For Environment, Democracy and Livelihoods
Climate change impacts often fall disproportionately on poor households, women, Dalits, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalised communities with least capacity to adapt. Although climate finance has expanded in recent years, access to these resources remains uneven, often bypassing those who face the greatest climate risks. Achieving inclusive climate finance requires meaningful dialogue among government agencies, civil society, financial institutions, development partners, research groups and the climate change affected communities. A structured, multi-stakeholder deliberative process, informed by robust evidence on climate vulnerability, financing gaps, and institutional barriers, can build a shared understanding of challenges and identify practical, locally grounded solutions.
Forums such as the Multi-stakeholder Action Lab (MAL) are particularly important in Nepal due to its diverse social, cultural, ecological, and geographical contexts, which create different priorities, vulnerabilities, and adaptation needs. The country also has strong local governments, community institutions, civil society organisations (CSOs) and user groups that possess valuable local knowledge and implementation experience. In this context, the Inclusive Climate Finance for Vulnerable Communities in Asia-Pacific (ICCAP) project’s Multi-stakeholder Action Lab (MAL) provides an inclusive platform for deliberation, joint learning, and co-creation living labs approach to co-design locally appropriate, gender-transformative, and bankable climate adaptation solutions. Since living labs and community engagement has been centre to its different projects, Forest Action Nepal (FAN) has been awarded host the Nepal MAL pilot under ICCAP project Work Package 4.
General Objective:
To improve and scale up inclusive public and private climate adaptation finance flows to vulnerable groups and communities in the Asia Pacific region.
i) To improve and scale up inclusive public and private climate adaptation finance flows to vulnerable groups and communities in the Asia Pacific region.
ii) To create an enabling environment for inclusive green finance by identifying policy gaps, promoting best practices, and strengthening policymaker capacity across Asia-Pacific.
iii) To support financial service providers (FSPs) in delivering client-centric green financial products tailored to the needs of vulnerable populations.
iv) To catalyse private investment in local climate adaptation strategies by establishing a regional finance platform.
v) To co-create locally relevant, innovative, and bankable adaptation solutions in partnership with communities and climate finance pipeline stakeholders.
vi) To ensure that all ICCAP activities are inclusive and responsive to the needs of marginalised and climate-vulnerable populations.
Phase I: Preparation to Launch
Phase II: Needs Assessment, Problem Definition, Scoping of the MAL
Phase III: Co-Production of Adaptation Solutions
Phase IV: Facilitate adoption of successful adaptation solutions
Phase V: Support Scaling Solutions and Sustainability
Mountain forests in the Himalayas play a critical role in providing ecosystem services (ESS). These ecosystems are facing increasing pressures from climate change and unsustainable management practices, resulting in hazardous processes including forest fires, landslides, and floods. In the Western Himalayas, in particular, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding of the dynamics and drivers of forest degradation and ESS loss, along with the interactions between social and ecological systems.
Emphasising a transboundary, systems-oriented perspective, the project together with the consortium partners, University of Göttingen (Germany), United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Nepal Forest Fire Management Chapter (NFMC) and Forest Action Nepal (FAN) aims to engage stakeholders at various scales. Being relevant for mountain forest areas in the Western Himalayas, the project tests and carries out its multidisciplinary work in the transboundary Mahakali/Sharda River basin between Nepal and India. The project’s transdisciplinary approach, with strong engagement from all partners and from stakeholders across scales, will support long-term sustainable forest and fire management beyond the project’s lifetime.
To contribute to the sustainable management of mountain forests in the Western Himalayas in the context of climate and land use change through evidence-based decision-making with local stakeholders and the informing of policy making at provincial and national scale.
– Capacity development and training of foresters in the public administration at sub-national scale, local stakeholders and community members as well as the supervision of MSc and PhD students.
– Generation of modular guideline for practitioners addressing improved forest and forest fire management.
– Empowering members of CFUG with particular attention to women and marginalised groups at the community level.
– Provide training for integration of sustainable forest management, DRR and adaptive interventions along with tools for effective forest fire management.
Payments for environmental services in protected areas: scoping study of Shivapuri-Nagarjun National Park, Nepal
Review on forest-based enterprise related policies and practices
Advancing rights and forging solidarities among community conserved areas in Nepal