The Power of Grassroots Voices to Shape Effective Climate Policy

Grassroots organizations represent poor communities living and working in rural, urban peri-urban and indigenous settlements. Their lives are characterized by fluctuating, unstable incomes, food insecurity, inadequate shelter and poor access to basic services. These communities are worst impacted by disasters and climate change and are usually excluded from public planning and decision making processes. Despite their adverse circumstances, grassroots women’s networks, urban poor networks, slum dwellers, farmers federations are devising innovative resilience-building strategies – leveraging these along with their expanding constituencies to claim public recognition and resources. Grassroots organisations have a distinct and critical role in advancing social change, specifically in the area of community resilience to climate change.

This session will showcase grassroots organisations’ experiences and insights gained from developing innovative and effective climate resilience strategies, solutions, and policies. It will also discuss the actual and potential impact of partnerships between other urban stakeholders, such as development agencies and multilaterals, and grassroots movements in channeling resources and institutionalising effective policies at scale.  

It will explore how grassroots movements and decision makers engage with and learn from one another to formulate and implement policies and programs that are responsive to the priorities of those historically marginalized from public planning processes. The session will focus on grassroots engagement with local and national stakeholders, reflecting on strategies to build trust and partnership with the government and other decision makers, and making a case for the inclusion of grassroots voices in shaping policies through the experience shared by multilateral organisations.

The session will showcase the leadership and insights from seasoned grassroots leaders in community resilience, highlighting the distinct roles, tools and impacts of their movements to build community resilience from the ground up. Urban and rural grassroots leaders will share experiences of utilising decentralised policies and programs to address community needs by influencing local government plans and decisions. Key discussants representing international and multilateral organisations will share their insights and experiences on the impact of partnerships with social movements for their institutions and the need for such agencies, government and private sector to meaningfully engage grassroots organizations in policy and decision making.