Orchestration in Global Adaptation Governance: The Case of Indigenous Communities

In an era of climate emergency, political institutions such as international organisations (IOs) and national governments increasingly engage in actions to contribute to adaptation to climate risks. Despite the importance of domestic and global adaptation governance, most environmental governance literature focuses on mitigation. By contrast, this article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the participation of a specific type of non-state actors (NSA), namely Indigenous Communities (ICs), in adaptation governance. In doing so, the article draws from a burgeoning literature about how IOs and states orchestrate the participation of NSA to compensate for deficits in norm development, capacity building, and monitoring as well as enforcement. Indigenous communities are central to adaptation governance due to their particular rights granted by International Law, and to their vulnerability to adverse climate change impacts. The following questions are addressed in the article: a) which IOs engage in orchestration of indigenous communities’ participation in adaptation governance? b) what are the mechanisms through which IOs orchestrate that participation? To examine these questions, the article maps how IOs and national governments orchestrate NSA participation at global and national venues, and discusses theoretical implications for the emerging literature on global adaptation governance.