At the core of the Principles for Locally Led Adaptation is local leadership. Leadership is about people. LLA is therefore about enabling people to take the lead, by providing them the information, capacity, and resources they need to deal with the additional challenge of climate change.

It is also about challenging norms of leadership, by empowering the traditionally
excluded – the poor, women, youth, children, disabled, displaced, Indigenous
Peoples and marginalized ethnic groups. For them, the challenges brought on by climate change are additional to the considerable daily struggles that they must already contend with. To be effective in reducing this additional burden, we must support them to lead in finding solutions that are best suited to their circumstances.