adaptation (LLA). Across recent global convenings, funders, policymakers, and practitioners have highlighted the need for stronger evidence on the effectiveness of LLA approaches to help drive investment. Others argue that this evidence exists but is not reaching decision-makers. In response, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) organized  a symposium of researcher and practitioner organizations in June 2026  at Bangkok. I am sharing highlights from one of the group discussions during the symposium.

Blog co-written with Hari Krishna, Helpage International

Stop prescribing solutions! Dr Jannatul from Bangladesh made an important point that outsiders need to stop prescribing solutions for the communities as there is a mismatch between their needs and the external solutions. She said that prescriptions written by someone who doesn't know the body will not cure it. “Their body, their challenges and their prescription”, she said.  That's the whole problem. Outsiders are prescribing for others.

Start with what's already there Vaibhav underlined that the outsiders of being with a list of what communities lack rather than their resources. Similarly Albert from the Philippines commented that communities have been organising, caring for each other, managing calamities, for longer than most of the organisations now offering to help them have existed. I too have seen through facilitation of the SALT approach that communities have several strengths and if we start from those much more is possible. For instance while working in in Khulna district, when NGO DHARA facilitated strength based listening SALT conversations with the village, the community members realized that to achieve their dream they could preserve seeds which were saline resistant and they could start Trellis farming. They also realized that there were two people in the village who were doing that but they had not been learning from them. Now 4 people preserve saline resistant seeds and 55 families have started Trellis farming.

Community-led versus communities made to lead We also discussed the nuance between community led and outsiders strategy to demonstrate and train communities There's a difference between community-led and communities made to lead as Hari Krishna articulated. Further, he said that Dr Sadat mentioned "place communities at the heart of the projects, ensuring a bottom-up approach that recognizes their cultural wisdom and ecological perspectives" I would like to quote from https://www.climateresilientbynature.com/traditional-ecological-knowledge “treat communities as knowledge contributors to external objectives, versus NbS where communities are rightsholders and decision-makers shaping objectives, trade-offs, implementation, and monitoring. That difference drives better equity and stronger sustainability.”

Donors  can learn directly from the communities Hari Krishna from India responded to the discussion on why things have not improved inspite of so much effort being put in development. He said that as local knowledge, lived realities, and community evidence move upward through multiple institutional layers, they are often synthesised, summarised, and sanitised. In the process, much of their context, urgency, and authenticity are lost. What reaches donors is frequently a filtered interpretation rather than the direct voice of communities. Donor resources often travel back down through the same layered systems. As a result, only a fraction of the funding reaches the communities that generated the knowledge, evidence, and solutions in the first place. He also shared this image:

Our group concluded that indigenous knowledge and wisdom must be valued on par with expert knowledge for effective local level adaptation. To capture this complexity, a mixed methods approach drawing on diverse art forms can yield a richer picture than conventional data alone.Wilson from Ecudaor added that scaling solutions demands data transparency, mixed methodologies, and co-benefits that go beyond the scientific.  As one participant put it, "Numbers are bones. Stories are flesh." Kearabetswe observed, "better evidence matters, but so does translating power to defining what counts as evidence." Most critically, data generation and use cannot remain the preserve of governments and funders. Communities must play a central role in producing and applying data to drive their own adaptation.

Gratitude to the group Jannatul Ferdaus, Kearabetswe Moopelo, Hari Krishna, Sadar Ginting ,Vaibhav Sonone, Wilson Lechon and moderator Paul Mithchell

title inspired Dr Jannatul