The plain stretching east from the Austrian capital is known as Vienna’s vegetable garden, for the abundant produce grown in its fertile soil. But without a water-management program started 40 years ago by local farmers, the land would be parched.

The Marchfeld Canal pipes and regulates water from the Danube river to keep groundwater levels stable in this naturally dry area, allowing farmers to irrigate their crops even as the changing climate raises temperatures and reduces rainfall. In doing so, it also helps prevent flooding and creates a rich habitat for wildlife and recreation.

Local actors like the Marchfeld farmers often know best what climate impacts they face and what investments will make the biggest difference. Federal and state governments contributed finance for the canal scheme, but it is controlled by local mayors.

“Development works better when decisions are based on good information, local institutions are strong, communities are involved, and investments respond to the real needs of each territory,” said Oleksii Ryabykin, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister for Recovery, Infrastructure, and Transport.

Investment in climate adaptation and resilience is vital. Between 2021 and 2024, more than two-thirds of people in low-income countries lost income or assets due to natural disasters and extreme weather events such as droughts, storms and flooding. Floods across central Europe in 2024, including Austria, killed 28 people and caused more than $4 billion in damage.

While the impacts of climate change are felt globally, decisions about how to adapt are often made at the local level, where risks are experienced most directly. Strengthening the ability of communities to plan, prioritize and finance climate action is therefore essential to reducing vulnerability and building resilience.

But locally led climate action does more than reduce risk. When communities have access to climate information, financing and decision-making authority, they are better able to identify priorities and invest in solutions that reflect local needs and realities. These investments can help protect livelihoods and create opportunities in sectors such as agriculture, energy, infrastructure and tourism, while strengthening resilience to future shocks.

Translating data into practical action

Governments are already using climate data, early warning systems, geological hazard maps and a slew of other scientific information to target investments more effectively. The impact is greatest when these data are combined with local knowledge – specific hazards, who may be most affected, potential solutions – to guide practical planning and financial decisions.

But turning that principle into action on the ground remains a challenge. Scientific data can be indigestible to non-specialists; local information may go unheard.

“Data are essential,” said the World Bank’s Jamele Rigolini. “The problem is we don’t translate this data into action, to good governance, to discussion with communities on what to prioritize. Data are useful only to the extent that they’re put into action.”

To address this gap, more than 50 government officials and technical experts from 14 countries across Europe, Africa and Asia met in Vienna on 7-10 September 2026 for a practitioner program on Integrating Climate Resilience in Locally Led Programs.

Hosted by the Vienna Development Knowledge Center (VDKC), the event was co-led by the World Bank’s Platform for Locally Led Climate Action (LLCA) and GeoSphere Austria, the world’s oldest meteorological service, which plays an important role in climate resilience and disaster preparedness. The program built on momentum from earlier engagements: a VDKC-supported workshop in Vienna in November 2025 on locally-led responses to climate challenges, a subsequent Global Knowledge Exchange organized by the LLCA Platform in Indonesia in January 2026, and a series of webinars and virtual exchanges hosted by the LLCA Platform.

The program gave participants an opportunity to learn from each other’s experience, discuss challenges and look for scalable solutions. For example:

• The Philippines is embedding climate resilience into an established program for community-led development in vulnerable areas, supporting local people to map risks and identify how to address them in order to combine technical data with community assessments.
• In Kenya, a partnership between the government and the World Bank has rolled out a participatory climate risk assessment program across all the country’s 47 counties, strengthening local capacity and risk management.
• In the Kyrgyz Republic, communities are receiving practical tools to help visualize and prioritize climate risks and integrate climate measures into local planning, supported by a network of mostly female Climate Ambassadors.
• In Indonesia, a project to strengthen national-local collaboration on climate resilience is equipping thousands of communities with risk data and technical guidance to help turn policy into village-level plans, budgets and action.
• In Madagascar, a World Bank-financed project is integrating climate adaptation into local planning and investment decisions across the drought-prone south, building on a previous pilot that used household surveys and “community visioning exercises” to inform development planning.

The common challenge across all these programs is not only to produce and use better data, but how to create systems and processes that help national and local actors assess and interpret risks jointly, agree on priorities, and finance action. When governments combine good data with local knowledge, financing, and delivery capacity, local actors can build more resilient communities.

“Communities are not passive victims of climate change, waiting to be rescued. They are first responders, the primary experts on local vulnerabilities and long-term stewards of adaptation,” said Monina Josefina Romualdez of the Philippines’ Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Tapping Austria’s experience

The program also drew extensively on GeoSphere Austria’s experience in producing, communicating and applying climate information to support resilience planning and decision-making at national and local levels. At the same time, it featured other Austrian initiatives that demonstrate how scientific data, institutional coordination and community engagement can be translated into action on the ground.

GeoSphere explained how it communicates technical data in a usable way, linking weather hazards to their expected impacts on the ground, while also playing an active convening role to spur timely action. Its impact-based Multi-Hazard Advice Service (AMAS) allows scientists, national and local governments, infrastructure operators, farmers and other community members to pool knowledge and solutions, enabling local actors to recognise impending extreme events and their impacts more quickly, and initiate appropriate protective measures in a coordinated way.

The Austrian government’s Climate and Energy Fund described how its program of Climate Change Adaptation Model Regions, KLAR!, provides a framework for bottom-up action tailored to different regional conditions and coordinated by dedicated full-time managers.

The GemKat Praxis training program, funded by the Climate and Energy Fund and supported by GeoSphere and other organizations, puts local officials, emergency services, logistics companies and representatives of vulnerable groups through a practical one-day exercise aimed at strengthening responses to climate hazards.

As well as seeing the Marchfeld Canal first hand, program participants visited a citizen-led renewable energy community, a repair and circular economy network, a community-supported agriculture farm, and an urban “superblock” project to increase green, traffic-free space for pedestrians.

“You have to bring the different stakeholder groups together at the table – that’s the most essential thing,” said Robert Supper of GeoSphere. “At the local level, the scientists, politicians, local people need to sit together regularly to discuss the situation. It’s not easy, but you need to work on it.”