Earth Today | CANARI launches knowledge platform to boost Caribbean resilience

THE CARIBBEAN Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) has launched the Caribbean Resilience Knowledge Platform, which serves as an online hub to support learning and collaboration among civil society organisations and their partners.

The initiative is to scale up action for climate justice and resilience across the region.

The virtual launch and live demo took place on August 2, at the virtual regional dialogue on ‘Enhancing Civil Society Engagement and Climate Action in the Caribbean’ convened by CANARI and the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre.

The dialogue brought together more than 85 representatives from civil society, national governments, the private sector and development partners to review and discuss strategies for enhancing civil society’s role and expanding multi-stakeholder engagement in climate action and building resilience in the region.

“For over a decade, CANARI has been working with civil society organisations and front-line communities to strengthen local capacity and actions to tackle the climate crisis, including raising climate change awareness and advocacy for climate justice, assessing vulnerability to climate impacts, local action planning and taking practical steps to adapt and mitigate,” said a release from the entity.

These civil society organisations include regional and national non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations, resource user groups, cooperatives and other local associations and grassroots networks.

Dr Ainka Granderson, CANARI’s senior technical officer and resilience lead, noted that “Caribbean civil society is well placed to lead ‘bottom up’ approaches that benefit the most vulnerable, and to work with the public and private sector to design and deliver effective climate solutions. And we need support to scale up this impact if we really want to address the climate crisis and build resilience across the region”.

The Caribbean Resilience Knowledge Platform seeks to facilitate enhanced support for civil society organisations through raising awareness about their work, including best practices and innovations to inspire further action and advocacy, as well as sharing of relevant tools and resources to help build capacity.

The platform also seeks to share information to foster collaboration among civil society and with the public and private sector to further mobilise knowledge, resources and funding to support climate justice and resilience.

Development of the platform was led by CANARI, with funding from the Green Climate Fund, Inter American Foundation and Open Society Foundations.

Members of the public can visit the Caribbean Resilience Knowledge Platform at: https://resiliencecanari.org/.