The Initiative for Enhancing Capacity for Climate Risk Assessment and Catalyzing Partnerships to Inform Decisions in Latin America and the Caribbean, or LACI, is a collaborative effort between the U.S. Global Change Research Program and U.S. Group on Earth Observations (USGEO) and regional partners, including AmeriGEO and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. Its overarching vision is to provide opportunities for partnerships between Caribbean, Latin American, and North American countries to enhance capacity for climate risk and vulnerability assessments that would support local and regional decision-making in response to climate change impacts.

LACI is grounded in co-design with the following anticipated overarching activities: partnership building and fostering, peer-to-peer learning and training, and data synthesis and analysis. The proposed activities will help participants across career stages expand their knowledge of assessment practices and protocols while building meaningful relationships across geographic, disciplinary, and institutional borders.

Questions? Please contact Katia Kontar.

Updates

November 2022

Following the LACI Concept Development Webinar (28 September 2022), LACI participants from 10 countries (Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the USA) submitted pilot initiative concepts. LACI partners (USGCRP, USGEO, AmeriGEO, & IAI) will jointly conduct the final stocktake of the concepts and identify the pilot concept(s) in early 2023.

October 2022

LACI is currently wrapping up its Phase 1: Scoping and Partnership Building and moving into Phase 2: Pilot Activity Development. Representatives from 14 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, & USA) have participated in regional scoping and partnership-building activities so far. In workshops held in May and August of 2022, the LACI participants identified countries' visions and needs for a climate-resilient future, existing capacities, and steps forward toward Pilot development.

To further facilitate the development of the LACI Pilot, LACI participants agreed on the following steps forward:

1. Fostering continuous regional peer-to-peer knowledge sharing on the topics relevant to climate risk assessments. LACI participants will continue to populate the LACI Pilot Year 1 Calendar of Regional Knowledge & Capacity Exchanges.
2. Building capacity for national/sub regional climate change assessments to help address specific societal challenges.

Calendar of Regional Knowledge and Capacity Exchanges

January 2023

Conference of Latin American Geography
Tucson, AZ | 3–7 Jan
Outreach/Partnership building

February 2023

In-person regional workshop with IAI-PAHO transdisciplinary seed grants on climate, environment, and health
Training

March 2023

Potentially leverage CEOS and EOTEC Dev Net activities in 2023

April 2023

Cities Summit of the Americas
Denver, CO | 26–28 April
Regional knowledge exchange

June 2023

SRI Congress 2023
Deliverable

IAI CoP-31
Deliverable

August 2023

AmeriGEO Week 2023 - LACI Partners Meeting
Costa Rica
Deliverable
LACI Year 2 Kickoff

November 2023

COP 28
United Arab Emirates | 6–17 Nov
LACI side event proposed