Promoting anticipatory actions to address climate and environment risks for community transformation (PROAACT)

Organisers: ICIMOD, UNEP

About the event

UNEP convenes an interregional exchange, coordination and learning programme in Türkiye during COP31, bringing together regional, national and local partners working across Latin America, Central Asia and South Asia under the EU–UNEP Partnership on Climate, Environment and Peace.

Taking advantage of the strategic opportunity presented by UNFCCC COP31, the programme facilitates interregional learning, strengthens collaboration among partners, and connects locally generated evidence and experiences with international climate discussions. As the EU–UNEP Partnership marks ten years of cooperation and action, the event also provides a platform to showcase tested approaches, highlight the partnership’s contributions, and explore opportunities to integrate lessons and evidence into COP31 discussions and future programming.

Alongside the interregional programme, ICIMOD convenes a regional meeting of the PROAACT project, focusing on peer learning, knowledge exchange, and preparations for implementing the project’s Local Adaptation Plan. The meeting brings project partners together to reflect on progress, share experiences, and discuss practical approaches to translating the plan into community-level action.

Objectives

The interregional exchange aims to strengthen technical and policy dialogue on locally led approaches to climate, peace and security. It provides a platform to share and synthesise evidence, lessons and effective practices emerging from community-led initiatives across Latin America, Central Asia and South Asia. It also seeks to identify opportunities for these experiences to inform future policy and investment decisions, strengthen engagement among practitioners, policymakers and other stakeholders, and translate regional learning into actionable recommendations for advancing locally led climate, peace and security priorities within and beyond the UNFCCC process.

Specific objectives

• Strengthen the exchange of lessons learned and joint reflection among partner organizations and key actors through the Community of Practice, promoting the analysis of progress, challenges and opportunities in the implementation of nature-based solutions for PROAACT project.
• Promote interregional exchange of experiences and approaches among Latin America, Central Asia and South Asia, facilitating cross-learning and the identification of common elements for scaling nature-based solutions in different contexts.
• Deepen collaboration among regional partners, local organizations, policymakers and practitioners, while identifying opportunities for continued exchange, sustainability, replication and scaling of effective approaches.
• Explore lessons learned in the field through a technical field visit that allows participants to understand, in practical terms, the implementation of nature-based solutions and their contribution to resilience and security in landscapes.

Expected results

• Knowledge sharing and peer learning will enhance the knowledge and understanding of the participants.
• A practical exposure in the field is expected to enhance implementing partners’ learning on concrete implementation experiences on nature-based solution, understanding probable challenges their way forward.
• Strengthened interregional collaboration networks for future collaborations

Background

In 2017, the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established a partnership on Climate, Environment and Peace to strengthen national and regional capacities to identify and address climate- and environment-related risks, and to implement effective risk reduction and response measures.

Through the regional initiatives in Latin America, Central Asia and South Asia, the EU-UNEP Partnership supports local organisations to address and respond to climate and environmental pressures that interact with fragility, inequalities, competition over natural resources and existing social tensions. These experiences generate practical evidence on how approaches that combine inclusive governance, conflict sensitivity and locally led action can strengthen climate resilience while contributing to peace, stability and social cohesion.

Under this partnership, UNEP designated the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) as the regional implementation partner for South Asia under the project “Promoting Anticipatory Actions to Address Climate and Environment Risks for Community Transformation (PROAACT).”

South Asia faces escalating risks from climate variability, environmental degradation, and socio-ecological pressures, particularly within the Water–Energy–Food–Environment (WEFE) nexus, which affects livelihoods, social cohesion, and ecosystem stability. The partnership has therefore prioritized implementation in the Ganges and Indus basins, focusing on Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan.

PROAACT aims to:

1. Strengthen community resilience and anticipatory capacity to climate and environmental risks; and
2. Promote regional collaboration and learning through inter-organizational partnerships and basin-level cooperation.

A regional scoping study conducted in the three countries using participatory and evidence-based methodologies identified eight climate vulnerability hotspots. Eight local partners are selected through open call to implement the project in these eight climate hotspots.

• Bangladesh: Satkhira, Nawabganj, and Shariatpur districts
• Nepal: Sindhupalchowk, Dhading, and Rolpa districts
• Pakistan: Astore and Swat districts

The selected local grantees are implementing the PROAACT project in these respective project areas using participatory tools of PROAACT toolkit based on Foresight approach.

As part of the project proposal, ICIMOD will establish a virtual space to facilitate regular discussions, meetings – both in-person and remote – as needed, and to support engagement and collaboration among members of the Community of Practice. To ensure active participation of members and ensure the quality of project implementation, ICIMOD will conduct joint activities and periodic national and regional meetings of the partner that bring together members within and across countries. During the two-year implementation period, local grantees in each country (Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan) will lead four national meetings, conducted biannually. The annual meetings will focus on sharing implementation progress, identifying challenges and exploring approaches to overcome those challenges in each country.

Additionally, ICIMOD will facilitate an annual in-person regional forum each year, providing a platform for Community of Practice members from Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and other regional member countries of the HKH to exchange knowledge, experiences, best practices and lessons learned on the implementation of locally led adaptation in their countries, from various perspectives (e.g., community, country, basin levels). Beyond knowledge and information exchange, these regional events aim to foster the development of solutions and recommendations, including linking these solutions to implementation of Nature Based Solution and Social stability, so that these joint collaborative actions can initiated and support the upscaling of the locally led adaptation across the region.

A similar initiative named PARES is being implemented in Latin America by CATIE under the EU-UNEP partnership launched one year before PROAACT, the project promotes an innovative approach that links vulnerability and fragility analysis with participatory territorial planning. It strengthens local capacities and generates evidence on how ecosystem-based adaptation can contribute to the peace–security–climate change nexus in Latin America.

Tentative agenda

13-14 NOVEMBER — INTERREGIONAL TECHNICAL EXCHANGE

Through facilitated discussions and concrete country and regional examples, participants will share experiences in the design and implementation of locally led, conflict-sensitive adaptation and nature-based approaches; examine the evidence underpinning them; and identify common success factors, challenges and context-specific lessons. The exchange will consider how effective approaches can be adapted, sustained, replicated or scaled while remaining responsive to local priorities and conflict dynamics.

The session will culminate in a concise set of interregional lessons, policy messages and actionable recommendations. These outputs will directly inform the subsequent high-level policy dialogue with government representatives and other decision-makers, ensuring that locally generated evidence and implementation experience contribute to policy discussions. The exchange will also identify practical opportunities for continued collaboration and knowledge-sharing beyond COP31.

14 NOVEMBER— INTERREGIONAL POLICY DIALOGUE

Building on the evidence, lessons and recommendations emerging from the interregional technical exchange, the policy dialogue will bring together government representatives, the European Union, UNEP, regional partners and local organizations to examine how locally led, conflict-sensitive approaches can inform UNFCCC discussions and outcomes.

Regional and local partners will present a concise set of interregional policy messages and illustrate them through practical examples from Latin America, Central Asia and South Asia. Government representatives will be invited to reflect on the relevance of these recommendations to national and regional priorities, identify entry points within the UNFCCC process, and consider how climate policies, national adaptation plans and financing mechanisms can better support locally led action that contributes to peace and security, particularly in contexts of fragility and climate vulnerability.

The dialogue will seek to validate and refine the recommendations, identify government champions and opportunities for policy uptake, and generate concrete commitments or follow-up actions for advancing the messages within the UNFCCC process. It will also strengthen direct engagement between decision-makers and local organizations, ensuring that locally generated evidence and experience are reflected in global climate policy discussions.

15 NOVEMBER—REGIONAL MEETING