Across Greece, Cyprus, and the wider Mediterranean, urban and natural areas face a growing environmental challenge due to climate change and urban mis-management. With mounting pressure from climate change, these issues highlight the urgent need for local action to restore degraded environments and build climate resilience.

India’s urban poor are at the frontlines of the climate crisis, living in inadequate and unsafe housing that makes them especially vulnerable to extreme weather conditions. In places like the Sanjaynagar informal settlement in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra—one of the hottest and most densely populated regions of India—residents face daily hardships exacerbated by rising temperatures. As temperatures soar and resources dwindle, the urgency for climate-resilient housing solutions has never been greater.

Climate change is making life in urban centers more difficult. Increased heat, poor drainage caused by bad waste management, and increased stress on livelihoods are just three of the negative impacts. Upcycle Africa, based in Uganda but having impact beyond, is addressing all three of these issues by empowering local communities to upcycle plastic waste into eco-friendly homes and other products of value.

Funding through the Water Justice Fund is enabling women groups and women-led community organizations in Nepal to combat flooding.

Climate knowledge is often built top-down, overlooking diverse experiences and expertise of women and marginalized communities. This needs to change.

Communities along the Jinjiram river in Bangladesh are utilizing bamboo fences as a cheap and natural way to prevent erosion in a transboundary river during the monsoon season.

In Mukuru, Kenya, youth are creating livelihoods with black soldier fly farming. This innovative practice turns organic waste (which clogs drains and worsens flooding) into protein for livestock and fertilizer, while addressing feed shortages and boosting agricultural productivity.

BASE, coordinated by Fundación Avina, is simplifying climate finance applications to overcome traditional barriers and providing support to grantees. By offering flexible application formats like video, essays, templates, and longer-term support, BASE is making funding more accessible to local actors around the world.

Nubian Vaults offer an affordable and less carbon-intensive way to regulate indoor temperatures in West Africa, one of the world’s hottest areas. Association la Voûte Nubienne, with the support of a UNDP-AFCIA grant, is working to support more families to construct vaults by selling Nubian Vault carbon credits to businesses aiming to reduce their carbon footprint.

In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, SMS weather forecasts and community notice boards are providing simple, low-tech ways for those vulnerable to the effects of climate change, like flooding, to access complex scientific weather information.

In Nepal, the Rural Development Initiative, supported by a UNDP-AFCIA grant, is working with community members and herders to address water security by reviving sacred springs, known as chhuk bus, traditionally utilized for irrigation, drinking water, and to water livestock.

Persons with disabilities are disproportionately affected by climate change and the disasters resulting from it, yet they remain an afterthought in climate policies.

To counter India’s water crisis, nonprofits from across the country are helping farmers adopt innovative techniques to reduce water usage in agriculture. This photo essay documents the efforts of five nonprofits from across the country.

To strengthen climate resilience of low-income communities, adaptation plans must address how heat impacts their lives and livelihoods.

The Philippines is hit by an average of 20 typhoons every year, as well as other natural disasters. The government of the Philippines has launched several efforts to increase the country’s resilience to these natural hazards, including the National Resilience Council (NRC) which is driven by the private sector to provide a platform for meaningful engagement and cooperation between local governments, the private sector, and climate-affected communities.

The seaweed industry in Zanzibar, Tanzania, provides social and economic opportunities to women farmers. Nonetheless, climate-induced impacts put the industry (and women farmers) at risk. Aqua-Farms Organization (AFO) aims combat this through its rent-to-own microcredit model that provides financing and technical support to women farmers.

In Pintadas, a municipality in Brazil, water security and social inequality have long been persistent. In recognition of these challenges, Rede Pintadas (Pintadas Network) works to empower women through social and economic activities, water efficiency projects, and engages in women's mobilization for political engagement, and advocates for legal and policy protection for cooperatives and women producers.

Founded in 2018 as a private agribusiness in Kasese district, Uganda, Ugavoil farms black soldier flies as a means to recycle organic waste into fertilizer and livestock feed, while reducing landfill waste and greenhouse gas emissions. By utilizing the flies as a raw material, the company not only promotes sustainability, but also creates economic opportunities.

In two small villages in Nigeria, community members are learning how to utilize climate-resilient agricultural practices and greenhouse technology to reduce crop failure and improve food security.

Northern Peru is a live repository of Afro-Peruvian cultural heritage, is prone to flooding, drought, and increased temperatures. The Zaña Afro-Peruvian Museum, a museum seeking to preserve Afro-descendants’ community heritage, has initiated diverse activities to improve local people’s understanding of climate change and tap into ancestral knowledge about farming traditions and the memories of older generations.

Vanuatu is highly vulnerable to climate change and disaster risks, such as sea level rise, storm surges, landslides, flooding, and drought. The Santo Sunset Environment Network (SSEN) is an Indigenous-led network of community champions working for climate-resilient and socially just development on the island. SSEN supports and empowers individuals, villages, and communities to implement sustainable development strategies in keeping with traditional livelihoods.

The effects of climate change have impacted agricultural production and maize yields in Meru County, Kenya. The Central Imenti Environment Rehabilitation Program (CIERP) has reoriented its work towards addressing this challenge, in addition to implementing tree planting and income diversification activities. Additionally, the CIERP has significantly extended the group’s activities in support of the psychological wellness of farmers who suffer losses due to the impacts of climate change in an effort to engage in a holistic methods for climate resilience.

In Bangladesh, BRAC, in collaboration with GCA and Columbia University’s Billion Minds Institute project, is working with vulnerable communities to document the psychological impacts of climate change. In providing locally appropriate mental health services, local women are enlisted to work as "paracounselors," trained to attend to the psychosocial well-being of their community members.

Degradation of forests and the natural environment, combined with the impacts of climate change, have created “dire” consequences for local people in Busia County, Kenya. The Kenge Content Hive, a youth-led and community-based organization, aims to combat these challenges by capitalizing on Indigenous knowledge to engage in activities for ecological restoration, sustainable development and youth leadership.

Satou Secka, Awa Ndow and their female neighbours in the village of Kataba Omar, are taking the lead in a revolution. Amid the dusty dry lands of their water-starved rural community in The Gambia, the women have transformed the land with a solar irrigation project, producing high-value crops that are boosting nutrition levels for their families, generating a new income for the women and fuelling a new age of budding entrepreneurialism.