Objective 

The 4th Capacity-building Hub’s Capacity-Building Day at COP27 focused on amplifying networks for collective capacity-building. Transformative networks and coalitions are a way to expand knowledge and creativity in support of thriving, cohesive and inclusive communities. This day provided a platform to highlight sustained and evolving collaborations between different actors working on capacity-building for climate action as well as collaborations that support bridging capacity-building needs and gaps, and leverage locally specific strengths and capabilities. 

Topics 

The Capacity-building Day: Amplifying networks for collective capacity-building featured discussions and examples that shared the aim of enhancing capacities and catalysing inclusive networks and partnerships, particularly centered on empowering vulnerable groups. These included exchanges of experiences, challenges and opportunities for women’s and youth climate leadership as well as for Least Developed Countries, indigenous peoples, and marginalized urban communities. The sessions showcased innovative approaches and methods, for instance, to ensure country ownership over climate capacity-building and, more generally, to foster transformative ways in which different stakeholders work together to drive systemic change towards sustainability.  

The Capacity-building Day brought together: 

• The International Centre for Climate Change and Development and the Global Green Growth Institute showcased a model of networking & collaboration to promote capacity-building. 

• The Paris Committee on Capacity-building launched its new technical paper on enhancing the ownership of developing countries of building and maintaining capacity for climate action and present its recently published PCCB toolkit to assess capacity needs and gaps to implement the Paris Agreement to a wide audience. 

• UNFCCC Regional Collaboration Centre for East and Southern Africa, United Nations University, Fundación Avina, International Development Research Centre took further stock of the emerging capacity building initiatives to enhance participation in policy dialogue and implementation, and assessed the approaches used to ensure their effectiveness and sustainability of these efforts. 

• Conservation International (Dedicated Grant Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Global Project) and the GEF-7 Inclusive Conservation Initiative, exchanged experiences, challenges, and opportunities that indigenous peoples and local communities currently face to access climate and biodiversity finance. 

• National Adaptation Plan Global Network discussed ways to enhance capacities and networks for women’s leadership in adaptation action. 

• The Transformative Urban Coalitions project (led by the United Nations University – Institute of Environment and Human Security and the World Resources Institute (WRI) with support from Germany's Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action, BMWK) brought to the table role of coalitions to foster long-term climate action in cities 

Capacity building efforts to foster and empower climate action leaders are ongoing globally as well as in in varied local contexts. Many of these efforts are being pursued collaboratively by diverse partners which share visions of more desirable futures for all. The Capacity-building Day, curated a sample of these networks and coalitions as well as associated emerging innovations, knowledge and capacity building practices. Across the sessions, several themes that emerged from the discussions to help us weave together new mindsets and capacities for working together, across sectors and borders, to collectively shift towards more just, low-carbon and resilient futures were: 

• Capacity building hand-in-hand with climate empowerment. Building bridges between diverse actors who are generating different types of knowledge, from practical to scientific, local to national. Particularly inputs from youth, women, indigenous and other sometimes overheard groups will be featured as they can build and empower more climate leaders and thus contribute to tackling the multiple crises of our times (climate, biodiversity, economic, health, and other). 

• The capacity sharing potential of coalitions and networks. Coalitions and networks have the power to leverage knowledge and resources across actors, sectors and regions to amplify climate action while not only building new capacities, but also strengthening existing ones.  

• Climate justice as social justice. Innovative networks can shift power dynamics and lift voices of those who are most vulnerable to climate impacts but yet typically far from decision-making and planning processes. Participatory forms of governance can provide an entry point to link climate action to social justice, and collective capacity building is the key to achieve it.