GCA Local Adaptation Champions Awards 2024 (€15,000 prize)

The GCA Local Adaptation Champions Awards spotlight and reward innovative, exemplary, inspiring, and scalable locally led efforts that address the impacts of climate change and build effective climate resilience among the most vulnerable communities, sections of society, and individuals who are at the frontlines of the greatest existential threat faced by humankind.

This year, the Awards will feature four new thematic categories: Water Security, Food Security, Urban Adaptation Solutions, and Local Entrepreneurship.

Categories

The following are categories of the awards:

• Water Security: This category recognizes local, community-based initiatives that address water-related challenges and enhance local adaptation capacity through efficient water drainage, channeling, use, or conservation. The solutions must be locally designed, accessible and tailored to the needs of the most vulnerable groups in the community, ensuring equitable management of water resources for all. They invite applications from women-led groups, non-governmental organizations (local, national, and international), universities, research institutes, think tanks, governments, and entrepreneurship support organizations.
• Food Security: This category recognizes local, community-led initiatives that support the design, mainstreaming, and adoption of climate-smart food production systems that are designed by and for smallholder producers and vulnerable communities along the supply chain. Initiatives in this category should demonstrate how they contribute to ensuring continuous, equitable and sustainable access to diverse, nutritious foods for poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. They invite applications from women-led groups, non-governmental organizations (local, national, and international), universities, research institutes, think tanks, governments, and entrepreneurship support organizations.
• Urban Adaptation Solutions: This category recognizes locally led initiatives for adaptation to climate change in urban areas. Successful initiatives engage and benefit vulnerable urban neighborhoods, community leaders and city governments through collaborative design, integration into city adaptation plans, and a long-term vision to continuously increase adaptive capacity over time. They invite applications from women-led groups, non-governmental organizations (local, national, and international), universities, research institutes, think tanks, governments, and entrepreneurship support organizations.
• Local Entrepreneurship: This category recognizes local, community-based businesses that:
  • Have developed or adopted adaptation solutions or technologies that address local climate-related vulnerabilities and that are accessible locally to the people or groups most vulnerable to climate change;
  • Have supported local communities and governments in adaptation efforts; or
  • Helped address structural inequalities faced by women, youth, children, disabled, displaced, indigenous peoples and marginalized ethnic groups that make them more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Benefits of Local Adaptation Champions Awards

• 20 nominees will benefit from publicity around their nomination for the Awards.
• Four winners will receive a cash prize of €15,000 and be invited to an Award Ceremony at COP29 in Baku, which will take place from 11 to 22 November 2024. Winners will be required to provide a proposal of how they intend to use the cash prize and to report on their progress up to one year after the disbursement of the prize.

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Eligibility for Local Adaptation Champions Awards

Open to any organization or group of partners worldwide, who are in the process of implementing climate change adaptation/resilience solutions that follow one of the eight Principles of Locally Led Adaptation.

Only applications that meet all five of the following criteria will be considered for the 2024 competition:

• The intervention is being implemented and results are demonstrable.
• The intervention addresses adaptation to climate change impact or builds resilience against climate impacts.
• The intervention aims at the most vulnerable communities, sections of society, and individuals experiencing climate impacts.
• The intervention is locally led, adhering to one or more Principles of Locally Led Adaptation.

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Selection Criteria

Applications will be ranked according to a pointsbased system that takes into account:

• Innovation
• Adherence to the Principles of Locally Led Adaptation
• Community leadership in decision-making
• Leadership by the most vulnerable sections of society, including women
• Scalability and replicability
• Devolution of decision-making on the use of funds
• Collaboration and partnerships
• Relevance of use of prize money

Application

The application form contains a series of questions and spaces to upload files. Make sure to respond to all the questions and provide:

• A written description of the intervention or solution in a story format.
• A short, simple video: interviews, presentation of the intervention, footage of the solution (2 minutes maximum). They are not looking for high-quality, polished videos.
• Photos, infographics or other visual material to support your story.

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