OUTCOME DOCUMENT South Asia Regional Resilience Dialogue: Fostering Adaptation and Resilience for a Post-COVID19, 1.5 Degree Future

The outcome document of the South Asia Regional Resilience Dialogue outlines strategies to foster climate adaptation and resilience in South Asia, emphasizing the need to reposition local actors as agents of change. It highlights successful community-driven initiatives, identifies systemic barriers such as top-down governance and financial inflexibility, and provides recommendations for inclusive planning and decentralized financing to support the most vulnerable populations.

• The dialogue recommends five primary messages for High-Level Champions to advance ambitions for COP 26: repositioning local actors as agents of change, building capacity for marginal groups to co-create climate solutions, ensuring good governance through local accountability, establishing financial architectures that support devolved delivery, and fostering a regulatory environment for diverse financing, including private sector investment.
• Several successful resilience initiatives in South Asia are highlighted, including the Shack Dwellers Initiative (SDI) which provides identity cards to informal settlement inhabitants, the Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) which empowers women's networks in India, and the Lumanti Support Group for Shelter, which has established 47 credit cooperatives with nearly 38,000 women members.
• Other regional examples of resilience include the Jalbayu Parishad youth volunteers acting as intermediaries between marginalized people and government, the Local Adaptation Plans for Action (LAPA) in Nepal which aims for 80% of funds to be disbursed at the local level, and the Climate Bridge Fund in Bangladesh, established by BRAC with support from the Government of Germany through KfW.
• The Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund (UCCRTF), administered by the Asian Development Bank, uses a systems-centric approach combining financial support with capacity building. Its financial instruments include revolving funds, longer tenure for microcredit, and de-risking investment via first loss cover.
• Significant barriers to resilience in South Asia include uncoordinated top-down interventions that ignore local priorities, limited recognition of women-led efforts due to socio-cultural beliefs, and the increased marginalization of the urban poor in slums and informal settlements.
• Additional challenges include a lack of up-to-date scientific data for local communities, a digital divide caused by the unaffordability of modern technologies, and financial architectures that are too inflexible to effectively reach the most vulnerable.
• To scale resilience, the document calls for enhanced political will to connect local and global agendas, the empowerment of youth and women through skills and technology, and the implementation of good governance through local finance monitoring committees to ensure transparency.
• The document proposes several financing modes for the region: decentralized delivery mechanisms integrated into local government budgeting, increased private sector engagement through incentive mechanisms, and the use of diverse instruments such as social investment loans, viability gap funds, and microfinance.

APA

Global Resilience Partnership (2021). OUTCOME DOCUMENT South Asia Regional Resilience Dialogue: Fostering Adaptation and Resilience for a Post-COVID19, 1.5 Degree Future. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/outcome_south-asia-regional-dialogue_final.pdf

Chicago

Global Resilience Partnership. OUTCOME DOCUMENT South Asia Regional Resilience Dialogue: Fostering Adaptation and Resilience for a Post-COVID19, 1.5 Degree Future. 2021. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/outcome_south-asia-regional-dialogue_final.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Global Resilience Partnership |title=OUTCOME DOCUMENT South Asia Regional Resilience Dialogue: Fostering Adaptation and Resilience for a Post-COVID19, 1.5 Degree Future |date=17 September 2021 |url=https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/outcome_south-asia-regional-dialogue_final.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{globalresiliencepartnership2021outcome, author = {{Global Resilience Partnership}}, title = {{OUTCOME DOCUMENT South Asia Regional Resilience Dialogue: Fostering Adaptation and Resilience for a Post-COVID19, 1.5 Degree Future}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, year = {2021}, month = sep, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/outcome_south-asia-regional-dialogue_final.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }