A Multi-Stakeholder Action Lab, or MAL, is a structured co-creation process based on the living labs approach, where communities and partners work together to understand a problem, design possible solutions, test them, and learn from the results.

For Climate Ready Village, the MAL starts with community realities. It is not a one-time consultation or a ready-made solution brought into a village. It is a multi-year process that moves from understanding real needs to problem prioritization, co-design, pilot testing, adoption, and learning.

The partner community will be engaged through a Target Area Selection process. The Climate Ready Village program will consider climate vulnerability, livelihood impact, socio-economic marginalization, operational feasibility, local authority support, and community willingness to participate.

After the partner community is selected, the program will conduct a Climate Vulnerability and Needs Assessment through household surveys, interviews, focus group discussions, and consultations. Community members and rightsholder groups will not only provide information; they will be active partners in validating findings, sharing priorities, and co-defining the climate adaptation problem that the program will focus on.

The priority problem will therefore be identified through community input and validated with relevant stakeholders. Community participants will be supported throughout the process to ensure responsible, inclusive, and meaningful participation.

In ICCAP, bankability refers to the extent to which the value of a climate adaptation solution can be translated into a realistic financing pathway for a specific actor. This value may be monetary or non-monetary. In some cases, it may come from direct revenue or cost savings. In other cases, it may come from avoided losses, reduced vulnerability, improved resilience, public benefits, or wider social and environmental value. 

A bankable adaptation solution should address a real community need, improve adaptive capacity, be practical to implement, be socially inclusive, and show a credible value case for financial actors or partners to test, improve, and support. It does not need to be perfect from the beginning, but it should be sufficiently developed to go through refinement, testing, and validation towards adoption and financing.

Relevant green solutions may include locally appropriate technologies, services, business models, financial products, ecosystem-based measures, infrastructure improvements, or institutional arrangements that help rural communities adapt to climate risks and strengthen resilience. These may relate to climate-resilient agriculture, water management, irrigation, renewable energy, livelihood resilience, post-harvest handling and storage, climate information, disaster preparedness, recovery, or other practical adaptation needs. The final focus will depend on the priority climate adaptation problem co-defined with the partner community.

The project does not assume that all local adaptation solutions can or should be commercially financed. Many will continue to require public or grant-based support. However, the project is open to collaboration with private funders, philanthropies, impact investors, insurers, banks, MFIs, FSPs, and companies that can help de-risk, pilot, aggregate, and scale promising adaptation solutions. Their role is catalytic: to help convert locally-grounded adaptation practices into financeable pathways where appropriate, while ensuring that vulnerable communities are not exposed to unaffordable costs or excessive risk.