The Adaptation Innovation Marketplace | UNDP Climate Change Adaptation

_{In India, float-farming along inundated coasts and floodplains is an adaptive and climate-resilient practice with benefits for productivity, food security and women’s empowerment. Photo: South Asian Forum for Environment (SAFE), India, a UNDP-AFCIA programme grantee}

Accelerating locally led innovative technologies, practices, and business models for transformative climate action

Around the world, local communities are developing and implementing innovative climate change solutions in line with their local context, priorities, and needs. Yet they continue to face barriers, not least a lack of access to finance and technical support.

To bridge the gaps, in 2021 UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner, in collaboration with the Global Resilience Partnership, International Centre for Climate Change and (ICCCAD), the EU-funded Climate-Knowledge Innovation Community (Climate-KIC), UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), and Least Developed Countries Universities Consortium (LUCCC) launched the Adaptation Innovation Marketplace (AIM).

With funding from the Adaptation Fund, Global Environment Facility (GEF), and European Commission, the initiative supports civil society organizations, NGOs, social enterprises, and women and young people to scale-up innovative technologies, practices, and business models.

As well as small grant investment, the virtual marketplace crowds in resources to offer local actors the know-how, visibility and support they need to expand and accelerate. This includes enterprise development and mentoring opportunities, as well as access to investors and partners.

As of January 2024, there are two featured programmes under AIM, the UNDP-Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator (UNDP-AFCIA) and the Resilience for Peace and Stability, Food and Water Security Innovation Grant Programme.

FEATURED PROGRAMMES

UNDP-Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator (AFCIA)

A US$16 million programme funded by the Adaptation Fund and European Union and implemented by UNDP, UNDP-AFCIA offers substantial support to communities responding to climate stresses in innovative ways, with grants of up to $125,000 and $250,000 for scaling up local adaptation solutions. In addition to funding, the programme also offers grantees investment brokering, international advocacy, and peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing services. To date, the UNDP-AFCIA programme has granted 44 micro and small awards to locally led organizations in 33 countries worldwide. Many of the first cohort of grantees (2022-2023) have become financially sustainable, some raising more than $1 million through crowdfunding; regenerative agricultural practices have been implemented on more 1,660 hectares of land, and more than 120,000 trees planted; and more than 50 traditional knowledge-based climate adaptation measures have been documented under the programme.

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The Resilience for Peace and Stability, Food and Water Security Innovation Grant Programme

Funded under the GEF Innovation Challenge, this programme seeks to bolster innovative finance mechanisms to support resilience building, including food and water security, in conflict-prone and fragile regions of the world, specifically in Sudan and Uganda. In 2023, the programme’s local partner in Uganda realized financial sustainability, their smallholder credit program achieving an 83 percent repayment, demonstrating the possibility of doing good business and impact in difficult settings.

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UNDP invites other like-minded donors and partners to co-create an innovation landscape for climate change adaptation and local action.

For more, please contact:

Chongguang Yu, Climate Finance and Investment Technical Specialist chongguang.yu@undp.org

Srilata Kammila, Head of Climate Change Adaptation srilata.kammila@undp.org