C ommunities are racing to adapt to climate change. It’s not a choice. Their survival depends on it. Global and national systems are not changing fast enough in response to their needs, making gains precarious. We asked: What needs to change? This video shares their answers.

The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and CDKN collaborated with community leaders to showcase their brilliant work in building local adaptation solutions across many challenging contexts. 2023 Stories of Resilience: Lessons from Local Adaptation Practice focuses on the many ways in which local communities innovate to use the materials closest to hand and their own sweat and toil to adapt: from regenerating hillsides, coasts, degraded farmlands, and urban green spaces, to recycling waste into wealth. All of these contribute to creating greater resilience for people and nature.

The findings are based on more than 200 contributions from a call for stories and deeper exploration of 19 locally-led initiatives around the world.