Dear <<Full name>>,

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was a historical year. It has shown us once more how interconnected our world is. Next to the pandemic, the climate and environmental crisis should be on top of everyone’s priority list. The urgency should be brought back in the climate discussions, and focus after COVID-19 should be on building back better – there is a window of opportunity.

In the first weeks and months of the pandemic, the most acute needs in the PfR programme implementation areas became clear. With identified shortages of personal protective equipment and handwashing stations, an absence of information campaigns, and growing food insecurity, PfR planned to respond to the pandemic crisis. In May 2020, PfR received approval from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to shift part of the budget from the ongoing Dialogue and Dissent programme towards COVID-19 response. In this report you can learn more about PfR’s COVID-19 response. 

In the meantime, partners continued their work to strengthening community resilience, among others in the ECO-DRR programme. In this newsletter you can find several great examples of the work being done, and results achieved.

There is still a long way to go to meet the promises made in the Paris Agreement. Partners for Resilience, together with other organizations and networks, is ready to continue its support to the implementation of international climate, disaster risk reduction, and environmental frameworks, and to support countries to meet their promises and commitments in their National Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) – ensuring nobody is left behind.
 
We invite you to subscribe to this newsletter, and in doing so, support us to expand the network of change-makers. Happy reading and stay healthy!

Juriaan Lahr,
Chairman Partners for Resilience

ACT for Resilience provides PfR’s best used tools to anyone looking for practical resources to support advocacy capacity related to Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation, and Ecosystem Management and Restoration. To foster a wide uptake by PfR partners and other actors, after ten years of working together we have taken stock of the important advocacy capacity resources used and generated by the programme and brought these together in this toolbox. Guidelines, manuals and tools developed and used by PfR to strengthen lobby & advocacy capacities have yielded increased knowledge and improved skills for the programme’s implementing partners. These have been put to use and contributed to results in lobby and advocacy activities for IRM in dialogues about policies, practices and investments in the PfR programmes. The tools are all available online.