No one left behind: Towards disability-inclusive approaches for gender and climate research

Overview

Although development programming and research around gender and climate has been increasing over the last decade across the sector, there has been insufficient focus on disability and intersectionality. Further, while locally led development is increasingly seen as best practice in policy and scholarly literature, too often consultation takes place after projects have been designed, rather than enabling the community to drive the agenda. This paper foregrounds the crucial role and contributions of local communities in building climate justice solutions while challenging and resisting insufficiently inclusive climate policies. By reflecting on the findings of our project, which used talanoa as methodology, we share important lessons for both researchers and development practitioners about what an authentically inclusive approach to research and programming looks like from the perspective of Pacific communities of researchers and advocates with lived experience of disability and climate change. The resulting OCEANS principles hold together six practice-level commitments that the project distilled from the forums: Ownership, Cultures, Equality, Accessibility, Networked, and Sustainable. Together with layered practices of care, time, sensory accessibility, trust-building, co-facilitation, self-awareness, agility, deference, and attention to power, the practice-level commitments offer a practical framework for climate adaptation work led by, rather than designed for, Pacific communities with lived experience of disability.