Lucia MG report summary

Summary

The ARA microgrants showed a number of successes. They helped in bringing focus to and concentrating actions on the most marginalised members of society, such as in Ghana, where the community consultations held by the KASA initiative enabled the voice and opinions of often-neglected stakeholders in coastal development and management (e.g. fishermen and fishmongers) to be heard, particularly regarding different measures to reduce coastal erosion. The co-creation processes that the micrograntees ran highlighted the multiple benefits of converging different knowledge types and sectoral stakeholders and often led to concrete resilience outcomes and behaviour change, such as in India, where the young people involved began to educate other community members to reduce water wastage and discuss issues affecting them.

The microgrants confirmed that communities are the expert and need to lead the development of solutions; when adequately involved in co-creation processes, energy is generated among stakeholders and political will, and human and social capital are kindled, such as in Guatemala where government, community and academic stakeholders at the local level are ready to tackle climate and migration issues. The ARA microgrants have also helped to trigger new opportunities, beyond what was expected or planned, such as in the Philippines, where convening health sector and climate change professionals led to a new unlikely alliance and the co-identification of a number of new innovative opportunities to tackle the climate-health nexus.