Invest in the people connecting the dots

In many climate-vulnerable and conflict-affected regions, climate change and conflict reinforce one another, affecting the safety and security of people, communities, and societies.

Local peacebuilders understand these connections because they are active before, during, and after conflict. They understand local realities because they are part of the communities they work in and have built trusted relationships across conflict lines that external actors often lack.

Across the GPPAC network, local peacebuilders don't just recognise how climate change and resource stress can intensify existing fragility. As individuals embedded in their communities, they also act as first responders to climate-related challenges and are already developing community-based solutions that can strengthen their safety and security. They use the GPPAC network to bring their locally grounded expertise, experience, and solutions together across regions, recognising that climate, peace, and security challenges are interconnected and cross-border and that responses must be too.

This International Day of Peace, we introduce some of the GPPAC members behind this work and show why investing in local peacebuilders is not only an investment in peace but an investment in more effective climate action. 

Why invest in local peacebuilders working on environment, climate, peace, and security?
 

Because they connect: Convening community dialogues to address climate risks in Uganda 
 

In Uganda’s Kasese District, communities face increasingly frequent floods along the Nyamwamba River, landslides in the region's mountainous areas and periods of drought. For communities that depend on farming and livestock, the impact of climate change goes beyond damaged crops, animals and infrastructure. It can deepen poverty and unemployment, contribute to tensions within households and communities, including disputes over land, and increase young people's vulnerability to recruitment by rebel groups. 

GPPAC members in Uganda bring together the people experiencing these impacts, including young people, women, men, elders, local leaders, and government officials through community dialogues. Together, they identify how climate-related challenges are affecting their communities and develop solutions to respond. 

Bring communities, local leaders, and government together ➡️ Identify how climate risks affect livelihoods and tensions ➡️ Hear different needs and priorities across the community ➡️ Develop responses together ➡️ Agree what communities can do and where government and others need to support 

Take brickmaking along the Nyamwamba River, for example. For some men living near the river, making and selling bricks provides an important source of income. But firing the bricks requires firewood, contributing to deforestation around the river, which can increase the risk of floods. When floods come, they can wash away the bricks before they are sold, causing families to lose the income they depend on as well as the resources invested in making them. Through the community dialogues, GPPAC members are supporting men to shift from fired brickmaking to making cement blocks, providing an alternative source of income without requiring firewood. 

The brickmaking example is one of many issues addressed through these dialogues. The conversations help communities identify how climate change is affecting their lives and livelihoods, and what practical responses could help. Priorities differ across groups: young people call for vocational training and agricultural support to diversify their livelihoods; women prioritise tree planting, better harvest storage and livestock farming; men highlight modern farming techniques and improved roads, and elders emphasise food assistance, family support and counselling to help people cope with the impacts of repeated floods and other climate-related shocks. Together, communities identify what they can do, from planting flood-resistant fruit trees to participating in activities that strengthen social cohesion and help manage tensions peacefully, and where they need support from civil society, government and other local actors, including on disaster response, infrastructure, climate planning and peacebuilding. 

Local peacebuilders are uniquely placed to bring these different actors together because they are known in their communities. They have access to people and decision-makers because they have built relationships of trust over time.

Because they see what others miss: Addressing the blind spot in climate adaptation planning in Central America
 

In the Central American dry corridor, that stretches from southern Mexico to Panama, competition over land, water and natural resources intersects with inequality, weak governance and organised crime, increasing the risk of social unrest, forced migration and regional instability.

Climate adaptation planning assumes that public authorities can reach the communities most at risk, but in parts of Central America, criminal control makes emergency access difficult or impossible. This is a reality that existing risk maps often ignore. Maps show where disasters might hit, but not whether anyone can actually get there. For example, in Guatemala City, gang-controlled borders stop disaster teams from running evacuations, while in Cartago, Costa Rica, criminal groups occupy bunkers on flood levees right where emergency teams need to go.

Look at existing risk maps ➡️ Identify where criminal control can block access and response ➡️ Add this local evidence to existing risk assessments ➡️ Get a fuller picture of who is at risk and why ➡️ Give communities evidence to engage public authorities 

Local peacebuilders see what standard risk assessments miss because they live in these communities and know the reality on the ground. Their local evidence can complement external models, giving communities a fuller picture of the risks they face and stronger tools to engage public authorities, hold them accountable and push for targeted action where it matters most. Click here to visit their map.

Because they close the loop: Bringing climate policy back to communities in West Africa 
 

In West Africa, many of the national and regional policies designed to support climate action remain far removed from the communities they are intended to support. Communities are frequently consulted while climate policies are being developed. However, once those policies are adopted, they do not always make their way back to the people whose knowledge helped inform them. As a result, communities may contribute to national climate policy without knowing what their governments have committed to, what role they can play in implementing these policies or what support they should be able to expect from the government in responding to the impacts of climate change. GPPAC members in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal are working to close this gap. Through town hall meetings with young people, women, traditional leaders, local authorities and other community members, they hear how communities experience and respond to climate risks. They then support locally developed responses through microgrants and connect those responses to the policies and resources that can help sustain them.

The microgrants allow communities to test locally developed responses to climate risks and identify what works in practice. GPPAC members then use these experiences as a starting point to connect communities with the national policies and resources that could help sustain or expand successful approaches. Relevant policies are translated into local and indigenous languages and discussed during follow-up town halls.

Town halls identify local climate risks and responses ➡️ Microgrants test locally developed solutions ➡️ Relevant national and regional climate policies are translated ➡️ Follow-up town halls bring translated policy back to communities and clarify roles, resources and government commitments 

In Nigeria, for example, the National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) 2021–2030 and the Nigerian National Adaptation Plan will be translated into languages including Hausa, Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin and discussed during town halls. The goal is to make these frameworks easier to understand and use so that communities can identify commitments relevant to them, the role they can play, what resources they can access, and how to hold their government accountable for implementation.

Because they see opportunities: Creating new entry points for regional cooperation in Northeast Asia 
 

In Northeast Asia, much of the regional debate views security through traditional, state-based “hard” security frameworks, focused primarily on military threats and defence. At the same time, shared environmental challenges such as marine degradation, extreme weather events and biodiversity loss heighten regional vulnerabilities, but also offer a less politically sensitive entry point for cross-border cooperation amid high geopolitical tensions. 

Environmental organisations and peacebuilding actors in the region often work in siloes, with few opportunities to explore where their work intersects. GPPAC members are bridging this gap by bringing environmental peacebuilding into the Ulaanbaatar Process, a long-standing Track II civil society dialogue on peace and stability in Northeast Asia.

Since 2015, the Ulaanbaatar Process has provided space for civil society representatives from across the region, including North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, the United States and Mongolia, to engage in sustained dialogue. GPPAC members are now using this established platform and the relationships built through it to explore how addressing environmental challenges together can maintain regional dialogue among civil society actors, foster trust across borders, and bring their perspectives into relevant policy discussions, even when formal political channels are stalled.

Identify shared environmental challenges ➡️ Connect environmental and peacebuilding actors through the Ulaanbaatar Process ➡️ Create new entry points for regional dialogue ➡️ Build trust and sustain cooperation across geopolitical divides 

Bringing climate and environmental issues into the Ulaanbaatar Process is also broadening who can participate in conversations about regional peace and security, particularly young people. These issues can provide a more tangible and accessible entry point into conversations traditionally shaped by hard-security concerns, while bringing a new generation and new perspectives into regional dialogue and giving young people a greater role in shaping the future they will inherit.