This toolkit grows out of the work of the ICLD Climate Action Network, where African and Swedish municipalities partnered through the ICLD Municipal Partnership Programme, to implement local climate change projects. Across the network, municipalities used these climate projects as practical entry points to strengthen democratic practice, deliberately integrating participation, equity, transparency, and accountability into climate action delivery.
This included, for example, engaging young people and marginalised groups as part of participatory climate governance, improving openness and accountability around climate decisions and embedding gender equality. Their work was supported through mentoring, peer learning, country learning visits and numerous network sharing sessions.
This toolkit provides simple, practical methods to help local governments strengthen transversal working, and shows how this embeds democratic practice into everyday project work.