Communities in the Majority World have contributed the least to the climate crisis, yet are facing some of its most severe consequences. MCLD members across the world are working to restore ecosystems, strengthen resilience, and advance climate justice. From planting 300,000+ seedlings in Burundi to helping Nigerian farmers adapt their planting cycles to seasonal floods, MCLD members are creating pathways for community solutions. They are restoring forests, diversifying crops, and developing clean energy alternatives with women and youth in leadership roles.
This page highlights examples from across our network of:
- Communities restoring land
- Women shaping climate resilience
- Climate-smart livelihoods
- Young people building the future
- Innovation rooted in communities.
Communities Restoring Land
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Community at the Heart of Climate Action
In the forests of northern Sierra Leone, communities are demonstrating that the most effective climate solutions are built by the people who depend on the land every day. Climate change is putting increasing pressure on rural communities across Sierra Leone. Communities that depend on forests for food, water, and livelihoods are particularly vulnerable.
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Restoring Land, Strengthening Communities: ADDM Builds Climate Resilience in Burundi
As Burundi faces the growing impacts of climate change—from torrential rains to prolonged droughts and declining soil fertility—rural communities are finding it increasingly difficult to produce enough food and secure their livelihoods. At ADDM, we are convinced that protecting the environment is both a spiritual responsibility and a concrete commitment to our communities.
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MCLD Malawi’s Local Climate Action
Members of MCLD’s Malawi National Association are leading practical, community-led climate initiatives to strengthen resilience and advance sustainable development across the country. Recognizing that climate change remains one of the greatest threats to Malawi’s economic growth, long-term prosperity, and the livelihoods of its vulnerable population, especially rural communities, where more local action is required to…
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Protect the Environment: Driving Climate Action and Restoring Forests in Sierra Leone
As climate change becomes an increasing threat to forests and landscapes, a Sierra Leonean coalition of civil society organizations is inspiring communities to protect the environment and adapt to climate change for sustainable livelihoods.
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In Kloto, APEEFED is fostering hope… one young sapling at a time
Across Togo’s Plateaux region, protecting the environment is not just a commitment—it’s a daily effort. Through reforestation campaigns, cleanup days, and awareness-raising activities, the Association for the Protection of the Environment and the Education of Women and Children for Development (APEEFED) mobilizes communities around a common goal: building a healthier and more sustainable living environment.
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Conservation International Climate Change Spotlight: Summary of the Inclusive Conservation Initiative 2026
Across the world, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPs and LCs) are demonstrating that they are not the beneficiaries of conservation but its architects. The Inclusive Conservation Initiative (ICI) was built to test a straightforward proposition.
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Engaged Indigenous Communities on Climate Change, Conservation, and Customary Land Rights
The Women & Youths’ Development Center has been engaging in a series of activities with both communities and local governments to protect local land, water, wildlife, and biodiversity.
Women Shaping Climate Solutions
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Where Sanitation Meets Climate Action: Sanitation First India
Sanitation First is a UK-based non-profit that has worked in India for more than 20 years. Its work centers on three interconnected pillars: water, women, and the world, with climate integrated across all of them.
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Community at the Heart of Climate Action
In the forests of northern Sierra Leone, communities are demonstrating that the most effective climate solutions are built by the people who depend on the land every day. Climate change is putting increasing pressure on rural communities across Sierra Leone. Communities that depend on forests for food, water, and livelihoods are particularly vulnerable.
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In N’Dali, Women Are Already Sowing the Seeds of Tomorrow’s Climate Solutions
In the Borgou Department, in northeastern Benin, the town of N’Dali is bearing the brunt of climate change. But far from simply enduring it, its communities—and first and foremost its women—are devising their own solutions on the ground.
Climate-Smart Livelihoods
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Sailing Towards a Sustainable Cartagena
The Planeta Azul Caribe Foundation (FUPAC) is a non-governmental organisation whose main objective is to conduct research to 1) educate and 2) foster a culture of the sea. It was established in 2006 in the city of Cartagena de Indias, building on the work of its founder from 1984 to 2006. Since then, through its…
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Indigenous Peoples Reviving Practices of Milpa Farming that are Resilient in the Face of both Nature and Humanity
The Foundation for the Development of Indigenous Culture ‘In the Footsteps of the Jaguar’ is an organisation established to revive the ancestral knowledge of the Nahuatl culture, by creating projects designed to foster development from within, that is to say, from the knowledge and wisdom of the communities, thereby strengthening and rebuilding the spiritual, social…
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Foundation Voice for Justice Network: Building Climate Resilience Through Community Action
Across rural Liberia, the Foundation Voice for Justice Network (FVJN) is working to help communities understand, prepare for, and respond to the growing threats of climate change. Through climate change education, awareness, and advocacy, FVJN prioritizes community engagement to encourage environmental stewardship and climate action.
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Climate Change, Food Security, and Hope in Nigeria
Climate change is increasingly affecting how Nigerians grow food, earn livelihoods and survive. Unpredictable rainfall, rising temperatures, prolonged dry spells, destructive flooding, soil degradation and changing planting seasons are making agriculture more uncertain.
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Climate Action in Adamawa State, Nigeria
The frontline of climate change in Nigeria is shifting rapidly, but Heed the Child Initiative (HCI), in collaboration with CCEPI, SACDN, and MCLD, is digging in its heels to fight back.
Young People Building the Future
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Communities At The Centre: How UAYO Is Advancing Climate Action Through Community-Led Development
Climate change is not only altering weather patterns; it is reshaping livelihoods, threatening food security, and widening inequalities for communities that have contributed the least to the crisis. In Kenya, climate change is no longer a distant threat. It is flooding homes in informal settlements, shrinking harvests to cause food insecurity, and pushing pastoralist communities…
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Standing Up for Change: The Diary of a Young Activist
In this brochure, young activist Ahishakiye Fiston Noël from Burundi describes using art and environmental education to inspire young people to act now to protect the environment.
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Green Skills, Youth Innovation, and Climate Resilience
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing communities in Sierra Leone. Rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, flooding, environmental degradation, and high youth unemployment continue to threaten livelihoods and sustainable development.
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Touch The Heart Uganda
Touch the Heart Uganda’s goal is to empower young people, which goes beyond education to creating healthier, more sustainable environments. Every tree the organization plants is an investment in a child’s future.
Innovation Rooted in Communities
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MCLD Malawi’s Local Climate Action
Members of MCLD’s Malawi National Association are leading practical, community-led climate initiatives to strengthen resilience and advance sustainable development across the country. Recognizing that climate change remains one of the greatest threats to Malawi’s economic growth, long-term prosperity, and the livelihoods of its vulnerable population, especially rural communities, where more local action is required to…
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Biodigesters: A Community-Led Climate Solution for Africa’s Energy, Food, and Environmental Future
Solutions to climate change must be practical, affordable, and capable of improving people’s daily lives. As a biogas expert and trainer, my work focuses on promoting a just energy transition centered on local communities.
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Local Ownership, Lasting Climate Resilience: What Partnering with Local Institutions Looks Like in Climate Change Response
In rural Ethiopia, climate-related stresses increasingly affect livelihoods and essential services. WEEMA International works with those who understand these realities best.