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Climate-forced displaced people advocate for their rights in Bangladesh. Photo credit: Young Power in Social Action (YPSA)
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Dear Colleagues,
No matter where you live, the world is in the midst of a climate emergency. On the coast of Bangladesh, farmers are abandoning their farms due to the rising sea levels. In Alaska Native communities on the Bering Sea, families watch in horror as land surrounding their homes and schools erodes away.
Losses such as these result from the escalating climate emergency, and each clearly carries significant financial costs. However, placing a dollar value on the loss of cultural knowledge, heritage, and connection to community is almost impossible. If funders truly are to make a difference for those impacted by climate change, we must recognize that funding needs to go deeper than support for easily quantified adaptation or mitigation investments. Rather, it must work in solidarity with those who stand to lose the most because of climate change, despite contributing the least to its causes. This concept has been an echoing theme since the inception of CJRF.
And this theme will continue to echo as CJRF evolves. Thanks to our partnership with the Scottish government, we have been able to make grants over the last several months to three organizations working to address climate-induced loss and damage. You can read more about the work of Helvetas, Young Power in Social Action, and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee in the blurbs below.
We have also brought in new staff to enable CJRF to ramp up quickly on this new area of work. Loss and Damage Program Officer Ayesha Dinshaw brings to CJRF a decade of experience in the climate field and a special interest in participatory evaluation and learning. Ayesha’s contribution—as well as the Scottish government’s support to center action on loss and damage—give us hope in a time of uncertainty.
Best regards,
Heather, Hilary, and Ayesha
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CJRF Welcomes Ayesha Dinshaw as Our Loss and Damage Program Officer
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At COP26, Scotland became the first wealthy country to officially allocate money to address loss and damage, which includes challenges such as islands lost to sea level rise, people forced to leave their land, or agricultural communities that dry out to a point where farming becomes impossible. To support CJRF as we host this ground-breaking new fund, we hired a new program officer, Ayesha Dinshaw, in April.
Ayesha comes to us from the World Resources Institute, where she will continue to spend a portion of her time. As a member of the institute’s Climate Resilience Practice, she has focused on locally led adaptation; monitoring, evaluation and learning; and mainstreaming adaptation into development programs and plans. She has contributed to the work of the Global Commission on Adaptation and the World Resources Report “Creating a Sustainable Food Future.”
Learn more about Ayesha on our website. Welcome to the team, Ayesha!
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New Grant Portfolio Helps Communities Address Climate Loss and Damage
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CJRF’s loss and damage portfolio is now live on our website. Visit the portfolio page to learn more about the organizations receiving new grants through our partnership with the Scottish Government. You can also read how previous CJRF grants address loss and damage, primarily through supporting those forced to migrate due to climate impacts.
To get a better understanding of loss and damage, read "What Is Loss and Damage?" on our blog.
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Exploring Our Loss and Damage Grants
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A new community water point in coastal Bangladesh helps address loss of other freshwater sources to saline intrusion. Photo credit: Helvetas
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CJRF recently made a $250,000 grant in ongoing support to Helvetas for its Panii Jibon (“Water Is Life”) project in the Bay of Bengal. This effort aims to help women and their families make more informed decisions about water management, and about migration when climate change constrains agricultural livelihoods. READ MORE.
Building on previous grants, CJRF has provided Young Power in Social Action with a two-year, $250,000 grant to support climate-forced displaced people in the Bay of Bengal. Learn more about why CJRF is continuing this partnership and how the organization is working to address loss and damage at the nexus of flood, storm, and sea-level rise. READ MORE.
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee will use its $225,000 grant to support communities across the Pacific to collaboratively assess and address climate-induced losses and damages. Activities include documentation of threatened heritage sites, protection of traditional knowledge through storytelling, and litigation at the regional and international levels. READ MORE.
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CJRF Is Evolving: Apply to Join Our New Participatory Board
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As we have shared previously in our blog, CJRF is embarking on an exciting transformation from a donor-led fund to a fully participatory, movement-facing and constituent-led fund. As a key step in this change process, our current Review Board (comprised of funders) has decided to hand off leadership to a new governing Board comprised of activists, practitioners, thinkers, and others. We are now recruiting seven to nine members for this new governing Board, which will oversee and support the second phase of the CJRF.
Board membership represents an opportunity for activists, practitioners, and thinkers to apply their lived experience and expertise to an exciting organizational transition, and to guide the deployment of significant sums of funding for climate justice. We invite members of our community—and those outside our community who want to get involved—to apply between August 1st and September 5th, 2022. Additional information on the application process and requirements can be found on our blog.
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Pawanka Fund kicks off CJRF’s Solution Series on 28 June 2022
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As part of our commitment to generate learning from our portfolio, CJRF has launched a new set of webinars, the Solution Series. The Solution Series creates a space for CJRF grantee partners to share lessons, challenges, and impactful outcomes of their work with the CJRF partner community, funders, and other climate activists and practitioners. Our first two sessions were led by the Pawanka Fund on June 28th and Christian Aid Kenya on July 26th. You can watch the recordings and learn more about the Solution Series on our website.
Join us for the next installment in our Solution Series with Il’laramatak Community Concerns (ICC) on August 23rd. ICC is a powerful, grassroots change maker. Focusing on Kenya’s Kajiado County, they ensure that members of Indigenous communities, especially women and girls, participate in climate change policy discussions and planning processes. REGISTER HERE.
You can register for other upcoming Solution Series events using the links below:
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Join Us in New York City for Climate Action Week
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Climate action march in Madrid, Spain. Photo Credit: Hilary Heath
CJRF staff will be in New York City for the annual Climate Action Week, held September 19-25, 2022. We’d love to connect with you there! Send us a note if you are attending or hosting any events. As part of work with the Climate Justice - Just Transition Donors Collaborative, CJRF will co-host a hybrid convening "Climate Justice Re-Granters and Youth Movement Building" on Sept. 19 (Register via Eventbrite). We will share additional details about our Climate Action Week plans on our Twitter feed in the weeks to come.
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In the News
Registration has opened for the 16th International Conference on Community-based Adaptation to Climate Change from 3-4 October 2022! CBA16 will focus on how to put the Locally Led Adaptation Principles into practice. Learn more and register on the event page.
ICYMI: CJRF Director Heather McGray recently spoke at Alliance Magazine’s webinar “Funding loss and damage: How can philanthropy leverage its influence?” You can read highlights and watch the recording on the Alliance website.
First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon discusses why Scotland became the first developed country to invest in loss and damage and what she hopes to accomplish through the Scottish Government’s partnership with CJRF. Read more in the Dhaka Tribune.
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