Tools and resourcesClimate Change Adaptation
This guidance page provides practical direction for humanitarian organizations seeking to integrate climate change adaptation (CCA) and resilience-building into their programming and operations. As communities facing humanitarian crises are disproportionately affected by a changing climate, building adaptive capacity at the local level is both a priority and a responsibility for the humanitarian sector. In line with Commitment 1 of the Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organizations, this guidance supports signatories in understanding climate risks, designing context-appropriate adaptation interventions, and strengthening the long-term resilience of the communities they serve.
You can explore the guidance through the following categories:
- Getting Started – Foundational resources to understand climate adaptation and its relevance to humanitarian action, including key concepts, frameworks, and the particular challenges of adapting in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
- Training and Learning Opportunities – Courses, webinars, and interactive learning materials to build the knowledge and skills of humanitarian staff on climate adaptation and community resilience.
- Technical Guides and Frameworks – Step-by-step methodologies and sector-specific guidance to support the design, implementation, and monitoring of adaptation programming.
- Tools and Assessments – Practical tools for vulnerability and capacity analysis, adaptation planning, and monitoring and evaluation.
- Engagement Platforms and Networks – Knowledge-sharing platforms, communities of practice, and collaborative initiatives to connect practitioners working on climate adaptation globally.
- Case Studies– Real-world examples of climate adaptation and resilience-building in humanitarian settings, with documented lessons learned.
Getting Started
UN CC:Learn – Introduction to Climate Change Adaptation
The One UN Climate Change Learning Partnership (UN CC:Learn) is a collaborative initiative involving over 30 multilateral organizations that supports climate change learning at all levels. Its self-paced online courses provide accessible entry points into understanding climate change adaptation, covering key concepts, policy frameworks such as National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and the particular needs of vulnerable communities. Courses are available across multiple languages and free of charge, making them an ideal starting point for humanitarian program staff at any level of prior knowledge.
Languages: English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and additional languages
Access: Free
ICVA Webinar: Adapting to the Impacts of the Climate and Environmental Crises
This webinar from the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) provides humanitarian NGO staff with an accessible overview of how climate and environmental crises intersect with humanitarian action. It covers how NGO programmes can be made fit-for-purpose to address current impacts, how to scale up climate-smart approaches, and how to identify locally appropriate resilience solutions. A useful orientation resource for teams new to climate adaptation in humanitarian settings.
Languages: English, with additional language resources
Access: Free
IFRC Resources and Tools on the Climate Crisis
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) publishes a wide range of reports, policy briefs, and working papers on climate and environment in humanitarian contexts. Their climate crisis hub provides accessible overviews of the state of climate risk for affected communities, the humanitarian implications of climate change, and IFRC’s strategic approaches to climate adaptation. These resources are particularly useful for contextualizing the scale and urgency of adaptation needs.
Languages: English (select resources in French, Spanish, Arabic)
Access: Free
Framework for Promoting FCV-Sensitive Climate Action (World Bank)
This framework, developed by the World Bank, is designed to help technical and non-technical teams embed fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) sensitivity into climate-related programming. It is directly relevant to humanitarian organizations operating in complex crises, providing a structured approach to analyzing how fragility affects climate risks and adaptive capacity. A valuable resource for practitioners designing adaptation interventions in conflict-affected settings where mainstream climate guidance often does not apply.
Languages: English
Access: Free
WRI: The Business Case for Climate Adaptation
This paper from the World Resources Institute (WRI) presents the Triple Dividend of Resilience framework, demonstrating the value of adaptation investments through analysis of 320 climate adaptation projects across 12 countries. While oriented toward investment cases, the evidence it provides — that every $1 invested in adaptation can yield significant returns — is useful for humanitarian advocates making the case for proactive adaptation programming and climate-resilient design within organizations and with donors.
Languages: English
Access: Free
Global Adaptation Network (GAN) – UNEP
The Global Adaptation Network, hosted by UNEP, is a worldwide platform for distributing and exchanging climate change adaptation knowledge. It works through regional sub-networks and emphasizes direct knowledge exchange and partnerships, particularly in regions of high vulnerability. For humanitarian organizations seeking to understand the global landscape of adaptation knowledge and identify relevant regional partners, GAN provides a useful entry point — particularly for organizations operating in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
GAN also produces the Global Adaptation Podcast. In each episode you’ll hear the world’s greatest climate experts talk about the hottest topics – how award-winning African architects are changing the future of climate-resilient buildings, the use of artificial intelligence to help farmers grow food in tough conditions, and the power of forests in protecting people against the impacts of extreme weather.
Languages: English, French, Spanish, and additional languages
Access: Free
ODI’s Humanitarian Practice Network: Climate Adaptation in Humanitarian Programming
This edition of the ODI’s Humanitarian Exchange provides some examples of the work that humanitarian organisations are doing in response to the threat of climate change. Co-editors Paul Knox Clarke (Principal at the ADAPT Initiative and an expert on humanitarian system reform) and Mihir R. Bhatt (Director of the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, or AIDMI) present a range of articles that encapsulate relevant interventions and learning. The choice of activities, organisations and locations is by no means representative, but the articles here do provide a broad overview of some of the ways that humanitarians are adapting their programming to take climate change considerations into account – and, taken together, they point to a number of emerging trends.
Languages: English
Access: Free
Training and Learning Opportunities
CARE Climate & Resilience Academy
Self-Paced Courses: CARE’s Climate & Resilience Academy offers a range of self-paced, free short courses for humanitarian and development practitioners. These include modules on the basics of climate change adaptation, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) for adaptation programming, ecosystem-based adaptation, and climate and environmental responsibility for civil society organizations. Courses are short (45–90 minutes per module) and available in multiple languages, making them accessible for busy program staff.
Climate Adaptation Learning Journey: The CARE Climate & Resilience Academy offers a comprehensive 16-week online Climate Change Adaptation Learning Journey for humanitarian and development practitioners. Combining live classroom sessions, peer exchange, and self-paced modules, it equips participants to integrate climate change adaptation into programs and policies, with a strong focus on gender equality, community-based approaches, and monitoring and evaluation. Facilitated by CARE climate and adaptation specialists with deep field experience, this is one of the most substantive capacity-building offers available to the humanitarian sector.
Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis (CVCA) Learning Journey: This 16-week guided online training introduces participants to CARE’s Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis (CVCA) methodology — a core tool for community-level climate risk and resilience assessment. Delivered over eight live webinar sessions with CARE’s climate and resilience specialists, it equips participants with the skills needed to use the CVCA tool in their own contexts. Ideal for program staff who conduct community-level assessments and want a rigorous, participatory approach to understanding climate vulnerability.
Languages: English, French,Spanish, Arabic (varies by course)
Access: Self Paced Course – Free; Learning Journeys – paid; some scholarships available
RedR UK – Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction Training Courses
RedR UK offers a range of online training courses designed to equip humanitarian practitioners with knowledge and skills to respond to — and advocate for — improved action on climate change and disaster risk reduction. These include offerings tailored specifically to the humanitarian sector. Charter Signatories can access courses free of charge, making RedR UK a valuable and cost-effective training partner for organizations committed to the Charter.
Languages: English
Access: Free for Charter Signatories; standard fees for others
The IFRC Climate Training Kit, developed in partnership with the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and supported by Partners for Resilience, provides thematically organized training resources for National Societies and humanitarian practitioners. Topics include community resilience, early warning and early action, WASH in climate contexts, and integrating climate risks into existing humanitarian programming. While designed primarily for Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies, the materials are broadly applicable and freely available.
Languages: English, French, Spanish, Arabic
Access: Free
IFRC & Climate Centre – Guide to Climate-Smart Programmes and Humanitarian Operations
Published in 2023, this guide supports humanitarian organizations in making their work across all sectors risk-informed and climate-smart. It covers the first stages of the IFRC’s seven-step climate action journey, providing a practical framework for integrating climate risk considerations into existing programmes and operations. A foundational resource for teams beginning to systematically mainstream climate adaptation across their organization.
Languages: English (with summaries in French, Spanish, Arabic)
Access: Free
GCA / CARE Climate Justice Center: Toolkit for Youth on Adaptation and Leadership
Developed by the CARE Climate Justice Center under the Global Center on Adaptation’s Youth Leadership Program, with financial support from Norad, this toolkit equips young people between 15 and 35 years old with the knowledge, skills, and tools to engage meaningfully in climate adaptation policy, advocacy, and action. The toolkit is structured around eight modules, progressing from foundational climate change concepts through to adaptation planning, vulnerability assessment, soft skills for leadership, and designing and implementing adaptation advocacy strategies.
Languages: English, French, Arabic
Access: Free
Technical Guides and Frameworks
CARE Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis (CVCA) Handbook
CARE’s CVCA Handbook (Version 2.0, updated) is a foundational methodology for gathering and analyzing community-level information on vulnerability to climate change and adaptive capacity. Widely used by NGOs, governments, and researchers across diverse contexts, it provides a participatory framework that integrates gender equality, ecosystems, and governance as cross-cutting considerations. The handbook includes multiple tools, guidance documents, and adaptations for specific contexts, making it one of the most comprehensive and field-tested climate vulnerability assessment methodologies available to humanitarian practitioners.
Languages: English, French (select materials)
Access: Free
This FAO guide supports practitioners involved in designing adaptation programmes to explicitly consider human mobility and migration within a rural livelihoods framework. Particularly relevant for humanitarian organizations working at the intersection of climate change and displacement, it offers tools for integrating mobility considerations into National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). A useful resource for understanding climate-related drivers of displacement and building adaptation programming that accounts for population movement.
Languages: English
Access: Free
SHARP+ is an updated FAO guidance document and assessment tool for practitioners and researchers working with farming and pastoralist communities in climate-vulnerable contexts. It provides a holistic approach to assessing climate resilience at the household and community level, incorporating economic, social, institutional, and ecological dimensions. Accompanied by practical field tools and case studies, SHARP+ is particularly valuable for humanitarian organizations working on food security, livelihoods, and agricultural resilience in crisis settings.
Languages: English
Access: Free
GLISA Adaptation Monitoring and Evaluation Toolkit
Developed by the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments (GLISA) center, this toolkit provides practical resources for monitoring and evaluating climate adaptation interventions. It is designed to help adaptation practitioners understand what is working, identify areas for improvement, and document learning over time. For humanitarian organizations implementing multi-year adaptation or resilience programmes, robust M&E frameworks are critical to learning and accountability, and this toolkit offers accessible entry points regardless of prior M&E experience.
Languages: English
Access: Free
REGILIENCE Self-Assessment Tool for Maladaptation Risk
This tool, developed through the REGILIENCE project, focuses specifically on identifying potential risks of maladaptation — interventions that inadvertently increase vulnerability or harm rather than build resilience. It is designed for programme staff and consultants to assess adaptation plans early in their development, flagging risks before implementation. Given the high stakes of getting adaptation wrong in humanitarian contexts, tools like REGILIENCE that explicitly probe for unintended consequences are valuable complements to other planning guides. Widely available across European languages.
Languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, and additional languages
Access: Free
Pathways2Resilience – Open Access Guidance for Adaptation Pathways
The Pathways2Resilience project supports regions and communities in co-designing climate resilient futures and corresponding locally-led adaptation pathways. Its open-access guidance toolbox provides resources for participatory adaptation planning, focusing on transformative and long-term approaches that combine local knowledge with political commitment. While rooted in a European context, the participatory planning principles and methods are relevant for humanitarian practitioners supporting community-led adaptation planning in diverse contexts.
Languages: English
Access: Open access (free, registration may be required for some features)
IUCN NAbSA Initiative: Nature-based Solutions for Adaptation Brief Series
IUCN’s NAbSA (Nature-based Solutions for Climate Adaptation: Monitoring and Impact Evaluation) initiative launched a new brief series in early 2026 providing practical, evidence-based guidance on scaling NbS for climate adaptation. The first three briefs address social and environmental safeguards as enablers of effective community-led adaptation; the case for valuing biodiversity beyond carbon in climate finance decisions; and approaches to unlocking blended finance for gender-responsive adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa. For humanitarian organizations working at the intersection of ecosystem-based adaptation and climate resilience, these concise briefs offer actionable guidance rooted in field experience from IUCN’s global programme.
Languages: English, French, Spanish
Access: Free
Developed by adelphi and the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC), this practical note provides guidance for humanitarian practitioners operating at the intersection of climate change, peace, and security. Drawing on practitioner exchange and workshop discussions, it identifies entry points for integrating climate-peace-security analysis into humanitarian programming, with a focus on fragile and conflict-affected settings. This resource directly addresses one of the most complex challenges for adaptation programming: how to design interventions that are conflict-sensitive and do not exacerbate existing tensions.
Languages: English
Access: Free
ODI Humanitarian Practice Network: Climate Change Adaptations in Humanitarian Programming
Published in March 2025 by the Humanitarian Practice Network (HPN) at ODI Global, this issue of Humanitarian Exchange addresses directly the question that many humanitarian organizations are grappling with: what does addressing climate change actually mean for programming? Co-edited by Paul Knox Clarke (ADAPT Initiative) and Mihir R. Bhatt (AIDMI), the issue brings together twelve field-based articles from practitioners across Mali, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Niger, Kenya, and beyond. Together, they document how humanitarian organizations are adapting their programming across sectors — health, shelter, livelihoods, food security — to account for both rapid-onset climate hazards and slower-onset climate stresses such as drought and chronic malnutrition.
The collection provides rich, operational-level evidence on a range of adaptation approaches: anticipatory action for cyclones and heatwaves; climate-resilient shelter construction for displaced populations; index-based agricultural insurance; community-led watershed management in conflict-affected settings; and cash programming to support community relocation from flood-prone areas. Several articles explicitly address the climate-conflict-resilience nexus — including ICRC programming in Niger and DanChurchAid/SAPCONE programming in Turkana County, Kenya — making this issue particularly relevant to humanitarian practitioners working in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. An essential read for program staff seeking grounded, humanitarian-sector-specific examples of what adaptation looks like in practice.
Languages: English
Access: Free
IISD / CARE Germany: Engaging Communities in Climate Vulnerability Assessment
Published in 2026 by IISD and CARE Germany as part of the CBA SCALE+ initiative, this report draws on participatory climate vulnerability assessments (PCVAs) conducted across nearly 100 communities in Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe to identify six practical lessons for improving how PCVAs are designed and facilitated — covering community engagement, knowledge integration, local authority involvement, crisis communication, expectation management, and multi-partner collaboration. For humanitarian practitioners working on community-based adaptation in Southern and Eastern Africa, or more broadly, it offers directly applicable field-tested guidance on connecting local knowledge, scientific evidence, and adaptation planning.
Languages: English
Access: Free
Tools and Assessments
CARE CVCA Tool – Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis
The CARE CVCA tool is the field application component of CARE’s Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis methodology. Used to gather and analyze information on community-level vulnerabilities to and capacities for climate change, it informs the identification of actions — at the community level or more broadly — that support communities in increasing their resilience. Widely used across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, it has been adapted across many contexts and integrated into community adaptation planning processes, project design, and advocacy work.
Languages: English, French (selected materials)
Access: Free
CGIAR/IWMI ClimBeR Tool – Climate Adaptation Capacity for Food, Land, and Water Systems
The ClimBeR tool, developed by CGIAR and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), is designed to support climate adaptation capacity in food, land, and water systems in a set of focus countries (including Guatemala, Kenya, Morocco, Philippines, Senegal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Zambia). It offers data-driven insights on climate risks and adaptation options for smallholder production systems. Relevant for humanitarian organizations working on agricultural livelihoods and food security in these regions, and for those interested in evidence-based approaches to climate adaptation in agrarian contexts.
Languages: English
Access: Free; in-country partnerships available
IUCN Climate Change Resilience and Adaptation Planning Tool (Marine Areas)
This IUCN tool supports programme planners in considering climate change as a management consideration for Marine Protected Areas and other marine conservation contexts. While primarily designed for conservation practitioners, it is useful for humanitarian organizations whose programming intersects with coastal and marine ecosystems — particularly in Pacific island contexts, coastal Bangladesh, East Africa, and other climate-vulnerable coastal areas. The tool helps assess climate risks and identify adaptation options for marine-dependent communities.
Languages: English
Access: Free
IISD ALivE – Adaptation, Livelihoods and Ecosystems Planning Tool
ALivE is a computer-based rapid qualitative assessment tool that helps users organize and analyze information to plan effective ecosystem-based adaptation. It enables users to understand linkages among ecosystems, livelihoods, and climate change; identify and prioritize EbA options for community and ecosystem resilience; and design project activities and indicators. Available in an unusually broad range of languages for a technical planning tool, ALivE is suited to diverse humanitarian programming contexts.
Languages: English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Nepali
Access: Free
RCRC Climate Centre – Various Tools and Support Functions
The Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre offers a range of tools, advisory services, and technical support to Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies and their partners. This includes tools for climate risk assessment, scenario planning, vulnerability mapping, and adaptation programme design. The Climate Centre also provides bespoke support to organizations seeking to integrate climate risk into their strategies and operations. Technical support may be provided on a cost-recovery basis, with services accessible to a range of humanitarian actors beyond the RCRC movement.
Languages: English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Russian
Access: Upon request / application; some paid services
Adaptation at Altitude – Solutions Portal and Reports
Adaptation at Altitude is a collaborative programme co-supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) that focuses on increasing resilience and adaptive capacity of mountain communities and ecosystems. Its Solutions Portal provides accessible case studies, technical reports, and knowledge resources on adaptation in mountain contexts — a setting of significant humanitarian relevance given the climate vulnerabilities of high-altitude communities in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya, Andes, and other ranges. Useful for organizations working in these contexts, as well as for those seeking models of community-led adaptation.
Languages: English
Access: Free
Engagement Platforms and Networks
weADAPT – Global Platform for Climate Change Adaptation Knowledge Exchange
weADAPT is one of the world’s leading and longest-running collaborative platforms for climate change adaptation knowledge, developed and maintained by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). It enables researchers, planners, practitioners, and decision-makers to find the latest knowledge, share their work, and connect with others working on similar issues. With 22 thematic areas, interactive community features, case study databases, and connections to regional adaptation networks, weADAPT is a valuable resource for humanitarian practitioners seeking to stay current with adaptation knowledge and connect with the broader adaptation community.
Languages: English (with translation services available)
Access: Free (registration recommended for full features)
The National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Global Network, hosted by IISD, supports developing countries in advancing their NAP processes and accelerating climate change adaptation efforts. It publishes analysis and knowledge products on adaptation planning lessons and experiences, facilitates knowledge exchange among practitioners, and convenes partners working on adaptation policy across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For humanitarian organizations interested in engaging with national adaptation planning processes — which increasingly address humanitarian-development linkages — the NAP Global Network is an essential engagement platform.
Languages: English, French, Spanish, and additional languages
Access: Free
ACT Alliance – Platform for Climate Change and Programmes
ACT Alliance’s Platform for Climate Change and Programmes serves as a learning, sharing, and coordination space for ACT member and partner organizations. It functions as a one-stop learning site for climate justice issues, a sharing space for climate policy and members’ adaptation work, and a mechanism for coordinating positions on loss and damage, finance, and related advocacy. Open to ACT members and partners, this platform is particularly valuable for faith-based and civil society humanitarian organizations operating through ACT networks.
Languages: English
Access: Free for ACT members and partners
UNFCCC Global Climate Action Portal (formerly NAZCA)
The UNFCCC’s Global Climate Action Portal — originally launched in 2014 as the Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA) — is the official UN platform for tracking and showcasing voluntary climate commitments and actions by non-Party stakeholders: companies, cities, subnational governments, investors, and civil society organizations. Formally referenced in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the portal now contains tens of thousands of registered climate actions and cooperative initiatives, with progress tracked through an annual reporting cycle. At COP26 it launched expanded tracking of voluntary climate actions and cooperative initiatives, including adaptation commitments.
For humanitarian organizations, the portal offers two key functions. First, it provides a live overview of the climate commitments of cities, national governments, and non-state actors in the countries where humanitarian programs operate — useful context for adaptation programming and advocacy. Second, it offers an opportunity for organizations to register and publicly demonstrate their own climate commitments, including those related to adaptation and resilience programming, increasing their visibility in the broader climate action ecosystem. For Charter Signatories with formal adaptation commitments, NAZCA/GCAP registration can strengthen accountability and engagement with climate finance actors and partners.
Languages: English
Access: Free
Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA)
CANSA is a coalition of approximately 300 civil society organizations working across eight South Asian countries to promote government and individual action on climate change. It advocates for equity and social justice between peoples, promotes sustainable development, and engages with national and regional climate policy processes. For humanitarian organizations operating in South Asia, CANSA offers a platform for engagement, learning, and coalition-building with regional civil society on climate adaptation and resilience.
Languages: English
Access: Free (membership available)
Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and Global Hub on Locally-Led Adaptation
The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) is an international solutions broker that accelerates action on adaptation from the international to the local level. Its Global Hub on Locally Led Adaptation (LLA), located in Dhaka, focuses specifically on empowering local governments and communities through additional resources and capacity, and on scaling up locally-led adaptation best practices. The LLA Hub facilitates the preparation of locally-led ‘People’s Plans’ for adaptation — an approach that closely aligns with humanitarian principles of community-led programming. GCA also offers research, training, and technical support.
Languages: English
Access: Free access to resources; technical support upon request
Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN)
CDKN works with public, private, and non-governmental sectors in support of locally-owned and locally-led climate-resilient action. It produces a range of resources and case studies on themes relevant to the Charter, including adaptation in vulnerable and fragile contexts, gender and climate resilience, and urban adaptation. CDKN operates primarily in the Global South and has particular depth in South Asia, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). It offers both knowledge resources and occasional partnership and translation support.
Languages: English, Spanish
Access: Free
UNDP Climate Change Adaptation Portal (Note: primarily government-facing; selectively relevant for humanitarians)
The UNDP Climate Change Adaptation Portal is a knowledge-sharing platform documenting UNDP-supported adaptation projects and resources across more than 100 countries, covering thematic areas including community-based adaptation, ecosystem-based adaptation, food and water security, and climate finance. While the platform is primarily oriented toward national governments and development actors, it offers a searchable project database, technical publications, and policy guidance that can provide useful context for humanitarian organizations navigating adaptation programming alongside government partners — particularly in LDCs where UNDP and humanitarian actors often operate in overlapping geographies.
Languages: English
Access: Free
Case Studies
All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI) – Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation
AIDMI is a community-based action planning, research, and policy support organization based in Gujarat, India, which bridges the gap between policy, practice, and research related to disaster mitigation and climate adaptation. Its climate adaptation and mitigation programme area documents lessons and case studies from community-level adaptation work in South Asia, with a strong focus on the needs of marginalized communities. AIDMI also offers occasional training and learning opportunities. Useful for practitioners seeking applied examples from the South Asia context.
Languages: English, with regional language materials
Access: Free
DanChurchAid (DCA) – Climate Adaptation Programming and Case Studies
DanChurchAid (DCA) is a Danish humanitarian and development INGO with over 100 years of experience working across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, currently operational in 19 countries across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. DCA has built a strong programme focus on locally-led climate adaptation, explicitly integrating agroecological approaches, community-managed disaster risk reduction, gender-responsive adaptation planning, and anticipatory action into its programming across fragile and conflict-affected contexts. DCA’s climate adaptation page and associated case study collection document a range of applied models: community-led integrated watershed management in drought-prone Ethiopia; climate-resilient agroecology in Nepal’s Banke District; adaptation-livelihoods programming in Turkana County, Kenya (including the Nakuangat Farm agroecology initiative); and an innovative consortium response to climate change and displacement in the Horn of Africa (with Danish Red Cross, in Ethiopia and Somalia).
Languages: English
Access: Free
CDKN Case Studies on Nature-based Solutions for Urban Climate Resilience in South Asia
This CDKN compendium presents 15 case studies of nature-based and community-led adaptation interventions in urban areas across Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. Each case study details how the initiative was implemented, the factors that led to success, and essential elements for replication and scaling. For humanitarian organizations working in urban informal settlements and secondary cities — a growing area of climate vulnerability and humanitarian need — these cases offer practical models and lessons for programme design.
Languages: English
Access: Free
CARE – Integrating Gender into Climate Change Adaptation
‘Making It Count’, produced by CARE International in Vietnam, UN Women, and GIZ, offers practical questions, actions, tools, and resources for integrating gender into climate change adaptation interventions. Designed as an accessible entry point for practitioners, it is grounded in field experience from Vietnam and is applicable across a range of humanitarian and development contexts. Given the disproportionate burden that climate change places on women and girls in humanitarian settings, gender-responsive adaptation design is a core consideration for all humanitarian programming.
Languages: English
Access: Free
ODI – Nature-Based Green Infrastructure: African Experience and Potential
This Overseas Development Institute (ODI) report explores the existing and potential role of nature-based green infrastructure in disaster risk management and climate change adaptation across African contexts. It examines the application, financing, and efficiency of NBS-based approaches in Africa, as well as motivations for NBS investments. Complemented by a companion mapping of finance sources for NbS in Africa, this is a valuable resource for humanitarian organizations working in Sub-Saharan Africa who are exploring adaptation approaches that draw on natural systems and local knowledge.
Languages: English
Access: Free
IFRC – Scaling Up Locally Led Adaptation: A Humanitarian Perspective and Lessons Learned
This brief, jointly authored by the IFRC and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and released at COP30, summarizes lessons learned from over 20 countries and National Societies where the IFRC network has been integrating climate risks and investing in locally-led adaptation. It provides concrete examples of how the humanitarian system can support community-level climate resilience through a locally-led approach, highlighting what works, where barriers remain, and how the climate action journey can be applied in diverse contexts. An essential read for humanitarian practitioners seeking practical models of adaptation at scale.
Languages: English
Access: Free
Global Center on Adaptation and CDKN – Stories of Resilience add to Monday mapping
GCA’s annual Stories of Resilience series documents community and local experiences implementing climate adaptation on the ground. Recent editions highlight critical messages from frontline communities about the gaps between global and national climate commitments and actual local adaptation needs. These case studies provide rich qualitative evidence about what locally-led adaptation looks like in practice, including documentation of both success factors and systemic barriers. Particularly valuable for humanitarian practitioners designing programmes that aim to strengthen community adaptive capacity.
Languages: English
Access: Free
Christian Aid Climate Adaptation and Resilience Program
Christian Aid works with local partners and marginalized communities across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America on climate-resilient agriculture, climate finance mechanisms, disaster risk reduction, and loss and damage recovery, with a strong emphasis on locally-led solutions. This briefing provides an overview of some of this work on climate adaptation.
Languages: English
Access: Free