Climate Resilience Lab
Nairobi, Kenya | February 7-11, 2011
Exploring innovation at the intersection of community resilience, climate change, and the empowerment of girls and women
For many of the world’s poorest communities, the adverse effects of climate change are no longer a future possibility; they are a present reality. The poverty, dislocation, health crises, resource conflicts, food scarcity and economic harm that climate change engenders threaten to undo many of the humanitarian gains of the past 30 years.
Particularly in rural communities, girls and women are on the front lines of climate disruption. As the majority of the world’s smallholder farmers, girls and women manage many of the services most affected by climate, such as agriculture and water. When disruption strikes, they experience its effects worst and first. Yet for the most part climate adaptation and resilience efforts are not aimed at, or inclusive, of adolescent girls and women.
We will never achieve climate justice without addressing the gender dimensions of climate change, and girls themselves, their skills, knowledge and energy, must be part of the search for solutions.
In this deficit, however, lies opportunity. Empowering girls and women in frontline climate efforts may substantially improve both their communities’ resilience to disruption and also their individual resilience – a true win-win.
Nairobi skyline, photo by Stephen Martin/Flickr
PopTech’s Climate Resilience Lab will bring together a carefully chosen network of climate researchers, gender experts, social innovators, technologists, designers, and community champions, to explore new possibilities in this domain. Our goal is to move “beyond the white paper” to identify and collaborate on high-potential new approaches that can be tested and implemented.
Our efforts will consider several key questions:
- What is community resilience to climate change? How is it defined?
- How is climate resilience created or destroyed?
- What effect does increasing or decreasing climate resilience have on adolescent girls and women?
- What new roles can adolescent girls and women play in building climate resilience?
We will explore new ideas, interrogate existing models to see what’s working and what isn’t, and identify and build on the most effective methods as we move forward.
The first meeting of this Lab will convene February 7-11, 2012, in Nairobi, Kenya. The group’s work and exploration will be shared with the PopTech network throughout the upcoming year.
Labs blog
Our partners
The PopTech Climate Resilience Lab is made possible with the generous support of the Nike Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
To learn more about partnership possibilities, or to learn more, please contact climatelab@poptech.org.