Since 2011, the Southern Voices on Climate Change has been supporting around 20 climate policy networks in Africa, Asia and Latin America in their efforts to advocate for climate policies that benefit poor and vulnerable people. Behind the programme is a Consortium of four Danish and two international NGOs, with CARE Danmark as the lead agency. The programme is funded by the Danish Government as part of Denmarks Climate Finance.

The Southern Voices on Climate Change program is going through a period of transition. The current phase of the Programme will end in June 2014. After this time, the current Programme will split into two projects. One focusing on climate change adaptation and the other will focus on low carbon development.

 The content below refers to Phase 2 of the Southern Voices on Climate Change Programme. the section on Southern Voices on Adaptation has all the information you will need to understand the role civil society has in developing the Joint Adaptation Standards and how your network can be involved in the next phase.

Go to Find Climate Networks to learn about the networks and organisations supported through our programme or What We Do to get an overview of our three programme areas: Capacity Development, Advocacy and Cross Learning.

An Introduction to the Southern Voices on Climate Change (2011 - mid 2014)
The full name of the programme is 'the Southern Voices Capacity Building Programme ' and in Phase 2, it aims at providing support for Southern climate policy networks from July 2012 to June 2014 with the aim of "increasing their capacity for carrying out advocacy and monitoring activities and raising public awareness at national, regional and international levels in order to help implement and develop climate change policies which promote environmental integrity and sustainable development benefitting poor and vulnerable people" (immediate objective). It follows up on the Phase 1 which was implemented over 18 months, from January 2011 to June 2012.

The Programme is implemented through a consortium of five Danish and two international NGOs, with CARE Denmark as the lead agency. The Programme supports the strengthening of Southern civil society networks through the country offices and other support structures of the consortium members. 11 national networks, 6 regional and 3 thematic networks will be included in the Programme.

The main target of the SV Programme is the climate policy networks which grew out of the mobilisation towards COP15, and the aim is to build on the mobilisation towards COP15 and to further develop and consolidate the capacity to engage in climate negotiations and the implementation and development of climate change policies at both national, regional and international levels.

During Phase 1 from 2011 - mid 2012, the SV networks improved their organisational capacity and strengthened their advocacy interventions to promote pro-poor climate policies on adaptation, renewable energy, and REDD and forestry and other issues at both the national, regional and international levels.

13 out of 17 networks prepared a network capacity analysis, and all have contributed with case studies or through country assessment reports to the international report of the Programme "Southern Voices on Climate Policy Choices – lessons learned from civil society advocacy on climate change" which was published in April 2012.

By the end of Phase 1, it was evident that there were large variations in capacity and competences between the various networks in the Programme as well as in the pace of implementation. Capacity building and organisational development is a process which requires time to mature in organisation. Originally the Programme was planned for a three year period. The second phase of the Programme from mid 2012 opened up opportunities for the SV climate networks to follow up on the recommendations from the network capacity-analyses, and to get further in the implementation of their advocacy plans.

The review undertaken by INKA Consult of the Programme implementation in 2012 recommends that the "Programme should continue with the next phase and recommend "the Consortium to continue with the same Programme document, which was the base for the Danish MFA approval in 2012". 

The Phase 2 of the programme has emphasized cross – learning on climate change advocacy between the civil society networks in the programme. Key activities have been the following:

• Training workshops on CC advocacy at the COP18 in Doha and COP19 in Warsaw,
• Four regional workshops to promote interaction and learning between SV climate networks.
• A climate change advocacy toolbox is being developed with inputs from the SV-networks