Search Climate Insights Directory

The Southern African Resilience Academy (SARA), coordinated by the Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University and the Global Resilience Partnership, is issuing a call for applications for transdisciplinary working groups for the 2025-2027 period. Under the theme "Transformative Pathways to Resilient and Sustainable Futures," these groups will conduct synthesis projects to influence policy and practice regarding resilience and development in the southern African region.

This report explores how failure-aversion acts as a systemic barrier to innovation in climate resilience projects. It argues that because resilience involves complex systems with unpredictable outcomes, failure is a necessary pre-condition for innovation. The authors identify a conflict between the need for experimentation and the rigid, short-term funding structures imposed by donors. The report introduces a model to categorize responses to failure (Individual, Operational, and Organisational levels) and their drivers (culture, mental models, and power). It concludes with recommendations for donors, intermediaries, and implementers to shift toward a 'failure-positive' culture to enable the disruptive innovations required to tackle climate change.

This terminal review evaluates the UNDP-GEF 'Resilience for Peace and Stability, Food and Water Security Innovation Grant Programme' (PIMS 6467, GEF ID 10430), which operated from June 2022 to December 2024. The project aimed to scale up early-stage innovations to enhance climate resilience and stability in fragile regions of Uganda and Sudan. Implemented by the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) with UNDP in an oversight role, the project provided acceleration grants to local partners—Mountain Harvest in Uganda and the Near East Foundation in Sudan—focusing on agro-forestry commodities (coffee and Gum Arabic). Despite the severe impact of the civil war in Sudan, the project achieved high effectiveness, with an average of 98% compliance with objective indicators and 94.8% with outcome targets. The review highlights the success of a 'hands-off' implementation model where UNDP facilitated GEF funding for a civil society partner, resulting in high cost-effectiveness and significant gender empowerment.

This briefing note by the Global Resilience Partnership and Transitions Research examines the landscape of urban resilience solutions in informal contexts across the Global South. Based on a review of approximately 130 solutions, the report identifies a significant gap in urban climate investment—where only 1.2% of urban climate finance flows to adaptation and resilience—and highlights that most non-governmental solutions are still in early development stages. It provides recommendations for municipalities, funders, and policymakers to scale these innovations through better coordination, hybrid financing, and the integration of informal settlements into city planning.

The Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) 2024–2029 Strategy outlines a framework to advance climate resilience by focusing on three transformative opportunities: food systems, finance flows, and community-led action. The strategy aims to shift from fragmented, Global North-led approaches toward locally-led adaptation and systemic collaboration, targeting high-vulnerability regions in the Global South.

The INVESTING IN RESILIENCE Project Portfolio 2024 outlines the activities of the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP), which identifies and scales locally-led resilience innovations in the Global South through challenge fund competitions. The document highlights several active projects focusing on climate adaptation, food security, and sustainable finance across Africa, Asia, and South America, while detailing the funding requirements needed to scale these initiatives.

This report summarizes the key insights from a 2024 London Climate Action Week Resilience Hub event. The event focused on a 'whole-of-society approach' to climate resilience, emphasizing the necessity of community-led adaptation, innovative financing, the democratization of technology, and the integration of cultural and creative approaches to engage diverse stakeholders.

This policy brief by the Southern African Resilience Academy (SARA) advocates for the integration of Gender Transformative Approaches (GTAs) into policies and programs across Southern Africa to build equitable and resilient livelihoods. It argues that traditional gender mainstreaming fails to address the root causes of inequality, such as entrenched social norms, and proposes a shift toward GTAs that challenge and change these structures to enhance community and ecosystem resilience against climate change and food insecurity.

The 2024 Regional Resilience Hubs virtual summit emphasized the necessity of locally-led adaptation (LLA), flexible and decentralized climate finance, and the meaningful inclusion of marginalized groups. Key discussions focused on integrating nature-based solutions, addressing the gendered burden of unpaid care work, and ensuring that climate investments protect human rights and land tenure to prevent the displacement of vulnerable populations in regions including Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

This industry brief by GreenCape identifies ten critical pain points facing large-scale, centralised Black Soldier Fly (BSF) agriculture operations in South Africa. It analyzes the failures of previous pioneers to provide guidance for future developers and investors on avoiding common pitfalls related to value propositions, feedstock procurement, energy costs, and regulatory compliance.

This case study examines the City of Cape Town's efforts between 2014 and 2024 to pioneer Small-Scale Embedded Generation (SSEG) to combat South Africa's national power crisis and loadshedding. The City implemented a series of regulatory, technical, and financial interventions—including feed-in tariffs, smart metering, and a streamlined online application process—to enable the safe integration of renewable energy into the municipal grid. By June 2024, these initiatives resulted in approximately 6,400 authorised grid-tied SSEG systems with over 140 MVA of installed capacity, while facilitating significant private investment and job creation in the local green economy.

The 2024 GreenCape report identifies significant investment opportunities in South Africa's electric vehicle (EV) sector, particularly in the local manufacturing of private passenger vehicles (estimated at R620 billion annually) and the electrification of freight, public transport, and last-mile delivery. While rising fuel prices and global supply chain diversification (the 'China Plus One Strategy') drive adoption, the transition is hindered by high upfront CAPEX, limited charging infrastructure, and energy security concerns related to loadshedding. The South African government is supporting the transition through the Electric Vehicle White Paper and a 150% investment allowance for qualifying EV and hydrogen-powered vehicle spending starting in 2026.

This industry brief by GreenCape explores the potential for electrifying South Africa's minibus taxi (MBT) industry to stimulate local manufacturing, specifically within the Atlantis Special Economic Zone (ASEZ). It outlines the operational advantages of electric minibus taxis (E-MBTs), identifies systemic barriers to adoption, and proposes a stepped transition from imports to local production.

The GreenCape Market Intelligence Report 2024 focuses on investment opportunities in South Africa's energy services market, specifically rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) installations and behind-the-meter (BTM) lithium-ion energy storage. The report details the drivers of growth, such as rising electricity costs and loadshedding, as well as barriers including skilled labor shortages and port inefficiencies.

This report summarizes the activities of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) Directorate during the 2024–2025 inter-sessional period to implement its Gender, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (Gender and EDI) policy across eight specific goals.

The IAI Strategic Plan 2024-2030 outlines a framework to achieve scientific excellence and strengthen international cooperation regarding global environmental change in the Americas. The plan is organized around three strategic themes: addressing the needs of member Parties, developing science for sustainability, and ensuring the institutional sustainability of the IAI.

The Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) Strategic Plan 2024–2030 outlines a framework to address global environmental change in the Americas through three strategic themes: meeting the needs of Parties, developing science for sustainability, and ensuring the sustainability of the IAI.

This toolkit provides a human rights-based approach (HRBA) to climate finance, specifically designed for civil society organisations and trade unions to advocate for just energy transitions in developing nations. It critiques the 'Billions to Trillions' (B2T) neoliberal agenda and the Just Energy Transition - Investment Plan (JET-IP) in South Africa, arguing that these models prioritise private profit and debt over public goods and human rights. The guide outlines six clusters of rights-based principles—ranging from national responsibilities and sovereignty to debt relief in times of crisis—and provides practical 'How to' guides and factsheets to help advocates influence climate investment plans and national budgeting processes.

The Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) has established a formal Remuneration Policy to align staff compensation with its values of justice, fairness, and equity. Developed through a consultative process in 2023, the policy introduces a structured system of wage bands based on the Paterson grading system, aiming to balance market competitiveness with a commitment to reducing pay inequality and addressing historic inequities.

This fact sheet defines Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) for adaptation—also referred to as ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) and ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR)—as actions to manage natural ecosystems to increase the resilience of people and ecosystems against climate change impacts.