ClimateRISE Alliance - Updates

Rainmatter Partner Updates
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Updates for ClimateRISE Alliance – April to September 2025

  1. Cities Rising: A Leaders’ Summit: A national convening of elected representatives and urban practitioners co-organised by Dasra and Janaagraha, bringing together institutions such as CSTEP, IIHS, NIUA and Urban Management Centre (UMC) to exchange governance experiences, showcase replicable solutions, and strengthen leadership for climate-resilient urban development.
    Dasra’s latest report – Building Resilient Cities 2025: Understanding the Pathways to City Resilience in India launched at Cities Rising: A Leaders’ Summit reframes resilience through four interconnected pillars:

  • Socio-economic: addressing vulnerabilities and strengthening livelihoods

  • Environmental: integrating nature-based and climate solutions

  • Institutional: enabling local leadership and capacity

  • Infrastructural: designing for equity and climate stress

  1. Strategic Urban Resilience Framework (SURF) Consultations: In collaboration with Observer Research Foundation, ClimateRISE Alliance initiated two of four city-level consultations in Agra (10 July 2025) and Jhansi (7 November 2025) to co-develop a Strategic Urban Resilience Framework for tier 2 and tier 3 cities in Uttar Pradesh, contributing to a shared civil society voice for Viksit Uttar Pradesh, Samarth Uttar Pradesh @2047. The Varanasi and Lucknow consultations are planned for Jan – March 2026.

  2. Water Resilience Ecosystem Convening: A multi-stakeholder convening to explore India’s water resilience ecosystem through a climate lens, aimed at building a shared understanding of actors, efforts and gaps across the sector. Through interactive discussions, sector experts collaboratively surfaced key climate - water intersectionalities through a mapping exercise led by CSTEP, and identified challenges and collaborative pathways to strengthen equitable and resilient water systems.

  3. Future of Waste: National Multi-Stakeholder Convening: Culminating an 18-month journey led by Socratus Foundation, ClimateRISE Alliance and Villgro, the convening brought together over 50 leaders from government, philanthropy, civil society, industry and academia to map city waste flows, identify system bottlenecks, and co-create an Action Framework to inform Swachh Bharat Mission–Urban 3.0 and climate-aligned circular economy pathways.

  4. Launch of the Local Councillors’ Climate Action: The ClimateRISE Alliance with partner Janaagraha launched Local Power, Global Change: A City Leader’s Handbook for Climate Action at ICLEI’s ARISE Cities Forum 2025. Authored by Janaagraha and co-created with Saahas, SWMRT, WASH Institute and Biome, the handbook strengthens hyperlocal leadership on waste, water and urban resilience, featuring grounded insights from city leaders across India.

  5. Doh Shaher Ek Rupayan (DSER) - Launch of City Action Plans: Under the Doh Shaher Ek Rupayan Programme in Assam [10 Cities, One Converged Vision for Assam], anchored by Janaagraha and with ClimateRISE Alliance partners, the City Action Plans for climate-resilient urban transformation in ten selected Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities in Assam have been released on 27 November 2025 in Guwahati, developed through citizen participation and inter-departmental collaboration. Please find the news coverage for the launch event here

  6. Advancing Climate Action in the Indian Himalayan Region: Waste Warriors, in partnership with the ClimateRISE Alliance, convened a national webinar with 200+ participants on “Capturing Reduced GHG Emissions Through Improved Solid Waste Management,” bringing together CSIR-NEERI, French Solid Waste Partnership and the Waste Warriors Society to highlight the climate mitigation potential of improved waste systems and the need for stronger GHG data and reporting frameworks in underserved geographies.

  7. Sense of the House: Over the last few months, we co-developed the Sense of the House (SoTH) framework in close collaboration with alliance partners as a structured place-based facilitation process to help rural communities build collective agency, social capital, and long-term custodianship of their socio-ecological systems. To ground the framework in practice, we conducted an exposure visit hosted by Goonj, Shivganga, and Vaagdhara, enabling partners to experience how trust-building, dialogue, and participatory planning translate on the ground. The framework was subsequently launched at the Swaraj Mela in Melukote, with Buzz Women now leading on-ground execution to substantiate the framework through practical examples and community-led learning from Melukote.

  8. GramEEE Consortium: Through the GramEEE Consortium, we have convened a coalition of civil society and ecosystem partners—including Buzz Women, Swayam Shikshan Prayog, Jagriti Enterprise Centre – Purvanchal (JECP), Akshayakalpa, Transform Rural India, CEEW, Lipok Social Foundation, PRADAN, Oasis —to build a solution stack for sustainable local production and consumption. Over this period, partners aligned around priority livelihood pathways, with the Jagriti Centre for Entrepreneurship–Purvanchal leading the incubation and entrepreneurship pipeline, and PRADAN anchoring the livestock-based livelihoods work. In parallel, we are co-developing a shared framework by bringing together existing tools, methodologies, and on-ground experiences of consortium partners to unlock local aspirations and enable community-driven enterprises rooted in place-based economic transitions.

  9. UP CSO Coalition: In Uttar Pradesh, we are building a coalition of 50+ civil society organisations across Western UP, anchored by PANI, to strengthen place ownership and operationalise a place-based approach to climate resilience. The platform is enabling place-based planning, piloting climate-smart agriculture practices, and working towards integrating resilience measures into Gram Panchayat Development Plans (GPDPs). Alongside implementation, the coalition is focused on building institutional capacities, facilitating access to government schemes, and generating practice-based evidence to inform policy engagement and strengthen the case for locally rooted, scalable resilience models.

  10. Engagement in Rajasthan and Jharkhand – A CSO All hand meeting was convened towards understanding the landscape of state priorities. Please find the reports from these meetings here - [Jharkhand], [Rajasthan]

  11. Integrating Gender-Climate lens in Local Governance with Village Social Transformation Foundation (VSTF): Initiated partnership with Maharashtra Government supported (PPP initiative) organization (VSTF) to enable processes for integrating a gender-climate lens in village development plans and district action plans, thus ensuring policy engagement at a local-grassroots levels

  12. ‘Lead with Equity 2025’ event: In partnership with EquiLead and Buzz Women, ClimateRISE Alliance hosted a Roundtable at Lead with Equity 2025, bringing funders, CSOs, and grassroots leaders together to reframe and strengthen support for rural women-led climate enterprises.

  13. Building a Framework for Community Resilience and Climate Action: In partnership with CEEW, this initiative aims to develop a locally led climate action framework that strengthens community resilience by documenting and systematizing context-specific solutions already being adopted by communities to manage climate and disaster risks. The framework foregrounds community-led planning and action, drawing on lived experience to support adaptation to changing climatic conditions. The study aims to:

  • Conduct hyper-local, sector-specific assessments of climate risks in selected regions to address information gaps at the community level.

  • Deepen community participation in the design and implementation of locally relevant adaptation and mitigation strategies.
    Together, these objectives enable more informed, decentralized climate planning rooted in local knowledge and priorities, while also identifying gaps and generating recommendations to scale effective, community-driven approaches across similar contexts.
    The analysis draws on insights from eight field visits, examining key enablers, challenges, and relevant policy mechanisms shaping locally led climate action.